Roman civilization
Roman civilization[a] began with the founding of the city of Rome within the Italian Peninsula, traditionally dated to have occurred on 753 BCE. Throughout the following centuries, Rome would adopt republican governance and dominate the Italian Peninsula and Mediterranean as a whole. In 27 BCE, after a series of civil wars which began in 49 BCE concluded, the Roman Republic would be reconstituted into the Roman Empire under the reign of Octavian. Although the decades following the rise of the Empire were prosperous, the Roman Empire would later experience stagnation and decline in periods such as the Crisis of the Third Century, and would eventually be conclusively partitioned into the Eastern and Western Roman Empire by 395 CE after the death of Emperor Theodosius I. Although the Western Roman Empire would quickly become moribund and collapse in 476 CE after migratory invasion and conquest by Germanic peoples, the Eastern Roman Empire (often known as the Byzantine Empire) would continue until its ultimate fall in 1453 CE.[1]
The primary mode of production in Roman civilization was slavery, with a wealthy ruling class of patricians and slave-owners wielding political power to maintain the harsh exploitation of the lower strata of slaves and plebeians. At least by the time of the third century CE, slavery was being undermined with emerging feudal relations, of which, would become dominate by the time of the Byzantine Empire.[2]
Periods
Foundation and monarchy (753 BCE–509 BCE)
The city of Rome is traditionally said to have been founded in 753 BCE, although its actual founding may have taken place decades after that date. The Roman Kingdom began with the city's founding, with settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber in central Italy, and ended with the overthrow of the kings and the establishment of the Republic around 509 BCE. These monarchs were elected, for life, by the men of the Roman Senate.
Republican period (509 BCE–27 BCE)
The Roman monarchy was abolished in an uprising led by the semi-mythical Lucius Junius Brutus and the king's powers were then transferred to two separate consuls elected to office for a term of one year; each was capable of checking his colleague by veto. The Roman Republic would face crisis in the 1st century BCE when a rising tide of populism engulfed Roman politics led by members of the patricians, in particular, the First Triumvirate of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gaius Julius Caesar. After the First Triumvirate fell apart, Caesar would lead his faction towards victory in a civil war before being assassinated by a rival faction of the patricians in 44 BCE, having been declared dictator for life the previous month.
Caesar's heir Octavian and lieutenant Mark Antony defeated Caesar's assassins in 42 BC, but they eventually split. Antony's defeat alongside his ally and lover Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the Senate's grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian as Augustus in 27 BC—which effectively made him the first Roman emperor—marked the end of the Republic.
Imperial period (27 BCE–395 CE)
East-West division and Eastern Roman Empire (395 CE–1453 CE)
See also
References
- ↑ "Ancient Rome" (in Russian). Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 21, 2024.
- ↑ Chris Harman (1999). A People's History of the World, Ch. 5 Rome's rise and fall.
Notes
- ↑ Latin: Roma