WH1 Lesson 13, 14 & 15

• Roman cities are center of culture.
• Class division separate the citizens of Rome.
• Roman society includes slaves.
• SENECA - Urged humane treatment to slaves.
• PATERFAMILIAS - fathers has a full authority over the household.
• PATRICIANS- Upper class, wealthy land owners.

  PLEBIANS- Lower class sometimes called “Plebs"
• LITERATOR - Taught young boys reading and writing
• CALCULATOR - Taught young boys’ arithmetic
• Roman cities provide popular entertainment.
• CHARIOT RACE - Most popular Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports, very dangerous to both driver and the horse as they suffered serious injury even death.
• GLADIATORS - Man trained to fight with weapons against other men or wild animals in an arena.
• EMPEROR TITUS - During his reign 5000 animals were killed.
• Rome’s eastern conquest in the second century B.C. brought thousands of Greek intellectuals, businessmen, and slaves to Italy.
• Wealthy Romans hired Greek teachers, poets, and philosophers to live in their households.
• VIRGIL - Glorified the Roman talent for governing in the Aeneid.
• AENEID - Tells the legend of Aeneas whose descendants supposedly founded Rome.
• HORACE - Criticized the wealthy living of Romans.
• OVID - Wrote of wealth, fashion, romance, and the enjoyment of life.
• JUVENAL

  • Last Great Roman writer.
  • criticizes roman society.
• 200 years of the Pax Romana - the high point of Greco-Roman civilization.
• Invasions and civil wars - disrupted transportation and trade and contributed to the decline of city life.
• Christianity - a new religion began to spread in the Roman world.
• Pax Romana - brought the ancient world 200 years of peace, rule by law, and civilized life.
• Emperor Commodus - when he began his reign late in the second century A.D., the Empire was facing serious problems in many areas.
• Persians - seized Roman lands in the Near East.
• Mediterranean - which were the centers of Greco-Roman civilization, began to decay.
• Diocletian - appointed a loyal general as co-ruler in the western regions to make the empire easier to govern.
• Diocletian - He moved the imperial court to Asian Minor and ruled from there.
• Germanic Peoples - live in the forests and marshes of northern Europe were a continuing problem for the Romans.
• The Germanic peoples were organized in tribes rather than states.
• Germanic Peoples had no written laws, written literature, or philosophy, and so the Romans looked on them as uncivilized barbarians.
• The warmer climate, rich farmlands, and wealth of the Roman lands attracted the Germanic tribes.
• Huns - a fierce nomadic people from Central Asia.
• Visigoths - a Germanic tribe (West Goths) ask for refuge within the Roman Empire.
• 376 A.D. - the Roman emperor reluctantly allowed the Visigoths to cross the Danube River into what is now Rumania.
• Battle of Adrianople - the Visigoth cavalry defeated the Roman army.
• Alaric - the Visigoth leader led his troops into Italy, demanding land and a generalship in the Roman army.
• Attila - King of Huns, led his forces into Gaul.
• Vandals - less civilized than the Goths, caused such destruction that we now have the word vandalism as a reminder of the reputation they gained.
• In A.D. 476 some of these Germanic officers overthrew the Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, who was only a child.