The Roman Empire
Ancient Rome is said to be founded in approximately 753 BCE and was located on the Tiber River, which is not very far from the sea. All roads, including by land and by sea, lead up to Rome, which is to be considered “the capital of one of the longest lasting and most influential empires.” Rome was able to serve as the center of trade and communication for the entire Italian peninsula. Rome was and is located inside of Italy, which is nearby a sea that they decided to call the “Mediterranean”, which defines as the middle of the earth. They named it that because itself is surrounded by, southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia. For two and half centuries kings of the neighboring land, Etruria, ruled the city. The Romans were influenced and learned a lot from them including how a city was built, art, mythology, religion, and language. By 509 BCE the wealthy, powerful Roman citizens – veterans of military services, overthrew the Etruscan kings, and became a republic for itself. Over time it went from a republic to an empire. The Roman Empire was able to rule from70-100 million people which were widely diverse in ethnicity, race, religion, and culture roots; this occurred while the Roman Empire was in its greatest extent which was in the second century CE, around 180 CE. According to its geography, it extended over 2500 north to south and 2700 east to west and extended from Scotland to the Persian Gulf.
Religion
In Ancient Rome you will be able to see that there are in fact many religions, however you will also notice that the two major religions are Judaism and Christianity. These two religions have very much in common, but they do have their differences, that’s why there two. Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion, dating back to around 3800 years ago according to Hebrew scriptures. With Christianity, they believe there is a single and unique God of all creation. According to them God is “almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and infinite.” He is also holy, and righteous, but still, forgiving, loving and merciful. He can reward you for all your good deeds, but he punish you for all your sins. They both believe in the existence of heaven and hell. Eternal heaven, for those that did good on earth, the righteous and eternal hell, for those that sinned, the wicked. Both believed there would come a day of divine judgement for the whole world. They believe God promises for the poor and downtrodden eternal life as long as they keep faith in God and obey him and commandments. For written texts both of them base their beliefs on the same texts which included the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), although Christianity also includes the New Testament. Now for their differences, there is one that stands out the most, and it is that Judaism doesn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Christianity teaches that “Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah/Savior.” Judaism often see him as a good teacher and maybe even a prophet of God. Judaism strongly contradicts the idea that Jesus was God at some point and that the sacrifice that he made was unnecessary. Christianity teaches that Jesus was God in the flesh and “God became a human being in the Person if Jesus Christ” so He could put his life in sacrifice so His life would pay for the people's’ sins.
In Judaism you normally were a Jew either by you being a descendant of Judah, son of a biblical line, or simply by having Jewish blood; you were born a Jew because your mother was a Jew. In these time periods it is rare to see people that convert to Judaism, you’re normally practicing Judaism because you were born into the religion (you were born a Jew). Nowadays you can see more people converting to Judaism more than back then. Today, Judaism is rather small compared Christianity, it is now mainly just a family-based religion, focusing a lot on Israel; both teach and believe that “God has a special plan for the nation of Israel,” also for the Jewish people.
If you are interested in going to Israel you might want to visit the remains of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.
This temple was the temple of w
orship for the Jews, but was destroyed by the Romans, you will read why later on, in 70 CE. What is left now is name the called the Wailing Wall, which is basically the western wall of the construction. To this day, Jews still like go and pray and “daven” there daily. Many people like to also insert written prayers on small pieces of paper into the cracks of the wall, this is a very traditional thing to do for the Jews. So, if you would like to see it as a whole you should plan your visit before 70 CE obviously, and if you would like to see it as the “Wailing Wall” then you could go now, because it is still standing, or simply just go after 70 CE.
The Waling Wall
The insdie of the Temple of
when it was still standing
You might be wondering, “Why in the world do I need to know about Judaism and Christianity in relation to Rome?”, well that is because, like mentioned before, they are the two major religions in Rome, and because at least up until 313 CE, Christianity and Judaism wasn’t very accepted by the Romans. While the Roman were in control and in rule of Judea (around 4 BCE) , they always stated that you could worship your own gods as long as you also worshipped the emperor. Roman itself was pretty polytheistic, the worship of many gods. Many of their other gods, to sum it up, basically were named after planets. These gods included planet Jupiter: who was “supreme ruler of gods and men, king of heaven, and overseer of justice and destiny”, Juno: wife of Jupiter, goddess of women and marriage, and queen of heaven, Minerva: goddess of art and wisdom, and many more. You might be able to spot the problem now. Both Judaism and Christianity were monotheistic religions meaning they were allowed to worship only one god, according to God’s Ten Commandments, one of them stating, “You shall have no other gods before Me”, thus excluding the worship for the emperor. The Romans always reacted and paid closed attention to potential rebellions. They noticed that Jesus was attracting multitudes and also followed with what he did and said, and the Romans feared that he would want to create a rebellion and then the people would also want to follow him on that. So in pure instinct they view him as a threat, decide to take charge, seize him in Jerusalem, then execute him by crucifying him, in the effort of trying of trying to eliminate the threat.
