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2006-10-25 04:13:54 · 5 answers · asked by Tyler 1 in Education & Reference Homework Help

5 answers

I'm sorry... are you saying that you could find absolutely no information about the Roman empire in your text books, on the internet, in the library, etc??

2006-10-25 04:21:22 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

After the founding of Rome in 753 bc, powerful kings ruled until, according to patriotic legend, the Romans expelled the last foreign monarch in 509 bc and established a more representative form of government known as the Roman Republic. In the five centuries the republic existed, Rome expanded from a small community on the hills beside the Tiber River into the major power of the Mediterranean world. After centuries of warfare the Romans conquered other peoples who lived in the surrounding regions and by 266 bc controlled the entire Italian Peninsula.

The Romans then embarked on their conquest of the rest of the Mediterranean basin. First they defeated their great rival, Carthage, whose possessions, including Sicily, Spain, and North Africa, became Roman provinces. During the 2nd and 1st centuries bc, Rome’s military forces, known as legions, fought against kings and city-states in the eastern Mediterranean to bring Greece, Asia Minor (roughly modern Turkey), Syria, Judea, and Egypt under Roman control. In the west, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, which included all of modern France, so that the Roman frontiers extended from the Sahara to the North Sea and from Spain to the Near East.

This remarkable military achievement transformed the Romans themselves. Roman imperialism introduced extremes of wealth and poverty that sharpened social and economic conflict within the Roman state. The flood of military plunder and captured slaves dramatically changed the countryside as small farms gave way to large plantations, and landless peasants migrated to Rome and other cities. Immense wealth inflamed the ambitions of Roman nobles who struggled for personal domination rather than collective rule. The historian Sallust expressed the view of later Romans who believed that the wealth of empire corrupted the once noble Roman people. Nearly a century of intermittent civil war, which extended from the rule of the Gracchi, beginning about 133 bc, to the death of Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 bc, threatened to destroy the unity and prosperity of Rome itself (See also Gracchus, Gaius Sempronius and Gracchus, Tiberius Sempronius).

In 49 bc Caesar, who had held many of the highest political offices in Rome, marched into Italy to challenge the leaders of the republic. After defeating his enemies, he ruled as dictator until his murder on the Ides of March (March 15 by the Roman calendar) in 44 bc. Caesar’s assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, hoped to restore the republic, but it was no longer possible. Neither the urban masses nor the military would allow the old aristocracy to regain control.

Rome needed a strong hand to administer the state and control the army, since the old system of government was unsuitable to rule an empire of 50 million subjects. If Rome wanted to maintain its dominance, the government needed to create new administrative and military institutions. Caesar planned to transform the Roman state, but his few years in power were insufficient. His followers included his longtime military deputy, Mark Antony, and his great-nephew (and adopted son), Octavian. They first defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, a city of ancient Macedonia, in 42 bc before turning on each other. By 30 bc Octavian was the unchallenged successor to Caesar and the master of Rome. Three years later the Senate proclaimed him Augustus, the supreme ruler.

2006-10-25 04:19:52 · answer #2 · answered by kareno209 3 · 0 1

one myth states that after the Trojan war, the defeated Trojans fled their city. and eventually founded Rome led by Aeneas

2006-10-25 04:20:43 · answer #3 · answered by tim R 1 · 0 1

Romulus built a wall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus#The_founding_of_Rome

2006-10-25 04:35:59 · answer #4 · answered by Puppy Zwolle 7 · 0 0

Some Italian guy with time on his hands

2006-10-25 04:18:27 · answer #5 · answered by How e' ye Horse 2 · 0 1

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