Ancient Rome began as an Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian Peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Grecia) and the Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its height it controlled the North African coast, Egypt, Southern Europe, and most of Western Europe, the Balkans, Crimea, and much of the Middle East, including Anatolia, Levant, and parts of Mesopotamia and Arabia. That empire was among the largest empires in the ancient world, covering around 5 million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles) in AD 117, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants, roughly 20% of the world's population at the time. The Roman state evolved from an elective monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocraticmilitary dictatorship during the Empire.
Ancient Rome is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern language, religion, society, technology, law, politics, government, warfare, art, literature, architecture, and engineering. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. It achieved impressive technological and architectural feats, such as the empire-wide construction of aqueducts and roads, as well as more grandiose monuments and facilities. (Full article...)
1st century AD wall painting from Pompeii depicting a multigenerational banquet
The Roman people was the body of Roman citizens
(Latin: Rōmānī; Ancient Greek: ῬωμαῖοιRhōmaîoi) during the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire. This concept underwent considerable changes throughout the long history of the Roman civilisation, as its borders expanded and contracted. Originally only including the Latins of Rome itself, Roman citizenship was extended to the rest of the Italic peoples by the 1st century BC and to nearly every subject of the Roman empire in late antiquity. At their peak, the Romans ruled large parts of Europe, the Near East, and North Africa through conquests made during the Roman Republic and the subsequent Roman Empire. Although defined primarily as a citizenship, "Roman-ness" has also and variously been described as a cultural identity, a nationality, or a multi-ethnicity that eventually encompassed a vast regional diversity.
Citizenship grants, demographic growth, and settler and military colonies rapidly increased the number of Roman citizens. The increase achieved its peak with Emperor Caracalla's AD 212 Antonine Constitution, which extended citizenship rights to all free inhabitants of the empire. Roman identity provided a larger sense of common identity and became important when distinguishing from non-Romans, such as barbarian settlers and invaders. Roman culture was far from homogeneous; though there was a common cultural idiom, one of the strengths of the Roman Empire was also its ability to incorporate traditions from other cultures, notably but not exclusively Greece. (Full article...)
Image 5Solidus issued under Constantine II, and on the reverse Victoria, one of the last deities to appear on Roman coins, gradually transforming into an angel under Christian rule (from Roman Empire)
Image 6Condemned man attacked by a leopard in the arena (3rd-century mosaic from Tunisia) (from Roman Empire)
Image 7Model of archaic Rome, 6th century BC (from Founding of Rome)
Image 8Gold earrings with gemstones, 3rd century (from Roman Empire)
Image 15Pride in literacy was displayed through emblems of reading and writing, as in this portrait of Terentius Neo and his wife (c. 20 AD) (from Roman Empire)
Image 16Cinerary urn for the freedman Tiberius Claudius Chryseros and two women, probably his wife and daughter (from Roman Empire)
Image 23Excavation on the Palatine Hill has found the foundations of a hut believed to correspond to the Hut of Romulus, which the Romans themselves preserved into late antiquity (from Founding of Rome)
Image 24The Flavian Amphitheatre, more commonly known as the Colosseum (from Roman Empire)
Image 25A teacher with two students, as a third arrives with his loculus, a writing case (from Roman Empire)
Image 26Landscape resulting from the ruina montium mining technique at Las Médulas, Spain, one of the most important gold mines in the Roman Empire (from Roman Empire)
Image 47Eighteenth century painting by Pompeo Batoni depicting Aeneas fleeing from Troy. Aeneas carries his father. (from Founding of Rome)
Image 48The Roman Empire by 476, noting western and eastern divisions (from Roman Empire)
Image 49A fresco from Pompeii depicting the foundation of Rome. Sol riding in his chariot; Mars descending from the sky to Rhea Silvia lying in the grass; Mercury shows to Venus the she-wolf suckling the twins; in the lower corners of the picture: river-god Tiberinus and water-goddess Juturna. 35–45 AD. (from Founding of Rome)
Image 54Wall painting (1st century AD) from Pompeii depicting a multigenerational banquet (from Culture of ancient Rome)
Image 55Forum of Gerasa (Jerash in present-day Jordan), with columns marking a covered walkway (stoa) for vendor stalls, and a semicircular space for public speaking (from Roman Empire)
Sejanus is arrested, an etching by G. Mochetti after drawing by Bartolomeo Pinelli
Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (/sɪˈdʒeɪnəs/), was a Roman soldier, friend, and confidant of the Roman EmperorTiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian Guard, the imperial bodyguard, of which he was commander from AD 14 until his execution for treason in AD 31.
While the Praetorian Guard was formally established under Emperor Augustus, Sejanus introduced a number of reforms which saw the unit evolve beyond a mere bodyguard into a powerful and influential branch of the government involved in public security, civil administration and ultimately political intercession; these changes had a lasting impact on the course of the Principate. (Full article...)
...That according to Suetonius, Caligula "often sent for men whom he had secretly killed, as though they were still alive, and remarked offhandedly a few days later that they must have committed suicide"?
...That Mark Antony, who avenged Julius Caesar, was killed by Julius Caesar's grand nephew (Octavian) Augustus Caesar?
...That Sulla's grave read No friend ever surpassed him in kindness, and no enemy in ill-doing?
[...] Caesar is a god in his own city. Outstanding in war or peace, it was not so much his wars that ended in great victories, or his actions at home, or his swiftly won fame, that set him among the stars, a fiery comet, as his descendant. There is no greater achievement among Caesar's actions than that he stood father to our emperor. Is it a greater thing to have conquered the sea-going Britons; to have led his victorious ships up the seven-mouthed flood of the papyrus-bearing Nile; to have brought the rebellious Numidians, under Juba of Cinyps, and Pontus, swollen with the name of Mithridates, under the people of Quirinus; to have earned many triumphs and celebrated few; than to have sponsored such a man, with whom, as ruler of all, you gods have richly favoured the human race? Therefore, in order for the emperor not to have been born of mortal seed, Caesar needed to be made a god. [...]
Augustus, his 'son', will ensure that he ascends to heaven as a god, and is worshipped in the temples. Augustus, as heir to his name, will carry the burden placed upon him alone, and will have us with him, in battle, as the most courageous avenger of his father's murder. Under his command, the conquered walls of besieged Mutina will sue for peace; Pharsalia will know him; Macedonian Philippi twice flow with blood; and the one who holds Pompey's great name, will be defeated in Sicilian waters; and a Roman general's Egyptian consort, trusting, to her cost, in their marriage, will fall, her threat that our Capitol would bow to her city of Canopus, proved vain.
Why enumerate foreign countries or the nations living on either ocean shore? Wherever earth contains habitable land, it will be his: and even the sea will serve him!
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