1) The Italian peninsula was well situated for east-west Mediterranean trade and saw migrations of Indo-European peoples beginning around 1500 BC. The Greeks and Etruscans settled parts of Italy, with the latter influencing early Rome's development. 2) By 264 BC, Rome had defeated its neighbors and controlled almost all of Italy, devising the Roman Confederation to rule its territories. Rome was initially divided between patrician landowners and plebeian small landowners and merchants, though the plebeians gained some political rights over time. 3) Rome defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars and became the dominant power in the western Mediterranean by the mid-2nd century BC. This

1. created by
David William Phillips

2. Because the Italian peninsula
juts out into the Mediterranean,
it naturally was a stopping point
for east-west Mediterranean
trade and travel.

3. Indo-European peoples moved
into Italy from about 1500 to
1000 B.C.
The Greeks settled in southern
Italy.
The Etruscans had more impact
on early Rome’s development.

4. In 509 B.C., the Romans overthrew the last Etruscan king and established a republic.

5. Enemies surrounded early Rome. By 264 BC, Rome had defeated its neighbors and
controlled almost all of Italy.
To rule, the Romans devised the Roman Confederation. Some people–especially the
Latins–had full Roman citizenship. Other groups were allies who controlled their
local affairs but gave soldiers to Rome.

6. Early Rome was divided into two groups, the patricians and the plebeians.

7. The Senate governed Rome.
Patricians were the large
landowners who formed Rome’s
ruling class. Only patricians
could be elected to political
office in the Senate.

8. Plebeians were smaller landowning farmers, craftspeople, and merchants.

9. Members of both groups were citizens and could vote.

10. The plebeians wanted political and social equality.
Plebeians fought in the army to protect Rome.
Finally, in 471 B.C. a popular assembly called the council of the plebs was created.
Despite these gains, wealthy patricians dominated Roman political life.

11. Rome faced a strong power in the Mediterranean–Carthage. The First Punic War,
between Rome and Carthage, began when Rome sent troops to Sicily.

12. Rome defeated Carthage’s navy, and in 241 B.C. Carthage gave up its rights to Sicily.

13. Carthage wanted revenge.
Hannibal, the greatest Carthaginian general,
began the Second Punic War.

14. At the Battle of Zama, Rome crushed Hannibal’s forces.
Spain became a Roman province, and Rome controlled the western Mediterranean.

15. Fifty years later, the Romans fought the Third Punic War.
The territory of Carthage became a Roman province called Africa.

16. Rome then conquered Macedonia and Greece and
became master of the Mediterranean World.

17. Landed estates owned by patricians called latifundia dominated farming. They helped
drive small plebian farmers out of business. The gap between rich and poor widened.

18. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus tried to pass laws returning land back to the poor.
They were killed by conservative aristocratic patrician senators. Discontent and unrest
among the poor grew.

19. From 82 to 31 B.C., civil wars beset Rome.

20. Three men – Crassus, Pompey, and Julius Caesar – emerged victorious.
They combined their power to form the First Triumvirate in 60 B.C.

21. Caesar was an excellent speaker and was popular with the people
but needed a strong army to remain in political power.
A brilliant military strategist, he conquered Gaul during a ten year campaign.
When he was finished, the area of modern-day France was under Roman control.

22. When Crassus was killed, Caesar defeated Pompey and became dictator in 45 B.C.
Caesar gave land to the poor and expanded the Senate
to 900 members filling it with his supporters.
A group of leading opposition senators assassinated Caesar in 44 B.C.

23. Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus
formed the Second Triumvirate
after Caesar’s death.
Eventually, they fought one
another.
Octavian defeated Antony and
Cleopatra at the naval battle of
Actium in 31 BC.
The civil wars ended and the
Roman Republic was no more.

24. Octavian proclaimed “the restoration of the
Republic” in 27 B.C. but in reality Rome had
become an empire.
He gave only some power to the Senate and
became Rome’s first emperor.
The Senate awarded him the title of Augustus,
or “the revered one.”
A new period of Roman history known as the
Age of Augustus began in 31 B.C.

