1. Rome was built on seven hills with the main hill being the Palatino. The Roman Republic dominated Italy and the surrounding Mediterranean region. 2. Rome expanded through military conquests like the Punic Wars against Carthage, and by requiring defeated countries to become allies that provided troops and resources to Rome. 3. Key aspects of Roman civilization included the Forum for government and social gatherings, the Colosseum for entertainment, and aqueducts and roads that improved infrastructure, trade, and military mobility.

1. Geography

2. LOCATION *Rome was built on seven hills and the main hill Rome was built on was the hill Palatino. *The Roman Republic was the center of Italy, on the Italian Peninsula which was surrounded by the Adriatic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, Tyrrhenian Sea, and the Ionian Sea. *Rome at its heights created the whole Mediterranean region and the southern part of Europe. *Rome had a Mediterranean climate with mild winters and warm, dry summers

3. EXPANSION *One way Rome expanded was through the Punic Wars. In the Punic Wars Rome took over Carthage, then destroying it by burning it to the ground, along with killing 500 Carthage children there. *Rome started out as a little kingdom which first drove the Etruscans out of the Italian Peninsula and every defeated country that lost to the Roman army had to sign a peace treaty after they went to war. *The Romans in return asked for them to have the same friends and enemies as the Romans did, to supply soldiers if the Romans are going to war and they need more troops in battle, and they also asked for slaves to do work for the Romans so people didn’t have to work as hard and just make the slaves do some work for them like work the fields.

4. CITY OF ROME *In the city of Rome the main gathering place where mainly courts had been held which was the center of Rome called the forum, also public meetings had been held there for news around the city. *For Roman entertainment such as chariot races, lions, and vicious gladiator fights till the death, people would head over to the coliseum which was the main entertainment center in all of Rome. *In Roman society the Emperor had fine dining and beautiful atmosphere and statues where the emperor could eat delicious food. *In Roman society they had streets where the legions could move faster and people could transport goods easier, and the main street were named Novia Via, Sacra Via, and Clivas Argentarius

5. NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES *Rome had many neighboring countries but then took it over like Gaul, Spain, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, which was all the countries surrounding Rome on the Western part of Europe. *The main country Rome had trouble conquering was Carthage, because of Hannibal’s Calvary surrounding the Roman army, killing more than 45,000 men. *All the countries Rome had conquered was Macedonia, Spain, Corsica, Sardinia, half of Carthage, and Sicily. *Rome conquered the other half of Carthage in 44 B.C. by burning it to the ground and planting salt in the soil so no one could bring Carthage back.

6. RELIGION

7. CHRISTIANITY *The one main person who spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire was a man who went by the name of Paul. *By 300 A.D., Christianity had spread to three different counties called Carthage, Cyrene, and Alexandria. *By 30 A.D. the Roman Empire had established the first Christianity community and Christians based their religion on one true god, they studied the bible, follow its virtues, and pray to their god. *In the Roman Empire the Romans did not like the Christians because they did everything differently than the Romans and the Romans thought their ideas were weird compared to their ideas.

8. JUDIASM *The Jewish sculptures don’t believe in the emperor being a god to them, so they only sculpt religious pictures and sculptures. * The Jewish people only believe in one true god which is their god. *When playing music, Jewish musicians would only play Jewish music with Jewish instruments that they play. *As religious ceremonies the Jewish people don’t do human sacrifices for their god, they only do prayers for their true god. *The Jews don’t believe in killing their son or daughter just because there is something wrong with him or her. *The Jewish people do not believe that Janus was not the Messiah.

9. ROMAN BELIEFS *The Romans worshipped many gods which were mostly adopted from Greek and Etruscan religions. Romans believed the emperor as a god and to treat him with an expression of loyalty. *To try and win their god’s favor they prayed to their gods and made offering of food, money, or other precious goods. *The Romans worshipped in public at the great temples and they also had home shrines where they would pray to the household spirits that they believed shaped their daily lives. *Among these spirits were the Lares which were the spirits of the family ancestors that believed would protect their home from evil.

