In my last lecture, I discussed the spread of Greek culture that created Hellenistic civilization. The term Hellenistic meant, to imitate the Greeks. Hellenistic civilization reach from the Mediterranean through the former Persian Empire all the way to Western India due to the efforts of Alexander the Great and his armies. Hellenistic civilization lasted from 323 BCE, the year of Alexander's death, to 31 BCE. During this time period, another civilization was taking form. This was the Roman Republic. In this lecture, we're going to shift our focus from Alexander's huge eastern empire to the Italian peninsula to look at the development of the Romans. The Roman Republic was initiated in Italy in 509 BCE. Prior to that time, the Romans had a monarchy with a King who made all the decisions for his people. In 509 BCE, however, the Romans did something very important. They established a republic. [SLIDE] A republic is a government in which citizens elect representatives to rule on their behalf. This is slightly different from a democracy, which is a form of government in which every citizen is expected to play an active role in governing the kingdom or country to which they belong. In other words, citizens in a republic tend to play a less active role in their government than they do in a democracy. The development of a republic form of government by the Romans is really important for Western civilization. Later, kingdoms and countries, including the United States, would adopt governments based completely or partly on this Roman model of government. [SLIDE] Let's look now at the questions I'll answer in this lecture. First, we're going to ask, why the Romans adopted a Republican government and how it functioned. Second, we're going to look at why the political organization of the Roman Republic disintegrated in the first century BCE. And third, we’re going examine what changes Augustus made to Rome between 31 BCE and 14 CE. [SLIDE] So the Romans established a Roman Republic in 509 BCE. But many groups of people were living in Italy long before this time. In fact, the Romans were never the guaranteed leaders of the region. Until the 500s BCE, the Romans were members of a relatively small tribe of people known as the Latins that resided in West Central Italy, around where the city of Rome is located today. The Latins represent the pink shading in the map on your screen. Of the other groups living in Italy, the two that would influence the Romans the most were the Greeks and the Etruscans. Let's look at these two groups within the context of Italy. [SLIDE] The Greeks started arriving in Italy in large numbers during the Archaic period, beginning around 750 BCE. This was of course before Philip II conquered Greece or Alexander the Great created his ginormous empire. The Greeks settled mostly in Southern Italy, primarily for economic reasons. They wanted to make money from farming and trade. They built cities with harbors ...

1. In my last lecture, I discussed the spread of Greek culture that
created Hellenistic civilization.
The term Hellenistic meant, to imitate the Greeks. Hellenistic
civilization reach from the
Mediterranean through the former Persian Empire all the way to
Western India due to the efforts
of Alexander the Great and his armies. Hellenistic civilization
lasted from 323 BCE, the year of
Alexander's death, to 31 BCE. During this time period, another
civilization was taking form.
This was the Roman Republic. In this lecture, we're going to
shift our focus from Alexander's
huge eastern empire to the Italian peninsula to look at the
development of the Romans. The
Roman Republic was initiated in Italy in 509 BCE. Prior to that
time, the Romans had a
monarchy with a King who made all the decisions for his
people. In 509 BCE, however, the
Romans did something very important. They established a
republic. [SLIDE] A republic is a
government in which citizens elect representatives to rule on
their behalf. This is slightly
different from a democracy, which is a form of government in
which every citizen is expected to
play an active role in governing the kingdom or country to
which they belong. In other words,
citizens in a republic tend to play a less active role in their
government than they do in a
democracy. The development of a republic form of government
by the Romans is really
important for Western civilization. Later, kingdoms and
countries, including the United States,
would adopt governments based completely or partly on this
Roman model of government.