Christianity is able to spread a lot more faster than Judaism mainly because Christianity welcomes and accepts gentiles (non- Jews), unlike Judaism (normally your born into the religion). Christianity was able to keep on spreading and spreading, but at the same time it also keep on trying to be eliminated by the Roman emperors. Until, in 313 CE a letter was signed by Emperors Constantine and Licinius, called the Edict of Milan. This letter stated that there should now be religious tolerance, especially on Christianity, and Christians could now worship openly and freely, and they should no longer be in constant fear or persecution.
Daily Life
Like any other civilization, Rome as well had a social hierarchy that you will be able to see. You will be able to see a social hierarchy consisting of Patricians, Senators, Equestrians, Commoners, Freedpoeple and Slaves.
In regard to the patricians, you might also be able to observe a special relationship that patricians/patron and plebeians/clients have. This relationship is call the patron-client relationship. Patricians are seen as the strong men that protect those who are weak, then in return the weak (plebeians) provide obedience and services to the strong as long as they request it. Patricians also provided legal protection including representation for their clients/plebeians. The plebeians are those without “longstanding hereditary ties to the state” and normally didn’t own any property. They were supposed to help pay public charges and fines that were levied against their patrons, they were also put to help provide dowries for their daughters of their patron for their marriage. To officially symbolize this relationship, the client would periodically present himself at the home of the patron, and the patron would receive a “small gift at that time.” The wealthier patricians are said to have private homes that “were spacious, airy, sanitary, equipped with bathrooms and water closets, heated in winter by hypocausts,” which basically were chambers located under the floors that carried hot air. These kinds of houses were probably the most “comfortable and commodious” at these time periods at least until the twentieth century, in regard to the temperate climate. If you get time and if you're allowed, you should try and see for yourself the luxuriousness of these houses for yourself.
The Senator’s class was widely dominated by the nobles. This class was held the political power and it included all the men who served in the Senate. These Senators had to prove they had property that was worth from 800,000 to 1,000,000 sesterces; the ancient Roman coin and unit of money. If they could prove they had this amount of property worth, they were eligible to earn a membership that was lifelong for the whole family to the senatorial class. Even though there part of the upper classes they were restricted to be involved in “nonagricultural business, trade or public contracts.”
The Equestrian class held the economic power. If he could prove, once again, that he had the property worth of 400,000 sesterces, he could entitle himself and his entire family into the Equestrian class. The Equestrians were basically just involved in the kinds of businesses that the Senators were prohibited to.
Next were the Commoners and Freedepeople. The Commoners consisted of all of the other freeborn Roman citizens (can also include the Plebeians). All Roman citizens had the right to “arrange a legal marriage with another Roman citizen.” In Rome it was very important to able to own a citizenship. Citizenship, like mentioned, gave you the rights to marry another Roman citizen, it gave you greater protection in general, and from arbitrary arrest and violence. It also gave you voting rights, rights to own property, and help you free yourself from property taxes. Freedpeople were the people who had once been slaves and now are free. These people weren’t totally free because they still had restriction on rights they had and they still owned certain duties to their former masters (the patrons). They weren’t eligible to participate in public office, but they had the possibility of one day becoming wealthy, but then again most of them were fairly poor. In Rome the people that were truly very poor didn’t have luxurious homes that the Patricians had, in fact they had the total opposite. They lived in really noisy, cramped, foul-smelling, and infected quarters. They lived in homes that weren’t heated, didn’t contain water pipes, extremely crowded, and on top of that they were so badly built, that they “didn’t offer any mean of safe exit from the frequent fires that occurred.” Sometimes these people tried to revolt against the Roman government, protesting that they should be treated with more respect, one way the Emperor Tiberius (163-133 BCE) tried solve this problem was by distributing public land to the poor and especially to the poor war veterans. This helped but the people (mainly the plebeians, maybe some commoners and freedpeople) kept on trying to revolt. Another way the Romans tried to at least keep the people quiet was by creating a system called “breads and circuses”. The Romans bribed the poor into a dole of free bread, while they enjoyed their bread they were able to watch a gladiator games of great cruelty, theater plays, races, etc., thus it’s called “bread and circuses.” They said that they were able to serve around 200,000 people each day. Rome’s “largest race-track and stadia was able to hold about half of Rome’s adult population!”