10. ETRUSCAN MYSTICISM *Etruscans tried to interpret lightening before they went to battle, and to predict good harvest they studied bird migrations. *Etruscans diviners used star to plan the layout of their town. *Etruscans conducting burials read the liver of many animals. *Etruscans also believed that gods gave them signs of what will happen in nature.

11. ACHEIVEMENTS

12. NETWORK OF ROADS *In Rome, major roads extended to and from the city of Rome like the spokes of a wile which had more than 50,000 miles of straight paved roads crisscrossing the empire. *The roads linked cities and military forts, which were built to last a long time and some modern highways, follow these ancient routes. *Roman roads were mainly built to move the Roman army quickly from place to place, when not fighting, soldiers turned to road building. *Today we use roads to drive our cars on it and to go to place to place faster, also so our military services like the Navy, Army, and the marines can drive to Iraq faster to support to the troops already there.

13. DEVELOPMENT OF AQUEDUCTS *Roman engineers designed elaborate water system to supply towns with clean water, which they built hundreds of miles of canals and aqueducts to move water from the mountain spring to the plains. *An aqueduct is a structure for carrying water across land, which looks like a bridge. *At one time the Roman Empire water flowed into a system of lead pipes, which sometimes ran into public fountains and the streets and most people got their water from this source. *In society today we have a water system where we get water and it goes through a purification system so our water is purified and clean.

14. SYSTEM OF LAWS *The basic principle of Roman constitution evolved during the Struggle of the Orders, which one of the principals was Roman system of balancing checks which means keeping one branch of government from gaining more power than the other branches. *In this way no branch of government became more powerful, which was a key feature of the United States of America’s government. For example it worked in many ways like the Senate could pass any law, but the tribunes could veto any law passed by the Senate. *The second principal was the rule of law with the passage of the Twelve Tables, Romans accepted the idea that they could be ruled by written laws, other than by the whims of judges. *Plebeians won a great victory with the passage of the Lex Hortensia law, which gave tribal Assembly the power to pass a law without the approval of the Senate or Consuls leading the Roman Republic to become a democracy. *Today in the United States of America we use this to prevent crime and theft in our country.

15. GREATER FREEDOM OF WOMEN *As Rome grew wealth the role of patrician women changed by slaves taking over much of the household works so patrician women didn’t have to work as much household work. *Wealthier women gained more freedom to go out in public and some even influenced in the political affairs of Rome, but they could not vote of hold public offices. *Women today can vote for whatever including the president, they can hold public offices, women are just important in a family as a man is, and last women often are in public shopping and doing things.

16. POLITICS

17. REPUBLIC *The government had a tripartite government or a three part government which were the magistrates, Senate, and the Assemblies. *The magistrates were the main officials of the Roman Republic who were part of the monarchy group. *There were two groups two top magistrates led the government and the Roman army. *The two Assemblies made up the third branch of government, and the two groups were the Republicans and the Dominican.

18. ETRUSCAN KINGS *The Etruscans had an older and more advanced culture than that of the Romans and each monarch had the broad powers serving as head of the army, chief priests, and supreme judge. *The Etruscan kings ruled with consent of Rome’s wealthy aristocrats who formed a body called the Senate. *This body could advise the king an important matter, and the king could consult the assembly if he chose to, but the assembly had no real powe r.

19. TRAJAN’S RULE *Trajan’s modest personality, firm decision making, and concern for people made him one of Rome’s most respected emperors. *The beginning of his reign, Trajan tried to make life better for ordinary citizens by reducing taxes, and the free distribution of food, and took steps to maintain a constant supply of grain. *He restored much of Italy’s road systems by building bridges to carry the roads across the rivers and streams. *Trajan supervised the construction of several impressive structures including a great water channel and a meeting place in Rome where public meetings were held and court cases too called a forum.