2. [SLIDE] Let's look now at the questions I'll answer in this
lecture. First, we're going to ask, why
the Romans adopted a Republican government and how it
functioned. Second, we're going to
look at why the political organization of the Roman Republic
disintegrated in the first century
BCE. And third, we’re going examine what changes Augustus
made to Rome between 31 BCE
and 14 CE.
[SLIDE] So the Romans established a Roman Republic in 509
BCE. But many groups of people
were living in Italy long before this time. In fact, the Romans
were never the guaranteed leaders
of the region. Until the 500s BCE, the Romans were members of
a relatively small tribe of
people known as the Latins that resided in West Central Italy,
around where the city of Rome is
located today. The Latins represent the pink shading in the map
on your screen. Of the other
groups living in Italy, the two that would influenc e the Romans
the most were the Greeks and the
Etruscans. Let's look at these two groups within the context of
Italy. [SLIDE] The Greeks started
arriving in Italy in large numbers during the Archaic period,
beginning around 750 BCE. This
was of course before Philip II conquered Greece or Alexander
the Great created his ginormous
empire. The Greeks settled mostly in Southern Italy, primarily
for economic reasons. They
wanted to make money from farming and trade. They built cities
with harbors, which allow ships
to come in and out to carry out trade, bringing foreign products
in and Greek products out. From
these Greeks in Southern Italy, the Romans adopted Greek art,
including Greek sculptures and
Greek religion. In fact, the Romans took many of the Greek

3. gods and goddesses and simply gave
them different names. The Etruscans also influenced the
Romans. By 650 BCE, the Etruscans
had taken control of much of the Northwestern part of Italy.
Eventually, the Romans would
conquer the Etruscans, but before they did, the Etruscans passed
on their style of dress. By
comparing the artwork of the Etruscans and Romans, we know
that the Romans adopted the
Etruscan toga and short cloak. You can see this type of clothing
in the picture on the right side of
your screen. In addition, the Latin alphabet that the Romans
would use was a modification of the
Etruscan alphabet. The Etruscans had actually borrowed the
Greek alphabet and then adapted it
before passing it along to the Romans, who adapted it further to
use for their own language-
Latin. [SLIDE] Here is the Etruscan alphabet that the Romans
developed. In fact, the alphabet
that we use in modern times comes from the Roman alphabet.
So you'll notice some similarities
in the Etruscan alphabet and the alphabet that you use in your
daily life.
[SLIDE] So the Romans originated as a small tribe in West
Central Italy, and they were
interacting with and competing with other groups of people who
were often more powerful than
the Romans. As a way to demonstrate their uniqueness and
legitimacy among these other groups,
the Romans came up with a story about how they came to be.
This story concerns a set of twins
named Romulus and Remus. But these weren't just normal
twins. They were the twin sons of the
Roman god Mars and a priestess named Rhea Silvia. When the
current King Amulius heard of
the birth of the twins, he thought that they might one day try to

4. seize power from him. They were
the sons of God, and thus, natural born leaders. So King
Amulius ordered Romulus and Remus
to be killed. In response, their mother, Rhea Silvia, put the
twins in a reed basket and let them
float down the Tiber River, hoping that perhaps they would be
saved by someone. The twins
were, in fact, saved, but not by a person. They were discovered
by a female wolf, which, instead
of killing them, decided to take care of them. The wolf had
recently given birth, and so she
allowed the twins to nurse from her and she kept them alive.
Eventually, the twins were found by
a shepherd, who took them home and raised them alongside his
own children. Over time, their
leadership abilities became evident, and it was clear to everyone
that Romulus and Remus were,
in fact, the long lost sons of the God, Mars. Realizing their true
identities and what had
transpired, Romulus and Remus killed King Amulius and
decided to build a city for themselves.
Unfortunately, they couldn't agree on which hill to build their
city. During an argument,
Romulus lost his temper and killed his brother Remus. The
outcome was that Romulus
established the city in his preferred location and named it Rome
after himself. Of course, this
isn’t a factual account of how the city of Rome was established.
And in fact, historians think that
the Romans may have borrowed this story from the Etruscans
and adapted for themselves. But
the story was important because it allowed the Romans to claim
that they were the descendants
of a god, and thus, were the legitimate rulers of Italy, over and
above any other group living in
Italy.

