Maddox Chapter 6: The Roman Empire

Book Notes

Foreward

• With the victories of Octavian, peace settled on the roman war.• Stability for the next two hundred years (although civil conflict still erupted spontaneously)• Romans thought they would be the capital of the world, but weren’t aware that the Han Empire was also flourishing

• Hadrian• One of the emperors of the 2nd century BCE• Rome’s divine mission was clearly to rule nations and peoples.• Took responsibilities seriously

• Build new fortifications like the Hadrian Wall• Believed that soldiers should always be kept in training

• By the third century, however, Rome began to experience renewed civil war, economic chaos, and invasions.• In the meantime, Christianity grew

The Age of Augustus

• Foreward• Octavian proclaimed the “restoration of the Republic,” but he understood that it could not be fully restored• Senate awarded him the title of Augustus, but he preferred the title princeps

• Princeps - Chief citizen/1st among equals• Principate

• The system of rule that Augustus established• Conveying the idea of a constitutional monarch as co-ruler with the senate• Only in appearance, the true power was weighted in favor of the princeps

• The New Order• Govt. consisted of the princeps and an aristocratic senate• Augustus was a consul, thus had imperium• Augustus was highly popular

• ended civil wars• control of the army• Roman peace

• The Army• As a result of the civil wars, the army had increased in size and become more professional w/ legionaries who served longer• Early emperors created a bureaucracy that trained an army• Played a social role

• Romanization wherever the legions were stations.• colonies of veterans also romanized

• Stating army of 28 legions• not large• 150,000 men

• Augustus also maintained a large contingent of auxiliary forces• 130,000 men• Non-citizens, families received citizenship after their terms of service (24 years)

• Praetorian guard

• 9,000 men• Guard the princeps

• Imperator• title given to a military commander when victorious• Augustus preferred princeps• emperor

• Roman Provinces and Frontiers• Foreword

• Provincial Govt.• Certain provinces were allotted to the princeps, who assigned deputies known as legates to govern them.

• From the senatorial class• Augustus had the power to overrule the senatorial governors and thus establish a unified imperial policy

• Roman policy encouraged a substantial degree of self-government• Frontier Policy

• client kingdoms• minimized military in the east so it could be used elsewhere

• Augustus wanted to expand into Germany• The great catastrophe of 9 CE

• Three Roman legions under Varus were massacred in the Teutoberg Forest by a coalition of German tribes led by Arminius, a German Tribal leader who served in the Roman auxil-iary forces.

• Augustus blamed Varus• Augustus didn’t want to expand into Central Europe• Rome learned that its power was limited

• Augustan Society• Foreword

• Society was characterized by a system of social stratification, inherited from the Republic, in which Roman citizens were divided into 3 basic classes• Senatorial• Equestrian• Lower

• The Social Order• Senatorial

• Ruling class• filled the chief magistracies• military posts• governed the provinces• Property worth 1 million sesterces

• Equestrian• Expanded under Augustus• given a share of power• Good standing citizens• property worth 400,000• Could hold military and govt. offices, but they were less important than the senatorial order• Might be rewarded at the end of career by a membership into senatorial order

• Lower• Majority• Free grain and public spectacles to keep them from creating disturbances• could work their way into equestrian order

• Augusts’s Reforms• Concerned about Rome’s social health

• Civil strife had lessened religion.• Restored traditional priesthoods• Rebuilt many temples/shrines

• Constructed new temples/shrines• Instituted a new religious cult

• Claimed Julius Caesar was a god• permitted the building of a simple to Augustus and Roma

• Moral Legislation• Augustus hoped to restore respectability to the upper classes and reverse the declining birthrate• feasts were limited• laws made adultery a criminal offense

• exiled his daughter Julia• Hypocritical

• Revised tax laws to penalize bachelors, widowers, and married people who had fewer than 3 kids• A Golden Age of Latin Literature

• Foreword• The golden age

• Virgil• Most distinguished poet• honored the emperor• The Aeneid

• Rivaled the work of Homer• Aeneas portrayed in terms that remind us the ideal Roman

• virtues are duty, piety, and faithfulness• Horace

• Satires• Observer of human weaknesses

• Sexual immorality, greed, and job dissatisfaction• Epistles

• He holds his ideals as a simple life, good friends, and his beloved countryside• Ovid

• the last of the great poets• Liked to ridicule old Roman values• Amores

• intended to entertain and shock• Metamorphoses

• Chaos into order• most popular work

• Art of Love• seduction of women• Augustus was not pleased.

