Roman empire?

Question

I need help studying. I need to write a paper about the Roman empire. What are some main things about the Roman Empire you think I should know

Answer 1

Find a very specific thing to write about, otherwise there will be too much information to work with. How about the use of aqueducts to carry water into Rome? That's the only way that the city was able to grow so large since there weren't enough wells in the region. The Romans built aqueducts all over their empire, and there is still a famous one standing in France along the Rhone River (Pont du Gard).

Answer 2

A: The first emperor was Augustus (formerly named Octavian). He was the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar and he became emperor after winning a civil-war between Octavian and Mark Anthony after Caesar was murdered by most of the Senators. Before the civil-war started, Octavian and Anthony had agreed to divide the empire between them, with Octavian ruling the West, Anthony the East and Lepidus ruling North Africa (not including Egypt which was in Anthony's zone). Anthony's intention of having his tomb in Egypt and giving parts of the East to the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, were part of the excuse for Octavian to declare war on them. Octavian won the civil war and was declared Emperor as Augustus by the Senate.

B: Emperors held absolute power. The Senate became a powerless talking shop by the 4th century. It was sometimes consulted by the emperors. It declared Emperor Nero a public enemy, leading to his committing suicide. So sometimes it played a role in choosing the emperor early on, but by the late empire it was powerless.

C: In 395, the empire was divided permanently into West and East. The last emperor of a united Roman empire was Theodosius. When he died, the empire was divided between his sons Honorius (in the West) and Arcadius (in the East) with the capitals at Milan and Constantinople respectively. Theodosius outlawed paganism and made Christianity the official state religion of the empire. However the first Roman emperor to divide the empire was Diocletian in the early 300's but it was alternately reunited and divided after his death. The idea was that dividing the empire would make it easier to govern.

D: The Western Roman empire collapsed in 476 when a German general in the army, Odoacer, declared himself King of Italy and deposed the last Western emperor Romulus Augustulus. The Eastern Empire continued until 1453 as what historians call the "Byzantine empire" (this term was not used until the 19th century by historians - it still called itself the Roman/Eastern Roman empire). The collapse of the Western empire was ultimately caused by a number of factors including: civil wars which meant the Romans were too busy fighting themselves to fight off invasions (leading to the loss of much of Gaul and Spain), corruption which led to the army going unpaid/untrained and mutinying, Romans avoiding conscription by moving to the cities (traditionally conscription was concentrated in rural areas) or by self-mutilation. This forced Western Roman emperors to rely on German and other barbarian mercenaries who were less loyal to the empire. Also corruption and loss of territory led to much taxation revenue not reaching the imperial government forcing them to rely on mercenaries who could be laid off in peacetime.

Answer 3

rise, fall, alexander the great, he gets murdered, conquered