Finally were the slaves. The slaves were the lowest on the Roman hierarchy, they didn’t have any freedom for themselves, and were considered to be property owned by their masters. Slaves were the labor force for mining and farming. A quarter of Rome’s agricultural labor force came from came from the slaves. Household slaves were treated well and were able to work as nurse, tutors, and cooks. A convenient policy that the Romans had was that if you owned slaves, you weren’t allowed to whatsoever, separate slave families.
Women weren’t quite necessarily included into the social hierarchy, but they did exist and they did have roles to play in the society. Women are legally subject to their fathers as long as they are alive. When he dies, she then is required to obey her husband or her appointed legal guardian. We she is in her adulthood and her father has died, she has gained her independence. In the 5th century, they had the right to “block legal powers from their husband by absenting themselves from his home for three nights in a row each.” Motherhood was something significant in Rome, which every women should go through. Women were widely respected by other people, in the guidelines of motherhood, family, and domesticity. They viewed women as women that should be faithful and loyal to their husbands. A women that was caught in adultery would be banished from her home and most likely be executed. If a man was caught in adultery, he wouldn’t get punished. These principles of behavior were to also be performed by the upper-class. The free women in the lower-class would normally” enter into the working world outside of home.” Women that served as slaves didn’t have much control over themselves and their lives. As you can see women were usually subordinate to men.
Economy
During imperial Rome, the economy rose and flourished very well. The imperial rule and the imperial markets that were opening brought several opportunities for economic development and profit in the provinces it conquered, even though most of it went to the “local wealthy elites who possessed the capital and skills to take advantage of them.” Rome was able to rule a population of about one million during Caesar Augustus was in rule. While they were ruling this amount of people many resources were needed. The most important was grains, which was imported to the Romans from Sicily, Egypt, Spain, the North African coast, and the lands surrounding the Black Sea. Merchants worked on importing more specialized products from all around the empire including: wine and olive oil from Spain, Italy, and the Mediterranean shores; pottery and glass from Rhineland; woolen textiles from Britain and northern France, the Netherlands, and Belgium; marble from Asia Minor; leather from southern France; and slaves from many lands. For gladiatorial contests that were performed in the Colosseum and for general display in Rome, animals such as lions were brought from Asia and Africa, horses from Spain, crocodiles and camels from Egypt, bears from Scotland, and much more.
Trade was very important in the Roman Empire. People who were wealthy and had the power were able to command specialy goods. In order to supply their demands there had to be “small but significant streams of intercontinental, long-distance, luxury trade.” If these trade routes were going to flourish, they had to be protected, this is where the Pax Romana comes to play. The Pax Romana, meant Roman peace, and it enforced Roman rule and miluary control. If I were you, this would be the perfect time to go to the Roman Empire (this was around 180 BCE). The Pax Romana secured the Red Sea routes, which allowed myrrh, frankincense, and other spices from the peninsula of Arabia and the Horn of Africa. Spices and textiles were imported from India and some were transshipped from China. The Pax Romana helped secure the secure the Silk Routes, which helped the Kushan, Han China, Iran, including the Roman Empire rise to their peaks. When the Pax Romana started to fall apart, which was around late in the second century CE, would be when I would recommend you not go to the Roman Empire. External attacks by the Germanic peoples and internal revolts contributed to the end of the Pax Romana, they also “introduced major obstacles to the trade.” As the trade declined, the populations of cities decreased greatly, markets and roads were no longer secure, and they provided “less opportunities for making profit and less incentive to producers.”
Architecture
Architecture, you might notice, is very unique and different from other civilizations. For starters you might be able to spot an aqueduct. The Romans are s
aid to be remembered more for their engineering features than their art. These aqueducts that they were able to construct were used for sanitation and for public baths. The Romans also had public bathing houses, and with the invention of the aqueducts the demand for these baths heightened. They built the aqueducts not only for sanitation, but for in general, a clean and purified water supply, with their urban population growing extremely quickly, theses aqueducts were needed greatly.
Another piece of architecture that they had were the coliseums. When the Romans conquered other lands, they tended to absorb their culture and architecture into their own empire. For example when they conquered the Greek city-states, they brought with them the influence of the Greeks’ coliseums. Looking back, the The Roman aqueduct at Segovia, Spain Romans had absorbed the architectural influence of the Etruscans and now from the Greeks. This arch
itecture that mixed the Roman architecture with the Greek architecture is called the Greco-Roman architecture. These coliseums were built to house their spectacular entertainment such as mock-sea battles and gladiatorial combats. The Colosseum in Rome, shown on the right, was built made out of the Roman invention of concrete which made constructions more feasible, and was able to hold up to 50,000 people. The Colosseum was built combing decorative traditions of the Greeks with the “engineering ingenuity of the Romans.”