Tag: Roman Empire

A great task faced Marcus Aurelius when he became the Roman emperor in AD 161, as successor to his uncle, Emperor Antonius Pius. Generations of luxury had made the patricians, or nobles, weak and selfish. The middle class was disappearing, and the working class was being reduced to a state of slaver...

Despite the wise measures which had pacified Spain during the governorship of Gracchus, the Roman administration was soon after conducted on the lines of tyranny again. Before long, the whole country was seething with hatred of its new masters, and praetors or consuls who could barely hold their ow...

In 74 BC Marcus Antonius, father of the famous Mark Antony, had been given special powers to suppress the large-scale piracy in the Mediterranean. But his attempts had ended in dismal failure. After Antonius' death, the consul Quintus Metellus was set upon the same task in 69 BC. Matters indeed did ...

With Pompey about to return to Rome, no one knew what the conqueror of the east intended to do. Both Cicero and Caesar wanted his alliance. But Caesar knew how to wait and turn events in his favour. At present Crassus with his gold was more important then Pompey with his men. The money of Crassus en...

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Lectures The Geography of ItalyThe EtruscansThe Roman RepublicRoman Expansion and the Punic WarsThe Civil WarThe Rise of Julius CasearInstructional Goal: Students will know the cause and effects of the Roman Civil War. I. The rapid growth of the Roman colonial holding created many internal problems....

In the treaty of 348 BC Carthage had undertaken to respect all Latin territory and coast towns as a Roman sphere of influence, and granted to Roman traders admission to the ports of her dominions of Africa, Sardinia and Sicily, as well as of Carthage itself. So too were Roman ships of war to enjoy a...

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Ancient History Sourcebook:Suetonius: De Vita Caesarum--Divus Titus, c. 110 C.E. [Arkenberg Introduction]. Rolfe's annotations appear in brackets with no attribution; mine are noted. I have also replaced modern place names, as used by Rolfe, with those in use by the Romans and Hellenes; thus, for ex...

Meanwhile the party in Rome most hostile toward him was straining itself to the utmost to effect his ruin between the termination of his present appointment and his entry into a new post. Caesar would be secure from attack if he passed straight from his position of proconsul of Gaul and Illyricum i...

After the violent death of Tiberius Gracchus, the Gracchus family wasn't finished yet.Gaius Gracchus, a flamboyant and powerful public speaker, was to be a far more formidable political force than his brother. The legacy of Tiberius Gracchus, the agrarian law, was being applied in a manner which cre...

Five years after the conclusion of the treaty with Carthage, Rome was at war with the Samnites. For centuries the Sabellian highlanders of the Apennines had struggled to force their way into the plains between the hills and the Mediterranean. But Tuscans and Latins had held them in check, and for th...