4/5/2014

The Rise of Rome

• The romans not only imitated Greek civilization but also improved on it, at least so far as government and warfare were concerned.
• They arrived in a Mediterranean land with farming resources that were basically similar to those of Greece or Palestine, but able to support a larger population.
• The Indo-Europeans  settlers formed various tribal groups, among them the Latin people of central Italy. Some of the Latins settled near the mouth of the Tiber River, building a cluster of dwellings on low-lying hills along the river.
• The Etruscans were non-European immigrants who arrived in Italy from somewhere to the east about the ninth century B.C. 
• The Greek city states had begun to plant colonies in southern Italy as early as the eighth century B.C.
• Latins learned the alphabet and gained knowledge of the life of Greek city states rom the Greeks.
• The king was advised by a council of elders called the senate, meaning "old man". These men were appointed by the King, usually among the patricians or "men with fathers"
• Around 500 B.C., Rome over threw its Etruscan rulers, and the monarchy was also abolished. The government of the Roman city-state became officially the "peoples business", or Republic.
• The Greek government was a system of government that was neither a Greek style democracy nor an oligarchy, but a mixture of both.
• Plebeians - the common people.
• The "peoples business" was practically run by the senate, an assembly of about three hundred heads of patrician families. Two among the senators functioned as consuls.
• The one year terms of the consuls, and the fact that there were two of them, were a guarantee against a revival of monarchy.
• In times of an emergency the consuls, on the advice of the senate could appoint a dictator, with full power to give orders and make laws for a maximum period of six months.
• After Tarcon the Proud, the romans never wanted someone to get too powerful ever again.
• Tribunes - magistrates elected by the plebeians, who eventually gained power to initiate and veto laws.