• Ovid was implicated in a sexual scandal with Julia (daughter of Augustus), and thus sent to a small town on the coast of the Black Sea and died in exile.

• Livy• Most famous• History of Rome in terms of moral lessons.• Human character is the determining factor in history• not concerned about facts

• Significance of the Augustan Age• Created a new order while placating the old one. And it was here to stay.

The Early Empire (14 - 180)

• Foreword

• Augustus successor is his stepson, Tiberius• no serious opposition• Began the Julio-Claudian dynasty

• The next four ruler were either relation to his won family or to that of his wife, Livia• The Julio-Claudians (14-68)

• General Info• More and more of the responsibility that Augustus had given to the senate tended to be taken over by

the emperors• Augustus• Tiberius

• Competent general and an able administrator who tried initial to involve the senate in govt.• Caligula

• Grandnephew of Tiberius• Tyrannical behavior and extremely erratic• Wanted to be hailed as a god and neglected affairs of state while indulging his passions• Officers of the praetorian guard assassinated him

• Claudius• Mistreated by family because of a physical disability• intelligent• Instituted an imperial bureaucracy

• let freedmen be chiefs of bureaucratic departments• further undermined the authority of the senators

• Nero• Sixteen when he first came to power• interested more in the art

• neglect affairs of state, especially military• Freely eliminated people he wanted out of the way, including his own mother• Downfall

• Early reign had been quite successful, but he grew tired of his duties.• Seneca, the philosopher and childhood tutor of Nero, eventually resigned in disgust of hero’s interests, which caused his rule to deteriorate.• Senatorial class was annoyed by his singing and acting in public

• Conspiracy by Roman legions• Galba, governor of one of the Spanish provinces, rose in revolt and secured the principate for himself. Nero, abandoned by his guards, chose to commit suicide.

• But Galba was not readily accepted by the other provincial armies• Civil Wars, until Vespasian

• The year of the four emperors• Praetorian guard

• Interfered with the rulers but did so in a manner that did not bode well for future stability• The Flavians (69 - 96)

• General Info• It was no longer necessary to be descended from an ancient aristocratic family to be emperor

• -Tacitus• Becoming an absolute monarch

• Vespasian• Established himself as sole ruler• Family from the equestrian order• no compunctions whatever about established the principle of dynastic succession for the principate

• Titus• Domitian

• Dropped the term princeps and began to use the title imperator or emperor freely• The Five “Good Emperors” (96 - 180)

• General Info

• Pax Romana• Roman peace

• These rulers treated the ruling classes with respect, cooperated with the senate, ended arbitrary executions, maintained peace in the empire, and supported domestic policies generally beneficial to the empire

• Still absolute monarchs though• By chance, Nerva and his next three successors had no sons• The powers of the emperor continued to expand at the expense of the senate

• Nerva• Chosen by the Senate

• Trajan• acceptable to the army• First emperor born outside Italy• Assisted poor parents in raising and educating their children

• So more people could enter the military• Broke Augustus’s policy of defensive imperialism

• Hadrian• Built the pantheon• Inspected the provinces and restored the military forces

• Antoninus Pius• Most beneficent• Stayed in rome

• made even greater use of the senate• Marcus Aurelius

• Viewed as a philosopher-king• Highly influenced by Stoicism• Wrote Meditations

• Ideal of Stoic duty as a religious concept• The Roman Empire at Its Height: Frontiers and Provinces