25. My son, Augustus, is named after
this first emperor of Rome.

26. Augustus stabilized Rome’s frontiers and conquered new areas.

27. At the beginning of the second century, a series of five so-called good emperors
led Rome: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.
They created a time of peace and prosperity called the Pax Romana
(“Roman Peace”) which lasted for nearly 100 years.

28. By the 2nd century, the Roman Empire covered about 3.5 m. square miles.
Its population probably was over 50 m,

29. Cities were important in the spread of Roman culture, Roman law,
and the Latin language in the western part of the empire.
Greek was used in the east. The mixture of Roman and Greek culture that resulted
from the Roman Empire’s spread is called the Greco-Roman civilization.

30. In the 3rd and 2nd c. B.C., the Romans
developed a taste for Greek art and culture.

31. The Romans excelled
at architecture.

35. Rome was adorned with unequaled public buildings,
such as baths, temples, theaters, and markets.

36. Bread and Circuses:
Beginning with Augustus, the city’s 200,000 poor
received free grain from the emperor.
The people were entertained by grand public spectacles.

44. No people relied on slavery as much as the Romans. As Rome conquered the
Mediterranean area, large numbers of war captives were brought to Italy as slaves.

45. Masters feared slave revolts.
The most famous slave revolt in Italy was
led by the gladiator Spartacus in 73 B.C.

46. By A.D. 6, the ancient kingdom of Judah had become the Roman province of Judaea.

47. Unrest was common in Judaea.
A revolt which began in 66 AD was crushed by the Romans
who destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

48. Jesus, a Jew, began to preach in the midst of this conflict.

49. Jesus’ opponents turned
him over to the Roman
authorities because they
thought he might cause
people to revolt against
Rome.
The procurator, Pontius
Pilate, ordered his
crucifixion.

50. Jesus’ followers became known as Christians.

51. Roman persecution of Christians began under Nero’s reign, (A.D. 54–68).

52. Emperors in the 3rd c. began new waves of persecution,
ending with the great persecution by Diocletian at the beginning of the 4th c.

54. Christianity spread, however, and in the 4th c. prospered.

55. Constantine became
the first Christian
emperor.
In 313 his Edict of
Milan officially
sanctioned tolerating
Christianity.

56. Under Theodosius the Great, the Romans
adopted Christianity as their official religion.

57. A long period of unrest followed the death
of the last good emperor, Marcus
Aurelius, in A.D. 180.
There were 22 emperors in 69 years;
many died violently.

58. Invasions, civil wars, and plague almost
caused the Roman economy to collapse in
the 3rd c.
The Roman Empire suffered invasions by
Persians and Germanic peoples.
Due to plague there was a labor shortage -
trade and small industry declined.
Money was short but Rome needed soldiers
more than ever.

59. By the mid-3rd c., Rome was
depending on hired Germanic soldiers.

60. At the end of the 3rd and the beginning of
the 4th c., the emperors Diocletian and
Constantine revived Rome, founding a
state called the Late Roman Empire.

61. Diocletian ruled 284-305.
He divided the empire into 4 sections, each with its own ruler.

62. Constantine ruled 306-337. In 324, Constantine became
the sole ruler of Rome.
Constantine’s biggest project was constructing a new
capital city in the east on the site of Byzantium.
The city eventually was named Constantinople.

63. Beginning in the
second half of the
4th c., Huns from
Asia moved into
Eastern Europe.
The Visigoths
moved south
crossing into
Roman territory.
Other German
tribes followed.

64. In 410, Visigoths sacked the city of Rome.

65. In 455, it was
sacked - again –
by the Vandals.

66. In 476, the last western emperor,
Romulus Augustulus,
was deposed by
the Germanic head of the army.
This event is usually taken as
the fall of the
Western Roman Empire.

68. The Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, continued on
until 1453 AD with Constantinople as its capital.