Even in 20 books this size, I probably wouldn’t be able to fit in everything that’s known about the Roman Empire and its people — let alone its pervasive legacy.
In this chapter, you’ll follow the way Rome grew from a city-state ruled by a king to a republic to a vast empire and how that empire eventually deteriorated into a divided, crumbling political ruin. And you can find out about how Rome left such a history and a lasting mark on the world that sometimes, it almost seems that the Roman Empire was the only great empire of the final century BC and the early centuries AD. But you’ll also encounter other powerful empires that rose and fell in the Middle East, Asia, and in the Americas, far away and isolated from the Roman sphere. Imperial expansion dominated much of the world.
Rome’s Ascent and Demise
From its legendary beginnings to its fractured demise, the Roman civilization had a certain pizzazz that has captured the imagination of not just historians, but also everybody who’s fascinated by human achievement, military adventure, political intrigue, and tragedy. Shakespeare was among those who have been drawn to its stories (see more in the later section “Crossing the Rubicon”), and so am I.
What’s the attraction? You can look at Rome’s long rise and descent from any number of angles and marvel at the complexity and sophistication, not to mention the cruelty and corruption of this long-lived culture. In the brief glimpses that follow, you can find clues to what fascinates so many of us with the Roman civilization.
Forming the Roman Republic
Roman legend says that the half-god, half-mortal Romulus, a son of the Greek war god Mars, built the city of Rome on the Tiber River in 753 BC and ruled as its first king. The legend also says that a female wolf suckled baby Romulus and his twin brother Remus, whom Romulus later murdered. Historians tend to disagree, especially about the wolf, and put the founding of Rome a bit later, around 645 BC. (For more about Romulus and Remus, see Chapter 19.)
Although he may not have tasted wolf’s milk or killed his twin, legend credits Romulus as being the first of seven kings who ruled Rome as a city-state, not unlike the Greek city-states around the Mediterranean (which you can find out about in Chapter 4), until 509 BC. That year was when King Tarquinius Superbus got on the wrong side of his advisory body of citizen-magistrates, the Roman Senate.
The Senate gave Tarquinius Superbus the boot and set up a republican system of government designed to prevent a tyrant from ever misruling Rome again. Two consuls, elected annually, served as administrative executives under the supervision of the Senate. The republic system worked, bringing the stability that Rome needed as it grew. And did it grow.
Earning citizenship
Romans lived in a stratified society organized by class (see the nearby “Roman class” sidebar for more). Opportunities and employment were strictly defined by birth, just as they were in many other cultures dominated by privileged aristocrats. Yet Roman custom also offered ways for non-citizens to improve their status or that of their children.
Rome allowed foreigners and slaves to become citizens. This opportunity was highly limited when compared to today’s standards but progressive for its time. Giving the Roman Empire’s lowborn and conquered people a chance at inclusion in society helped win those people’s loyalty to Rome, which added greatly to Rome’s growth and resilience.
Democratic Athens offered no such opportunities for outsiders. (See more about Athens in chapters 4 and 11.) In a Greek city-state, a slave could be granted freedom, but the best he could hope for was lowly resident-alien status; he was unlikely to develop loyalty to a state that excluded him. (And I do mean him. Women couldn’t even dream of citizenship.)
Why so exclusive? Greeks valued Greekness, looking down on those who didn’t speak their language and worship their gods. But the exclusion was also economic. The city-states of rocky Greece were usually short of resources, especially good farmland. Granting citizenship meant increasing the number of people who had a direct claim on the food supply. Making slaves citizens was expensive and would have meant increasing the number of voters, which may have caused unwanted power shifts.
In fertile Italy, on the other hand, food was relatively abundant, so shares weren’t such an issue. Also, blocks of votes rather than individual votes determined Roman elections, so an extra vote in a block had little potential impact.
Expanding the empire
By the third century BC, Rome had only one major rival for the position of top dog in the western Mediterranean: the city of Carthage, a rich trading port in North Africa.
Before 1000 BC, the Phoenicians sailed out of what is now Lebanon to expand trade opportunities. On the north African coast, in present-day Tunisia, they established the port city of Carthage. Around 600 BC, Carthage became so rich and populous that it cast off Phoenician rule.
ROMAN CLASS
Plebeian, which refers to a lowly person, is a word you may still run across. In Rome, the plebeian belonged to the second-lowest of four social classes. The lowest was the slave, who had no rights. Plebeians were a little better off, in that they were free, but beyond that, they had no clout. Next in the hierarchy were the equestrians, or riders. Equestrians were rich people — rich men, actually — of a class that rode horses when they were called to fight for Rome. They weren’t rich enough to have much power, though. For real power, you had to be among the patricians, or nobles. Patrician is a word that still gets used, too. Now, as back then, it’s applied to people of wealthy families who are accustomed to having authority.
Carthage and Rome fought three Punic Wars from 264–146 BC. (Punic comes from Punicus, a Latin word for Phoenician.) Carthage should have quit while it was ahead. In the first of these wars, Rome won the island of Sicily, its first