• Foreword• Rome covered 3.5 million square miles• Had 50 million people• Caracalla

• Gave Roman citizenship to every free inhabitant of the empire• Limits to Romanization

• Local languages• Roman Frontiers

• emperors wanted to remain within the natural frontiers of their empire• except Claudius’s annexation of Britain

• Successors of Trajan recognized that the empire was overextended and pursued a policy of retrenchment• Hadrian went of the defensive in his frontier policy

• reinforced the fortifications along a line connecting two rivers• Built a defensive wall 80 miles long

• Rome is vulnerable• The Army and Romanization

• Roman army is the primary instrument for defense• Italians reluctant to serve

• Cities and Romanization• Local city officials had to act as Roman agents

• Carried out govt. functions like taxes• Made upper class romanized• Roman senate was being recruited from wealthy provincial equestrian families

• Roman Law and Romanization

• Jurists classified and compiled legal principles• natural rights

• not in practice

• Prosperity in the Early Empire• Internal peace resulted in unprecedented levels of trade• Importation of Grain/ luxury items

• a steady drain of gold and silver• Roads

• built chiefly for military purposes, but also for trade• Agriculture remained the chief occupation of most people and the underlying basis of Roman prosperity. While the large landed estates, the latifundia, still dominated agriculture, small peasant farms per-

sisted, particularly in Etruria and the Po valley. • The lands of some latifundia were worked by free tenant farmers called coloni. The coolness was essentially a sharecropper who paid rent in labor, produce, or sometimes cash

Roman Culture and Society in the Early Empire

• Foreword• Intellectuals found ways to accommodate the autocratic rule of emperors while Roman architects created massive buildings befitting an empire. Gladiatorial games and slavery increased dramatically in the

Early Empire, while upper-class women acquired greater independence• The Silver Age of Latin Literature

• Foreword• The popularity of rhetorical training encouraged the use of clever literary expressions, often at the expense of original and meaningful content

• Seneca• A good example of above• strongly attached to the philosophy of Stoicism

• living according to nature• accepting events as part of divine plan• Love for all humanity

• Helped run the govt. during the first five years of Nero’s reign, but withdrew from politics after Nero took a more active role in govt.• Charged w/ a conspiracy against Nero and committed suicide at Nero’s command• Inconsistent

• preached simplicity, but amazed a fortune• tried to be clever

• Tacitus• Greatest historian of silver age• wrote Annals and the Histories

• History from Tiberius through he assassination of Domitian• History had a moral purpose

• member of senatorial class• disgusted with the abuses of power

• Juvenal• Latin Author

• imitated the great Latin writers of earlier ages• best poet of silver age• He attacked the affectations of Roman women, the abuse of slaves, the excesses of emperors, the eastern and Greek immigrants, his own poverty, and the inequities of Roman society

• But no basic critique• Art in the Early Empire

• Much work was done by Greek artists• Architecture

• imitated Greek styles• Made use of colonnades, rectangular structures, and post-and-lintel constructions

• Curvilinear forms: the arch, vault, and dome• Concrete• Public baths

• Caracalla• Amphitheaters

• The Colosseum• Imperial Rome

• One million people• An enormous gulf existed between rich and poor.

• While the rich had comfortable villas, the poor lived in apartment blocks called insulae.• prone to collapse and in danger of fire

• Conflagration of 64• Public buildings• Rome was also a great parasite

• emperors provided food• did not cut it

• entertainment• Festivals

• Circus Maximus• Dramatic performances• Gladiatorial shows

• The Gladiatorial Shows• amphitheaters• The colosseum

• Flavian• most popular• 50,000 spectators

• Disaster in Southern Italy• Eruption of Mount Vesuvius

• Pompeii lost• The Art of Medicine

• Paterfamilias would prepare remedies to cure illnesses• Doctors

• Many were Greek slaves• public doctors first attached to the army

• Eventually led to public hospitals• Slaves and Their Masters

• number of slaves increased dramatically• Caused unemployment among free people.• Defensive imperial policies led to a decline in the supply of slaves from foreign conquest

