Roman Empire & Rise of Christianity (p. 159-178)

Section 2: From Republic to Empire (from p. 159)

• Before turning into an empire, Rome was governed by two triumvirates:
• First Triumvirate: Julius Caesar, Crassus (rich man) and Pompey (general)
• Second Triumvirate: Marc Antony, Lepidus and Octavian (Caesar's adopted grand-nephew who was put there to be controlled by the senate).
• Since the Second Triumvirate eventually turned into an emperorship, Julius Caesar is considered the transition from the republic to the empire.
  
  
  
• Major differences between the republic and the empire's governments include:
• Highest official(s)
• In the republic, the two annually elected consuls who held equal power were the highest officials.
• A dictator might've also been appointed for 6 months only in times of emergency.
• In the empire, an emperor who inherited power and served for life was the highest official.
• If they served well, they were worshipped as gods after death.
• Governing bodies
• In the republic, the senate advised magistrates and people, held enormous power and had about 300 members.
• There were also two popular assemblies: centuriate (military) and tribal (nonmilitary).
• Magistrates, who held legislative power and made key decisions, were elected in the popular assemblies.
• In the empire, the senate ordered, acted as a high court, chose magistrates, held little power compared to the emperor and had about 600 members.
• In the Second Triumvirate Lepidus disappeared, so Marc Anthony and Octavian divide power so that Marc Anthony would control the rich east and Octavian the west; however, soon Marc Antony would kill himself after losing the Battle of Actium to Octavian.
• The senate gave the triumphant Octavian the title of Augustus (Exalted One) and declared him princeps (first citizen).
• Augustus was careful not to call himself king because Romans hated this title since Etruscan times, but he had absolute power and named a successor, just like a king.
• Under Augustus (ruled until 14 AD) the 500 year old republic came to an end.
• Augustus laid the foundation for a stable government through firm but moderate policies that functioned well for 200 years, he:
• Left the senate in place and created an efficient civil service to enforce its laws.
• Opened high-level jobs to men of talent, regardless of their class.
• Cemented the allegiance of cities and provinces to Rome by allowing them a large amount of self-government.
• Undertook economic reforms, like ordering a census (population count) to have records of those who should be taxed in order to make the tax system more fair.
• Set up a postal service and issued new coins to make trade easier.
• Put the jobless to work building roads and temples and sent others to farm land.
• A constant question the romans faced was: "Who would rule after an emperor died?".
• They didn't accept the idea of power passing automatically from father to son, so the death of an emperor often led to intrigue and violence.
• Not all of Augustus' successors were great rulers; some were weak, incompetent and considered evil and insane like:
• Caligula, who appointed his favorite horse as consul.
• Nero, who viciously persecuted Christians and was even blamed for setting a great fire that destroyed much of Rome.
• Between 96 AD and 180 AD the empire benefited from the rule of a series of "good emperors" who were chosen by merit:
• Nerva
• Trajan, a Spanish man who brought the empire to its greatest size
• Hadrian, an English man who codified Roman law, making it the same for all provinces, and built a wall across Britain to hold back attackers (barbarians) from the non-Roman north.
• Antonius Pius
• Marcus Aurelius, who was close to Plato's ideal philosopher-king because he read philosophy while leading wars
• He wrote Meditations, which show his commitment to duty.
• The 200 year period of peace, order, unity and prosperity that began with Augustus and ended with Marcus Aurelius is known as the Pax Romana (Roman Peace); during this time:
• The empire was about the size of the continental United States, from the Euphrates River (east) to Britain (west).
• Roman legions maintained and protected the roads, and Roman fleets chased pirates from the seas.
• Trade flowed freely; Egyptian farmers gave Romans grain, the Africans gave them ivory, gold and lions (for entertainment), the Indians gave spices, cotton, and precious stones, and trade caravans traveled through the great Silk Road, bringing silk and other goods from China.
• People moved easily, spreading ideas and knowledge.
• Entertainment was given to the rich and poor.
• Chariot races were at the Circus Maximus, Rome's largest racecourse; fans bet on their favorite teams and successful charioteers were hailed as heroes.
• Gladiator contests were even more popular; many gladiators were slaves trained to fight, a good one might even reach freedom but if he was bad the crowd did a thumbs down, indicating he should be killed.
• General prosperity hid underlying social and economic problems, entertainment and giving free grain to the poor were ways to pacify and distract the city's mobs.
• This is a policy of "bread and circuses" many warned against, but few listened.
• It ended because Marcus Aurelius' weakness was his son; he named his son as his successor and he did a very bad job.