5. [SLIDE] In reality, the Romans took control of Italy in a very
different way. In the 500s BCE,
the power of the Etruscans had begun to decline in the North,
which allowed the Romans to
expand their power. By 290 BCE, the Romans had conquered
much of Northern and Central
Italy. In the South, the Greek communities were primarily
commercial in nature and had no
standing armies. This made them pretty easy to conquer, which
the Romans did by 267 BCE. So
by 267 BCE, the Romans had become the dominant power in
Italy. In the 500s, the Romans
began to reshape their society. And this was because other
groups of Italy were fading from
power and the Romans could focus on themselves instead of
using all their time and energy to
defend their territory. [SLIDE] So in 509 BCE, the Romans
overthrew the monarchy and
established a republic for their form of government. With this,
the Romans were officially known
as the Roman Republic. As I mentioned at the beginning of my
lecture, a republic means that the
citizens elect representatives to govern on their behalf. Let's
look a little more closely at what
this meant for the Romans. The Roman Republic was primarily
governed by two chief officials
known as consuls. These consuls not only concerned themselves
with policies and laws, they
were also responsible for leading the Roman Army into battle.
So they had a legislative and a
military function. These consuls were elected every year by
Roman citizens. As with the Greeks,
the only citizens with political rights were men. In addition to
the Consuls, another governing
body existed called the Senate. This group was exclusively
made up of 300 to 500 elite Romans

6. from the wealthiest segment of the population. The Senate's job
was to advise the consuls in their
actions. And although the Senate couldn't create official laws,
the consuls normally followed the
Senate's advice.
[SLIDE] Now the Romans living after the establishment of the
Roman Republic after 509 BCE,
they hated kings. And they created the Roman Republic in such
a manner as to prevent one
person from holding all the power. But this doesn't mean that
political power was distributed
equally throughout society or the government. Political power
primarily remained in the hands of
a small group of wealthy Roman families. For over a century
after the Roman Republic was first
established in 509 BCE, only members of the upper class could
become consuls. They were the
only ones allowed to do so. And as I mentioned, only members
of the wealthy elite could be
senators. So, while these political leaders claimed to represent
the interests of all Roman citizens,
there was a huge imbalance of political power, with the elite
holding most of it. But, it wasn't
long until the non-elite of society began to fight back. So,
we’ve been talking about an elite
group of Romans and a non-elite group of Romans, and they
actually had official names- the
patricians and the plebs. The patricians were the elite. They
were the ones who, in the beginning,
could be consuls and senators, and they had control over most
of the wealth in society. The plebs
made up the rest of free society. The plebs were citizens, but
they did not possess the same
political rights as the patricians. In addition to the fact the plebs
were not permitted to hold most
political offices, they were also not allowed to marry patricians.

7. This was, of course, primarily
because the patricians held most of the political power and
intended to maintain their control
over society.
[SLIDE] But in the fifth century BCE, the plebs began to fight
to correct this. The plebs' first
success came in 494 BCE when many of them physically left
Roman territory in protest. The
patricians, realizing that they couldn’t defend Roman territory
by themselves, were forced to
compromise. They agreed to create two new political offices
known as the Tribunes of the Plebs.
The Tribunes were given the power to protect plebs against
arbitrary arrest and against
encroachment on their rights by patricians. And in 471 BCE, the
Plebeian Assembly was created,
which gave the plebeians the opportunity to express their
political views and advise the consuls,
much as the elite members of the Senate did. The plebs' next
success came in 450 BCE. Up to
this point, there is no public written law. Instead, Roman law
consisted of unwritten customs that
only the patricians were knowledgeable of and carefully
guarded. The plebs recognized that to
increase their political power, they needed knowledge of the
law and the legal and governmental
procedures. So, the plebs threatened the patricians again, and
the result was the publication of the
Law of Twelve Tables in 450 BCE. But this still wasn’t the end
of the plebian struggle. In 287
BCE, plebian leaders succeeded in pushing through a law that
made decisions made in the
Plebian Assembly binding on the Roman government, whether
the patricians in the Senate
agreed with it or not. By the middle of the third century BCE,
the Romans had conquered most

8. of Italy, and they created a pretty stable government and society
with a more equal balance of
power.
[SLIDE] The stability and peace enabled the Romans to look
outwards at the Mediterranean and
contemplated expanding into other lands. When they did so,
they found themselves face-to-face
with another strong power. This was Carthage. The
Carthaginians had an empire that spanned the
coast of North Africa, Southern Spain, Sardinia, Corsica, and
Western Sicily. On the map on
your screen, the blue shading represents Carthaginian territory.
The Romans at this time had
control of most of Italy, which is the region shaped like a boot
on the top right side of your