• also manumission• The Upper-Class Roman Family

• Paterfamilias authority was further undermined • no longer had absolute authority over his children• couldn’t sell his children into slavery/kill them• Husband’s absolute authority over his wife also disappeared

• only a formality• Upper-class women

• considerable freedom and independence• right to own, inherit, and dispose of property• infanticide

• Women stopped having babies

• also used abortion or contraception• coitus interuptus

Transformation of the Roman World: Crises int he Third Century

• Foreword• A number of natural catastrophes struck rome during the reign of Marcus Aurelias, the last of the five good emperors.

• Floods of the Tiber• Famine• Plague brought back by the army• Considerable loss of population and a shortage of military manpower

• Political and Military Woes• Commodus

• Marcus Aurelius’s son• a poor choice• assassination led to a brief renewal of civil war until Septimus Severus used his legions to take power

• Septimius Severus• Used legions to seize power• ended civil wars• “make the soldiers rich” led to severan rulers

• Severan rulers• created a military monarchy• army expanded, soldiers’ pay was increased, and military officers were appointed to govt. positions• military leaders aspired to become emperors• monarchy degenerated into military anarchy

• Chaos of continual civil war• next fifty years• bribing• in 5 decades there were 22 emperors, only two did not meet a violent end• Series of invasions

• Sessanid Persians made inroads into Roman Territory• captured Roman emperor Valerian.

• Death in captivity, unprecedented• Germanic tribes

• Goths• Moved into Greece and Asia Minor

• Franks• Gaul and Spain

• Aurelian• restored boundaries

• abandoned the Danubuian province of Dacia• Reconquered Gaul• Built a defensive wall

• “restorer of the world”• Civil war/Invasions led to provinces breaking away from the empire

• Postumus• Gained support of Britain/Spain, but was killed by his own soldiers

• Zenobia• Control over Egypt and much of Asia Minor

• Aurelian defeated her in Syria

• Economic and Social Crisis• Population declined drastically

• By as much as 1/3• affected military recruiting and the economy

• Goods used instead of money• Army consisted of Barbarians unattached to the empire

Transformation of the Roman World: The Rise of Christianity

• Foreword• The advent of Christianity marks a fundamental break with the dominant values of the Greco-Roman world

• The Religious World of the Roman Empire• Mystery religions

• offered secret teachings that supposedly brought special benefits• higher world of reality• Elaborate rituals• life after death• Cybele or the Great Mother• Egyptian Isis

• Widespread• appealed especially to women

• Mithraism• most important mystery cult• chief agent of Ahuramazda, the supreme god of light; identified in rome as the sun god• Men only; especially favored by soldiers• initiation ceremony in which devotees were baptized in the blood of a sacrificed bull• Sunday, and Dec 25

• The Jewish Background• Christianity emerged out of Judaism• Roman involvement with the Jews

• Judaea had been made a province and placed under the direction of a Roman procurator.• Divisions among Jews themselves continued unrest

• Sadducees• Favored a rigid adherence to Hebrew law• Rejected the possibility of mortality• Favored cooperation with the Romans

• Pharisees• Adhered strictly to Jewish ritual and, although they wanted Judaea to be free from Roman control, did not advocate violent means to achieve this goal

• Essenes• A Jewish sect that lived in religious community near the Dead Sea.• Dead Sea Scrolls

• revealed that they awaited a Messiah who would save Israel from oppression• Zealots

• Militant extremists who advocated violent overthrow of Roman rule.• A Jewish revolt was crushed by the Romans four years after it started

• Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Roman power was supreme• The Origins of Christianity

• Foreword• Jesus of Nazareth

• Palestinian Jew• Grew up in Galilee

• important center of the militant Zealots• Presented the ethical concepts

• Humility, charity, and brotherly love• Disappointed the radicals• To the Roman authorities, he was a potential revolutionary who might transform Jewish expectations of a messianic kingdom into a revolt.