Section 3: The Roman Achievement

• Roman culture wasn't simply Roman, but a mix between the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman; this is known as Greco-Roman civilization.
• Romans absorbed ideas from Greece just like the Greek had from the Egyptians and those from the Fertile Crescent; since their early days from colonists in southern Italy and even more when they conquered Greece.  They came to admire Greek culture.
• The poet Horace wrote: "Greece has conquered her rude conqueror."
• Marcus Tullius Cicero was a philosopher, politician, and passionate defender of law who often attacked ambitious men such as Caesar.
• Roman literature imitated Greek styles in prose and poetry, but was written in Latin.
• Virgil wrote the epic poem Aeneid soon after Augustus came to power, in it he tried to show that Rome's past was as heroic as Greece's and hoped it would arouse patriotism and help unite Rome after years of civil wars.
• It was linked to Homer's work because he tells how Aeneas escaped from Troy to found Rome.
• Horace was a poet who wrote satires (poems that satirize, or make fun of) that used playful wit to attack human folly.
• Juvenal was a Roman poet who wrote satires more biting than Horace's.
• Martial was another Roman poet who wrote satires that were so harsh, he had to use fictitious names to protect himself from retribution.
• Historians wrote about the rise and fall of Roman power.
• Livy was a historian who sought to arise patriotic feeling and restore traditional Roman virtues (like the poet Virgil) by recalling images of Rome's heroic past.
• Livy wrote The History of Rome, in which he recounted tales of heroes such as Horatius and Cincinnatus and said why studying history was important.
• Tacitus was another historian who wrote bitterly about Augustus and his successors because he thought they had destroyed Roman liberty.
• Tacitus admired the Germans' (who were just north of Rome and would later invade the empire) simple culture.
• Romans borrowed much of their philosophy from the Greeks.
• Stoicism (a Hellenistic philosophy) impressed Roman thinkers such as the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
• Stoics stressed the importance of duty, accepting one's fate and showing concern for the well-being of all people (like future Christian teachings).
• Roman art and architecture was an adaptation based on Greek and Etruscan models.
• Roman sculptors stressed realism (like the Greeks), but some were idealistic.
• They broke a new ground in realism by focusing on revealing character (expressions).
• An example of idealistic Roman sculpting was how Augustus was transformed into someone who was neither handsome nor imposing, but a symbol of power and leadership.
• Romans used works of art to beautify their homes; examples can be found preserved in Pompeii (a city buried by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD).
• Artists depicted scenes from Roman literature and daily life in frescoes and mosaics (pictures made from chips of colored stone or glass).
• Romans emphasized grandeur in their architecture (opposed to Greeks, who favored simple elegance), they:
• Improved the column and the arch.
• Used concrete as a building material.
• Developed the rounded dome as a roof for large spaces.
• The most famous domed structure is the Pantheon, a temple that honors Roman gods and still stands in Rome today.
• Romans excelled in engineering, which is the application of science and mathematics to develop useful structures and machines.
• Engineers built roads, bridges, and harbors.
• Eleven separate aqueducts (bridgelike stone structures that carried water from the hills into Roman cities) covered more than 260 miles of land to supply the city of Rome with clean water from mountain springs outside the city.
• Once in the city, the water was piped into public buildings and baths (were in every city and people gossiped there), some houses (the rich's) and gardens.  A lot ended up in public fountains, where people gathered it for cooking and drinking.
• Romans left scientific research to the Greeks, who were citizens of the empire at that time.
• Ptolemy was an astronomer-mathematician that proposed a heliocentric theory (Earth is the center of the universe) in Alexandria, Egypt that was wrongly accepted in the Western World for nearly 1,500 years.
• Galen was a Greek doctor who advanced the frontiers of medical science by insisting on experiments to prove a conclusion; he compiled a medical encyclopedia summarizing what was known in the field at the time that remained a standard text for more than 1,000 years.
• Even though Romans did little original research, they put science to a practical use; they:
• Applied geography to make maps.
• Applied medical knowledge to help doctors improve public health.
• Collected knowledge in encyclopedias.
• Pliny the Elder, a Roman scientist, compiled volumes on geography, zoology, botany, and other topics all based on other people's works.
• Rome's greatest legacy was probably its commitment to the rule of law and justice, which fostered unity and stability.
• Rome's law principles became the basis for legal systems throughout the world, including the United States'.
• Rome's law system transitioned and two codes became one.
• First, civil law was developed and applied to citizens, but as Rome expanded, many foreigners weren't covered under it.
• Then, a second system of law known as the law of nations emerged; this one applied to all people under Roman rule (citizens and non-citizens).
• Later, when Rome extended citizenship across the empire, the two systems merged.
• Roman principles when practicing law included:
• An accused person was presumed innocent until proven guilty.
• The accused was allowed to face the accuser and offer a defense against the charge.
• Guilt had to be established "clearer than daylight", using solid evidence.
• Judges were allowed to interpret the laws and were expected to make fair decisions.
• Penalties varied according to social class, and lower-class defendants could be treated more harshly.

