{"id":293,"date":"2021-12-20T17:35:27","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T17:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/his111\/?post_type=chapter&p=293"},"modified":"2022-05-16T21:12:49","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T21:12:49","slug":"2-2-rome","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/his111\/chapter\/2-2-rome\/","title":{"raw":"2.2 Rome","rendered":"2.2 Rome"},"content":{"raw":"\"Figure\r\n

Chronology<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Year(s)<\/th>\r\nEvent(s)<\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
c. 800 \u2013 396 BCE<\/td>\r\nThe Etruscans<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
c. 750 BCE<\/td>\r\nFounding of Rome<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
753 \u2013 570 BCE<\/td>\r\nThe Kingdom of Rome<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
509 BCE \u2013 32 CE<\/td>\r\nThe Roman Republic<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
494 \u2013 287 BCE<\/td>\r\nThe Struggle of Orders<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
294 \u2013 146 BCE<\/td>\r\nPunic Wars<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
133 \u2013 31 BCE<\/td>\r\nRoman Revolution<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
c. 4 CE<\/td>\r\nRise of Christianity<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
32 \u2013 476 CE<\/td>\r\nThe Roman Empire<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
70 \u2013 132 CE<\/td>\r\nHebrews Dispersed<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
312 CE<\/td>\r\nConstantine Converts<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
324 \u2013 632 CE<\/td>\r\nByzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) Expansion<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
410 \u2013 476 CE<\/td>\r\nBarbarians invade Rome<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n

Geography and Topography<\/h2>\r\nAs the title of one recent textbook of Roman history puts it, Roman history is, in a nutshell, the story of Rome\u2019s transformation \u201cfrom village to empire.\u201d[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> The geography and topography of Rome, Italy, and the Mediterranean world as a whole played a key role in the expansion of the empire but also placed challenges in the Romans\u2019 path, challenges which further shaped their history.\r\n\r\nBefore it became the capital of a major empire, Rome was a village built on seven hills sprawling around the Tiber River. Set sixteen miles inland, the original settlement had distinct strategic advantages: it was immune to attacks from the sea, and the seven hills on which the city was built were easy to fortify. The Tiber, although marshy and prone to flooding, furthermore, provided the ability to trade with the neighboring city-states. By the mid-Republic, requiring access to the sea, the Romans built a harbor at Ostia, which grew to become a full-fledged commercial arm of Rome as a result. Wheeled vehicles were prohibited inside the city of Rome during the day, in order to protect the heavy pedestrian traffic. Thus at night, carts from Ostia poured into Rome, delivering food and other goods for sale from all over Italy and the Empire.\r\n\r\n\"Map\r\n\r\nThe topography of Rome\u2014the advantage of the hills and the river\u2014likely was a boon in the city\u2019s struggles against all of its neighbors. Likewise, the topography of Italy proper, with the Alps and the Appenines providing natural defenses in the north, hampered invasions from the outside. As Rome built a Mediterranean empire, the city itself grew increasingly larger, reaching a population of one million by 100 CE. While Italy boasted fertile farmlands, feeding the city of Rome became a challenge that required the resources of the larger empire, and Egypt in particular became known as the breadbasket of Rome. As a result, emperors were especially cautious to control access to Egypt by prominent senators and other politicians, for fear of losing control over this key area of the Empire.\r\n\r\nDuring the rule of the emperor Trajan in the early second century CE, the Roman Empire reached its greatest extent, stretching to Britain in the west, slightly beyond the Rhine and Danube river in the north, and including much of the Near East and North Africa. Topography, however, played a role in the Romans\u2019 ultimately unsuccessful struggle to hold on to these territories after Trajan\u2019s death. The natural frontier offered by the Rhine and Danube rivers made it difficult for the Romans to maintain control over the territories on the other side of them. Struggling to fight off the warrior tribes in northern Britain, two second-century CE emperors\u2014 Hadrian, and later on Antoninus Pius\u2014built successive walls, which attempted to separate the un-Romanized tribes from the territory under Roman control. Finally, a persisting challenge for Roman emperors was that of the location of the empire\u2019s capital. When the Roman Empire consisted of Italy alone, the location of Rome in the middle of the Italian peninsula was the ideal location for the capital. Once, however, the empire became a Mediterranean empire that controlled areas far in all directions, the location of Rome was a great distance from all the problem frontiers. As a result, emperors over the course of the second and third centuries spent increasingly less time in Rome. Finally, Diocletian\u2019s split of the Empire in 293 CE into four administrative regions, each with a regional capital, left Rome out, and in 330 CE, the emperor Constantine permanently moved the capital of the empire to his new city of Constantinople, built at the site of the older Greek city of Byzantium.\r\n\r\n\"Map\r\n\r\nThe large area encompassed by the empire required a sophisticated infrastructure of roads and sea routes, and the Romans provided both. By the first century CE, these roads and routes connected the center of the empire (Rome) to the periphery, providing ways for armies, politicians, traders, tourists, and students to travel with greater security and speed than ever before. As primary sources reveal, travel was never a fully safe undertaking, as bandits lurked on roads and pirates on seas, greedy locals were always eager to fleece unsuspecting tourists, and ship- wrecks were an unfortunately common reality. Still, the empire created an unprecedented degree of networks and connections that allowed anyone in one part of the empire to be able to travel to any other part, provided he was wealthy enough to be able to afford the journey.\r\n

The Earliest Romans<\/h2>\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Figure\r\n\r\nThe period from the founding of Rome to the end of the Punic Wars is less documented than subsequent Roman history. Nevertheless, this period was the formative time during which Rome grew from a village on the Tiber to a pan-Mediterranean empire.\r\n
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Key Questions<\/h3>\r\n