Tag: Rome

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....

Sulla took charge of the constitution in 81 BC. All the power of the state would henceforth lay in the hands of the senate.The Tribunes of the People and the people's assemblies had been by the democrats to overthrow the senate. Tribunes were to be barred from all further office and the assemblies w...

A notable situation occurred when, at the festival of the Lupercalia in February 44 BC, Mark Antony offered Caesar the crown as king of Rome. He rejected the offer dramatically, but with obvious reluctance. The idea of a king still remained intolerable to the Romans. Many senators though suspected ...

In 52 BC, just as Pompey's jealousies reached their height, a great rebellion was organized in the very heart of Gaul by the heroic Arvernian chief Vercingetorix. So stubborn and so able was the Gallic chief that all Caesar's energies were required for the campaign. On an attack on Gergovia Caesar e...

Lucius Cornelius SullaSulla, Lucius Cornelius, called Felix (138-78BC), Roman general and statesman, who led the Optimates (aristocratic party) during the civil war of 88-86BC. Sylla By Plutarch Sylla(legendary, died 78 B.C.E.) By Plutarch Written 75 A.C.E. LUCIUS Cornelius Sylla was descended of a ...

After Caesar's great victory at Pharsalus, all was not yet won. The Pompeians still controlled the seas, Africa was in their hands and Juba of Numidia was siding with them. Caesar was not yet master of the empire. Therefore, at the first possible moment, Caesar had set out with a small force after P...

Tiberius and his brother Gaius Gracchus were to be two men who should become famous, if not infamous, for their struggle for the lower classes of Rome.They themselves though originated from Rome's very elite. Their father was a consul and military commander and their mother was from the distinguishe...

By Plutarch (died 30 B.C.E.) The grandfather of Antony was the famous pleader, whom Marius put to death for having taken part with Sylla. His father was Antony, surnamed of Crete, not very famous or distinguished in public life, but a worthy good man, and particularly remarkable for his liberality, ...

In the summer of 47 BC Caesar began his way home. While passing through Judaea he rewarded the intervention of Antipater at Alexandria with a reduction of the tribute the Jewish people had to pay to Rome. But more serious matters were still to be taken care of. Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, ha...

Lucius Aurelius Commodus on 31 August AD 161 at Lanuvium, roughly 14 miles south-east of Rome.Of the fourteen children of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger, Commodus was the tenth. He was born one of twins, though his twin brother died when he was only four years old. He was given the Commodu...

by Plutarch Marcus Crassus, whose father had borne the office of a censor, andreceived the honor of a triumph, was educated in a little housetogether with his two brothers, who both married in their parents'lifetime; they kept but one table amongst them; all which,perhaps, was not the least reason o ...

Pompey the Great (106-48BC), Roman general and statesman, the erstwhile ally and son-in-law of Julius Caesar, but later his arch-rival for power. Pompey was born Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in Rome on September 29, 106BC, into a senatorial family; his father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, was consul in 89BC. ...