Section 4: The Rise of Christianity

• Early in the Pax Romana, Christianity arose in a distant corner of the Roman empire.  The Roman empire was tolerant of different religions, but it was almost 300 years before a Roman emperor, Constantine, fully supported the new religion of Christianity.
• Legend has it that the emperor Constantine saw a cross in the sky with the words "By this you shall conquer" just before a battle, so he had his troops mark their shields with a Christian symbol and fully embraced Christianity after winning the battle.
• At first, Christianity was one of the many religions practiced in the Roman empire, but as faith grew it was gradually made the official religion throughout the 380s and 390s (AD) and reshaped Roman beliefs.
• The Roman empire was very culturally diverse, so various religious beliefs coexisted, and even though Jupiter, Mars, Juno, etc. still remained important and citizens were obligated to show loyalty to them (and the divine spirit of the emperor), a growing number of people looked elsewhere for spiritual fulfillment.
• Most people were polytheistic, so they were content to worship the Roman gods along with their own.
• Some turned to the mystery religions, which emphasized secret rituals and promised special rewards.
• One of the most popular mystery religions was the cult of Isis, which started in Egypt and offered women equal status with men.
• Roman soldiers favored the cult of the Persian god Mithras, who championed good over evil and offered life after death.
• By 63 BC, Romans had conquered Judea, where most Jews of the time lived.
• Romans excused Jews from worshipping Roman gods to avoid violating the Jewish belief in one God, but among the Jewish people, religious ferment created deep divisions.
• During the Hellenistic age, many Jews absorbed Greek customs and ideas, so Jewish conservatives rejected these influences and called for strict obedience to Jewish laws and traditions out of concern for the weakening of their religion.
• Most Jews were reluctantly willing to live under Roman rule, but the Zealots were not.
• Zealots called on Jews to revolt against Rome and reestablish an independent state; some Jews believed that a messiah (anointed king sent by God) would soon appear to lead their people to freedom.
• In 66 AD discontent led to a rebellion, but 4 years later (70 AD) Roman forces crushed the rebels, captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple.
• Thousands of Jews were killed in the fighting, and many others were enslaved.
• Due to this, many Jews decided to leave Judea.
• Although Jews were defeated in their efforts to regain political independence, they survived in scattered communities around the  Mediterranean.
• Over the centuries, Jewish teachers (rabbis) extended and preserved the Jewish law, so Judaism survived.
• As turmoil engulfed the Jews in Judea, a new religion, Christianity, arose amongst them.
• It began among the followers of a Jew named Jesus.
• Almost all the information we have about the life of Jesus comes from the Gospels (Evangelios), the first four books of the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
• Early Christians attributed the writing of these accounts to four followers of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
• Jesus was born in about 4 BC in Bethlehem, near Jerusalem.
• According to the Gospels, he was a descendant of King David of Israel.
• The Gospels say an angel told Jesus' mother, Mary, that she would give birth to the messiah and that "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High God."
• Growing up in the small town of Nazareth, Jesus worshipped God and followed Jewish law.
• As a young man, he may have worked as a carpenter.
• At the age of 30, the Gospels relate, he began preaching to the villagers near the Sea of Galilee.
• Large crowds gathered to hear his teachings, especially when word spread he had performed miracles of healing.
• Jesus often used parables (short stories with simple moral lessons) to communicate his ideas.
• He recruited 12 of his disciples, or close followers, to help him in his mission.
• He called these 12 the apostles, a name that in Greek means "a person sent forth" and after three years, Jesus and his disciples went to Jerusalem to spread his message there.
• Jesus' teachings were firmly rooted in Jewish tradition: he believed in one God, accepted the Ten Commandments, preached obedience to the laws of Moses and defended the teachings of the Jewish prophets.
• However, Jesus preached new beliefs by calling himself the Son of God and many claiming he was the long-anticipated messiah.
• Jesus proclaimed that his mission was to bring spiritual salvation and eternal life to anyone who believed in him.
• Jesus, echoing Jewish teachings, emphasized God's love and taught the need for justice, morality and service to others.
• Jesus said a person's major duties were loving the Lord, our God, with all our hearts and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
• He also emphasized the importance of forgiveness.
• According to the Gospels, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem near the time of the Jewish festival of Passover, a celebration of the exodus from Egypt.