21. REPUBLIC

22. ROMAN EMPEROR *The Roman Empire was ruled by one single emperor. *The first Roman emperor was Augustus who ruled for more then 40 years. Augustus reduced the number of legions from 60 to 28, and paid the soldiers of those legions enough to guarantee their loyalty

23. ECONOMY

24. INFLATION *In Rome, emperors tried to increase the money supply by issuing coins made of fewer precious metals like silver and copper. *When merchants realized that coins were made of less precious stones they raised rose their prices such as a bag of wheat had cost one denarius, then it rose to 200 denarius. *Inflation of the Roman Empire and government hurt commerce and it also made difficult the government’s task of supplying the army. *As money lost its values, tax collectors began seizing food, clothing, weapons and the valuable and necessary goods as payment of taxes.

25. TRADE *Goods were moved peacefully through the empire and also through water since the Roman Empire controlled the Mediterranean shipping was a safe way of trading goods. *As trade increased, provincial cities became centers of industry, commerce, and some trade routes that extended beyond the empire. *Rome traded goods way out of the empire like: luxury goods such as silk to China, bronze were shipped to Russia and northern Europe, and red pottery was exported west to Britain and east to India. *Even though roads were usually used for military purposes, Roman people also traded on roads too because it also was faster.

26. COINAGE *Emperors used coins as a political advertisement with designs on the Roman coins often pictures of his or her building project. *Augustus issued a new currency in a form of a coin. The main coin was gold denarius and a silver denarius, which was worth 12 times less than a gold one. *The value of a denarius remained stable as long as it contained the same amount of gold or silver in every denarius every year. *This new currency was a good way of trade and commerce; it also was easier to conduct trade over a long distance than in the past.

27. HIGH TAXES *The civil wars created enormous economic problems because the wars cost so much money for weapons and supplies. *Few people had high enough incomes to pay what they owed. *One reason for people’s inability to pay their taxes was that the empire’s supply of gold and silver coins leaving the empire that could be replaced.

28. SOCIAL STRUCTURE

29. PLEBEIANS *The plebeians were the common people of Rome who made up of 90% of the population in the Roman Empire. *Some plebeians were rarely wealthy people because most of them were ordinary farmers, artisans, workers, and eventually differences in the orders consulted in the Struggle of the Orders. *The plebeians had little influence on the Roman economy life, most worked as farmers and owned very little land and had poor harvest years, many had to take out lowness just to survive. *When the plebeians first began to rebel, they carried out random acts of violence against patricians, but finally they realized that patricians could not govern Rome alone without the service of the plebeian soldiers.

30. PATRICIANS *Rome was divided into two main groups called the patricians in the upper class, who took great pride in belonging to noble families with famous ancestors. *The patricians had a major power and influence on the government because most of the patricians were wealthy. *The patricians also had major influence on the government because they could sell the debtor into slavery if the patrician could make the loans. *The patricians began to listen to the plebeians because they knew this conquest was going to fail without the plebeians.

31. EDUCATION *Children in Rome were not required to go to school by law, but unfortunately the poor children didn’t go to school, instead they were sent to work by the ages of five to six. *Students before school went to breakfast bars to grab something to eat before school like bread, bean, and nuts. *By the ages of seven, wealthy children were tutored by their fathers who taught those English, Math, Latin, or Greek. *A typical school day for a Roman student began early in the morning when they had to walk through large crowds just to get to school.

32. TRIBUNES *The tribunes were the top officials of the plebeian’s assembly, which they also represented plebeian interests in the civil affairs. *They also had the power to block laws they viewed as unfair to the plebeians who were the common people of Rome. *The tribunes were also elected officials who protected the right of plebeian.

33. CONCLUSION Before I learned about ancient Rome I didn’t think that the Roman style of life and their way of doing things reflected much on our life today but I was wrong. I think aqueducts was one major improvement in Roman daily life reflected on our way of transporting water to drink in their homes and buildings they work in. Another major achievement the Romans had was the way they expanded. It was interesting how they defeated strong and powerful countries like Carthage by burning it to the ground and planting salt in the soil so nothing would grow there and no one could bring it back again. I also though that roads were a great achievement because they traded faster by roads and the legions could move faster on roads to.