4/25/2014

Today during class we finished the projects, and then Mr. Schick gave us a lecture about..

• Proletarian - in ancient Rome, a property less but voting citizen.
• The Grachi brothers
• people that had a terrible life, without land, had to fight in the army now because they wanted to make money.
• "semi-professional" soldiers who fought largely in the hope of bettering themselves through pay, loot, promotion, and above all grants of land or money to provide them with a living when they were discharge.
• people used to fight wars to defend Rome, then they started to do it to make money.
• Many army commanders turned into what amounted to independent warlords.
• Julius Caesar
• came from an old patrician family that had come down on the world.
• entered the city's politics as a young man determined to regain the fame and power of his ancestors.
• He stuck up for the poor and middle class people even though he was in the upper class.
• He was a brilliant thinker and brilliant politician.
• in 60 B.C. he began to collaborate with Gnaeus Pompeis.
• He and  Gnaeus Pompeis formed a triumvirate ("three man board"), together with another former henchman of Sulla, Marcus Crassus, that was for a time the dominant political force in Rome.  
• Had A LOT of power.
• he fought with his guys.