• Jesus was a threat to Roman authorities because his speeches could inflame those eager  to end Roman rule.
• He was betrayed by one of his disciples and then arrested by the Romans, tried, and condemned to death by crucifixion.
• The Gospels say that Jesus rose from the death and told his disciples to spread his teachings to all people, to then ascend into heaven.
• After Jesus' death, the apostles and other disciples did spread his message.
• At first, they only preached amongst Jews in Judea, where some Jews accepted the teaching that Jesus was the messiah, or the Christ, from the Greek word for anointed one.
• The apostle Peter established Christianity in Rome itself, but Paul, a Jew from Asia Minor, played the most influential role in spreading Christianity.
• Peter was the chief apostle; he devoted his life to spreading the teachings of Jesus and had been born with the name Simon, but Jesus said to him: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church".
• He became a missionary and then the bishop of Antioch and Rome, but his devotion to Jesus and Christianity cost him his life when he was persecuted under the Roman emperor Nero.
• When Peter learns he'll be crucified, he asks it be done upside down, saying he's not worthy of dying like Jesus.
• Paul never met Jesus and had been among those who persecuted his followers, but one day he had a vision of Jesus talking to him about spreading his teachings to gentiles, or non-Jews.
• Until this time, Christianity was a sect in Judaism.
• The work of missionaries like Paul set Christianity on the road of becoming a world religion.
• Paul also set up churches in Asia Minor and Greece on his journeys around the Mediterranean.
• He said those who believed Jesus was the Son of God would achieve salvation or eternal life.
• Rome's tolerance toward religions wasn't extended to Christianity, so Christians met in secret to avoid persecution and rumors spread that they were engaged in evil practices.
• Some Roman rulers, such as Nero, used Christians as scapegoats, blaming them for social or economic ills.
• Both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome during Nero's reign.
• Christianity spread throughout the Roman world despite attacks.
• Jesus had welcomed all people, especially the lowly, the poor and the opressed.
• These people found comfort in his message of love, as well as in his teachings of equality, dignity and the promise of a better life beyond the grave.
• Missionaries like Paul used ideas from Plato, the Stoics, and other Greek thinkers to explain Jesus' message.
• Because Christianity incorporated Greek philosophy, it also appealed to educated Romans.
• Even persecutions brought new converts because seeing people's willingness to die for their religion impressed people.
• One roman noted: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church"
• The persecution of Christian ends in 313 AD when the emperor Constantine issues the Edict of Milan, which granted freedom of worship to all citizens of the Roman empire.
• By the end of the century, the emperor Theodosius had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire and repressed the practice of other faiths.
• This made the church grow in power and develop its own bureaucracy.
• To join the Christian church you had to be baptized with holy water.
• Christians believe this rite forgives your sins by the grace of God.
• Members address each other as "brother" or "sister".
• Each Sunday Christians gather for a ceremony of thanksgiving to God.
• The Eucharist is a rite in which the baptized ate bread and drank wine in the memory of Jesus' last supper.
• Women were welcomed and served as teachers and administrators at first, but were then barred from any official role, but they continued to work as missionaries.
• Only men could be eligible to form part of the clergy.
• The clergy is the group of people who conduct Christian services.
• Each Christian community was grouped as a diocese.
• Every diocese had its own priest and a bishop who presided over the priests in that diocese.
• All bishops were considered successors of the apostles in the early church.
• Bishops of the most important cities (Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Constantinople) gained greater authority and took on the title of patriarch, which meant they presided over the bishops in their areas.
• The bishop of Rome became called the Pope and claim authority over all other bishops, but the other four patriarchs thought they should be equals.
• Christians developed theology, a word that in Greek means "talk or discourse about God".
• Two leading Christian scholars were Clement and Origen.
• Both worked as teachers in Egypt, Alexandria
• The greatest of early Church scholars was Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa.
• He combined Christian doctrine with Greco-Roman learning (Plato's philosophy).
• Around 51 AD, Paul founded a Christian community in Corinth; he eventually wrote two letters two them that are now in the Bible.

ESTE REPASO SOLO ES DE UNA PARTE DEL IMPERIO ROMANO.  RECUERDA REPASAR TAMBIÉN DE SU CAÍDA, EL IMPERIO BIZANTINO Y LAS CRUZADAS.  PARA ESTO, DEBES LEER EL LIBRO Y ESTUDIAR DE TUS NOTAS.  LAS PÁGINAS ASIGNADAS SON: 159-172 (EN REPASO), 173-178, CHAPTER 8 (SECTION 3) Y CHAPTER 9 (SECTION 1).