• Procurator Pontius Pilate order his crucifixion• The importance of Paul

• Peter• founded the christian church at rome

• Pual of Tarsus• Most important figure in early Christianity• reached out to non-Jews and transformed Christianity from a Jewish sect into a broader religious movement• Thought women should be subjects to men

• The Spread of Christianity• At first, it spreader slowly

• Gospels, or “good news” concerning Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John would be passed on by personal memories• would form the core of the New Testament

• Destruction of Jerusalem• First center of Christianity• Left individual churches with considerable independence

• Early Christian Communities• Met in private homes in the evening

• shared a common meal called an agape or love feast to celebrate what became known as the sacrament of the Eucharist or Lords Supper.• Communities were loosely organized at first

• both men and women played significant roles• Later, officials known as bishops came to exercise considerable authority over the presbyters (board of elders)

• Based their superior position on apostolic succession - they were successors to Jesus’s original twelve apostles.• Only men

• Most communities were following the views of Paul that Christian women should be subject to Christian men• The Structure of Rome aided the growth of Christianity

• Roads spread Gospel• The Changing Roman View of Christianity

• Romans were tolerant except when they threatened public order or morals• Viewed Christians as harmful to the order of the state

• based on misperceptions• They thought the Lord’s Supper was a ritualistic murder of children• They held their meetings in secret and connected to other Christian groups in distant areas

• the govt. viewed them as potentially dangerous to the state• Christians were overly exclusive

• no public festivals• no participation in the worship of state gods and the imperial cult

• atheism• treason

• Persecution• Began during the reign of Nero

• he blamed the Christians for the fire that destroyed much of rome• Christian Martyrs

• Martyrs were willing the accept death for their faith• The Growth of Christianity

• Foreword• Persecutions served to strengthen Christianity by causing it to shed the loose structure of the fist century and more toward a centralized organization of its various church communities

• Bishops

• chosen by community• Assumed more power

• leader• Presbyters emerging as clergy subject to his authority

• by 3rd century, they were nominated by the clergy, simply approved by the congregation, then official ordained into office• Churches had a hierarchal structure

• Christianity and Greco-Roman culture• Christians expressed considerable hostility toward the pagan culture of the Classical world• Neoplatonism

• Platonic thought• One could use reason to perceive the link between the invisible spiritual world and the visible material world

• Ended up preserving the Greco-Roman culture• The Appeal of Christianity

• Grew slowly in the 1st century, took root in the 2nd, and had spread widely by the 3rd• Promise of salivation• Gave life purpose beyond material things• Not entirely unfamiliar

• just another mystery religion• Universal appeal• A personal relationship with God• Human need to belong• Attractive to all classes• Spiritual equality for all

• Women and Early Christianity• By the 2nd century men had gained control of church organization and subjected women to secondary roles• Paul thought women should be subject to men

• Persecution• Two emperors responded to the organization of Christian charges with systematic persecutions

• Decius• Blamed the Christians for the disasters in the terrible third century• As the administrative organization of the church grew, it appeared to Decius even more like a state within a state

• undermined the empire• 1st systematic persecution

• All citizens were required to offer sacrifices to the Roman Gods• Local officers failed to cooperate• His reign wasn’t long

• Diocletian• 4th century, it was already too late

Key Terms

Augustus Praetorian guards

Hadrian Roman architecture

Vespasian Flavian emperors

Marcus Aurelius

Five good emperors

Tacitus Gladiatorial shows

Senecca Mithraism

Varus Early Christianity

Virgil Gospels

Livy Princeps

Paul of Tarsus

Imperator

Roman Senate

Roman provincial and frontier policy under Augustus

Book Questions

▪ How was Augustus able to consolidate his power after becoming princeps?▪ What were the major themes of Roman Golden and Silver Age literature?▪ What place did the lower classes occupy in Imperial Roman society?▪ What were some of the reasons for the success of Early Christianity?▪ What is the Eucharist and what purpose does it serve for Christians?