Ancient Rome

Introduction

Ancient Rome is the Roman Civilization founded in 8th Century BC in the ancient city of Rome. Ancient Rome succeeded the Western Roman Empire which fell in the 5th Century AD. Before it fell, the Western Roman Empire comprised of the Roman kingdom, the Roman Empire and the Roman republic. Ancient Rome simply refers to the great kingdom and the republic period which replaced the subsequent that Western Roman Empire (Adkins et al., 45).
Civilization of the Ancient Rome began in the 8th Century in a small town in central Italy. The town was located in the casts of central Italy’s River, Tiber. The town then later grew into a massive empire which constituted most of the Europe, Western Asia, Britain, North Africa and the Mediterranean islands (Carcopino, 13). The dominance of ancient Rome is known for many legacies the most common being the widespread use of the Roman languages e.g., Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian and Spanish which were derived from Latin. There are also the modern day Roman alphabets, calendar, as well as the growth and spread of Christianity worldwide (Adkins et al., 168).
Ancient Rome remained an empire for 450 years before it became an empire under the leadership of Julius Caesar. Its first emperor Augustus inspired peace and prosperity in Rome before its fall in the 5th Century. According to the legendary myth, Ancient Rome was founded by twin brothers Romulus and Remus on 21st April in 753 BC. The brothers were born after their father, Mars, the god of war raped their mother Rhea Silvia. They were hence considered half-divine. The then King Amulius, feared the two sons would grow up and over him (Carcopino, 32). Henceforth, he ordered them to be drowned in a basket in River Tiber. However, the twins were rescued and raised by a she wolf. When they were old enough, the twin brothers went and overthrew Amulius and returned the kingdom to its rightful owner, Numitor. The twins then founded their own city in the banks of river Tiber in 753 B.C. However, the brothers were involved in argument and Romulus killed his brother Remus. Thus, Romulus solely owned Rome, named it after him and became its first king. Rome then later ruled by Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan kings in a non-hereditary basis (Adkins et al., 237).
After its establishment, ancient Rome, massively expanded and became one of the largest historical empires in the ancient world. Despite being ruled from a city, the Roman Empire exponentially grew both in size and power. The empire had approximately between 50 -90 million people, which was about 20% of the entire world population. Similarly, it covered an estimated 5M square kilometers in 117 AD. During its many centuries of existence, Rome evolved from a monarchy, to a republic and finally to an autocratic empire (Carcopino, 56).
During its monarchial years, the power of the monarch was passed to two annually elected magistrates known as the consuls. These consuls also functioned as the army commanders in chief. Though elected by the citizens, the consuls were largely drawn from the senate dominated by patricians or the descendants of Romulus senators (Adkins et al., 267). During the early republic, politics comprised of long struggles between the common people (plebeians) and the patricians. Eventually, the common people succeeded in attaining some political power from the patricians. Later in 450 BC, the first Roman law code was formulated engraved on twelve bronze tablets (Platner, 248).
As a republic, the Roman Empire massively increased its power and size. However, in 390 B.C., the Gauls sacked and burned down Rome but the Romans bounced back into power during the era of Camillus, the military hero. In fact, Rome eventually regained control of the entire Italian Peninsula by the year 264 B.C. Rome then fought the Punic wars with Carthage, a northern Africa state (Carcopino, 36). After winning the three wars, Rome was fully in control of Sicily, the western Mediterranean, Spain, Western Europe, parts of Asia, parts of Northern and Eastern Europe and acquired a province in North Africa. Rome’s military defeats also resulted into the deep cultural growth of the society because they directly contacted withy other cultures e.g. the Greeks. The similar cultures between Rome and Greece are called the Greco- Roman World (Adkins et al., 346).
Civilization in Ancient Rome has massively contributed to the modern day government through politics, laws, and leadership. It also contributed to the modern day society and culture through; language, religion, art, literature architecture warfare and technology. When Rome trained and expanded its military, it created a republic, a system of government which is a great inspiration to modern day democratic nations e.g. France and the U.S. The architect and technology in the empire is also evident today in large monuments, palaces, roads, aqueducts and public utilities (Carcopino, 28).
Rome’s composite political institutions began to fall because of the fast growing empire leading to an era of internal feuds and violence. Also, the gap between the poor and the rich Romans fast increased which led to more internal struggles. Any attempt to solve these feuds resulted in the deaths of the involved activists. Many years passed and finally in 71 B.C Gaius Julius Caesar rose to power after acquiring military exaltation in Spain (Adkins et al., 369). However, Caesar’s reign was cut short after he was killed by several of his enemies. These were led by the nobles Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius. Through the year, 29 B.C., Octavian was the solitary leader of Rome and all its overseas provinces. Octavian made sure he was the absolute ruler by resorting the Empire’s political institutions. Hence, he acquired and retained all the political power for himself in order to avoid Caesars’s fate. Octavian the assumed the title Augustus and became the first Roman emperor (Platner, 298).
Under the leadership of Augustus, the Roman Empire got restored bring an end to the era of corruption and internal feuds. However, Augustus finally died and the kingdom was back under the leadership of incompetent and selfish leaders. Meanwhile, external threats to the empire exhausted its wealth and riches. Romans also faced aggressive invasion from the Parthians and Germans (Adkins et al., 426). Moreover, the unity of the empire greatly deteriorated as its leadership system fast became unstable. Constantine led and reunited the empire in 324 B.C but 30 years after his death, the eastern and western parts of the empire completely divided. Ultimately, Rome collapsed because of the weight of its overstuffed empire. The empire lost its provinces one by one and finally was defeated by Germany (Platner, 567).
Conclusion
Ancient Rome is the Roman Civilization founded in 8th Century BC in the ancient city of Rome. Ancient Rome succeeded the Western Roman Empire which fell in the 5th century AD. Ancient Rome was founded by twin brothers Romulus and Remus on 21st April in 753 BC. The brothers were sons of Mars, the god of war. King Amulius ordered them to be drowned to death in River Tiber. Later they founded their own city in the banks of river Tiber in 753 B.C which eventually grew into Rome named after Romulus. The kingdom grew enormously acquiring external provinces and political dominance. It also acquired massive riches and culture. Nonetheless, the Rome eventually fell over a series of internal feuds, corruption, bad leadership and external attacks.
Works Cited
Adkins, Lesley, and Roy A. Adkins. Handbook to life in ancient Rome. New York, NY: InfoBase publishing, 2014. 450. Print.
Carcopino, Jerome. Daily Life in Ancient Rome-The People and the City at the Height of the Empire. Read Books Ltd, 2013.
Platner, Samuel Ball. A topographical dictionary of ancient Rome. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 688. Print.