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World history
Course: World history > Unit 2
Lesson 7: The Roman EmpireEmperors of Pax Romana
Starting with the reign of Augustus and ending with the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Pax Romana is a relatively stable 200 year period. The first five emperors are of the Julio-Claudia Dynasty. The last five of the Pax Romana are considered the "good" emperors by Machiavelli.
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- Atand on the timeline, what is BCE and CE and AD? 0:23(6 votes)
- These are labels for the calendar system that is in widest use today, the Gregorian calendar. Different civilizations and cultures have had different ways of counting time, with their own concepts of when years begin and end and how many of them there are. The current system, or Gregorian calendar, started in the year we think of as 1582, and is the global standard, although there are other calendars still in use. The Gregorian labels have changed to not have direct religious naming, in reference to the idea that the calendar is for everyone and not specifically tied to Christianity.
BCE - Before Common Era - formerly known as BC, or Before Christ. These years count backwards - Obviously at the time these years were actually occurring, people used a different calendar system than we have now!
CE - Common Era - uses the same year system as AD but does not reference religion.
AD - Anno Domini - "In the Year of the Lord" A dating system of years from the Birth of Christ, that originated in 525. it was invented by Dionysius Exiguus, a Christian monk.
Sal explains it all much better than me and in greater detail over here:
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/cosmology-and-astronomy/life-earth-universe/humanity-on-earth-tutorial/v/understanding-calendar-notation(16 votes)
- Did any of the emperors get murdered, because of the way they ruled?(6 votes)
- most of them in fact, like Caesar, Caligula, Domitian, etc.
The only reason any of them would be killed would be because either they were going to rule, or were ruling, so I'd say yes.(2 votes)
- how did these rulers get into power? did they kill or murder the past emperor, or did they invade Rome for power?(3 votes)
- They weren't elected. Perhaps, like the chiefs of state of many nations around the world today, they got there by being the biggest, meanest dog on the block.(7 votes)
- Why did Nero commit suicide? Do we have record of that?(4 votes)
- I believe their was a coup going on and Nero did not want to be captured and paraded through Rome, so he killed himself first.(4 votes)
- Sal mentions that Caligula was Caligula's nickname. What was Caligula's actual name?(3 votes)
- Actually, his full name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.(4 votes)
- What are the names of the calendars used by the common ancient civilizations like the Aztecs, Greeks, Romans, etc. And what is Pax Romana?(3 votes)
- Pax Romana was the early period and height of the Roman Empire. Afterwards, with the dynasties and turmoils of the Severans, Gordians, etc, everything fell apart. Emperors were killed by their own Praetorian Guards or the military at large, and many, many people were killed in the Crisis of the Third Century, until eventually Diocletian, a slave, took over as emperor about a century after Marcus Aurelius. He set up the tetrarchy, a system of 2 senior and 2 junior emperors, and actually was able to retire. Everything then fell apart again, until Constantine about another 100 years later. After that, the West kind of fades out.(2 votes)
- Sal doesn't mention who built the Colosseum? So who built it?(1 vote)
- Construction began under the emperor Vespasian in AD 72 and was completed in AD 80 under his successor and heir, Titus. Further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian (81–96)(2 votes)
- From that map, they never took Ireland? How much of the UK did they take?
What Scandinavian countries were ever taken or part of?
I know those regions have changed over time, I'm talking about the regions they took and how those regions overlap with the modern day versions of Scandinavia, UK and so on.(1 vote)- Roman Britain (Latin: Britannia or, later, Britanniae, "the Britains") was the area of the island of Great Britain that was governed by the Roman Empire, from 43 to 410 AD.It comprised almost the whole of England and Wales and, for a short period, southern Scotland.
While many Germanic tribes sustained continued contact with the culture and military presence of the Roman Empire, much of Scandinavia existed on the most extreme periphery of the Latin world. With the exception of the passing references to the Swedes (Suiones) and the Geats (Gautoi), much of Scandinavia remained unrecorded by Roman authors.(1 vote)
- Isn’t there a third emperor nicknamed Commodus?The three emperors that were known for killing are Nero,Caligula,nicknamed after Caligae,a shoe type,and Commodus.I don’t know if this is true,but sorry if I gave wrong information.(1 vote)
- If Ceasar never become emperor, would someone else have taken over from the Roman Republic?(0 votes)
- 1) All Roman emperors were known as Caesar. You'll have to be more specific if you're asking about a particular individual.
2) "Power abhors a vacuum." Some individual, or coterie of few individuals, would have risen to the top.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] As we saw
in the last several videos, the Roman Republic that
was established in 509 BCE, it finally met its end with
the rule of Julius Caesar. We talk about Julius Caesar
crossing the Rubicon, becoming dictator for life,
and then he's assassinated because of the power he
was able to accumulate in 44 BCE, on March
15th, the Ides of March. That throws Rome into a civil war. Eventually it becomes a
battle between Augustus, or at the time, Octavian, versus
Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Octavian is able to be victorious. And, on 27 BCE, he is
declared, or this is the date that historians often use as the beginning of him officially being emperor. This period from 27 BCE,
with Augustus being emperor, all the way to 180 CE, so
this roughly 200-year period, this is a relatively good
time for the Roman Empire. As we will see, there is
still a lot of conflict, there is still a lot of bloodshed, but it is a relatively stable period. It is also referred to as Pax Romana, or the Roman Peace. What we see pictured here,
these are most of the Emperors of that roughly 200-year period. Augustus proves to be a
relatively good administrator. He lays a good foundation for
the next several hundred years of the Empire. The Roman Empire officially
being ruled by an Emperor. It's eventually going to meet its demise, the Western Empire, at least, in 476 CE, so, it's gonna go for roughly 500 years, and Augustus lays a
strong foundation for it. He's viewed as a strong administrator. He really builds a lot of institutions. From a historical
perspective, it's worth noting that Jesus was born under Augustus's rule. Most historical views are Jesus was born in some place between 4 BCE and 6 BCE. Now, Augustus was followed by Tiberius. Tiberius, here, was both
Augustus's step-son, and he married Augustus's daughter, so he was a step-son, and son-in-law. He also proved to be a
relatively capable emperor. You can see Augustus
had a fairly long rule. He took power in his 30s, and
his power ended in his 70s. Tiberius, too, had a fairly long rule. From a historical point of view, or even a Biblical point
of view, it's worth noting that Jesus would have been
crucified under Tiberius's rule. The Roman Emperor referred to in the New Testament is Tiberius. It would have been his
governor, Pontius Pilate, who orders the crucifixion of Jesus. Now, after Tiberius, you
have his great-nephews, or his great, great-nephew,
and you can see they're all not directly related, but
they're all kind of family. His great, great-nephew is Caligula. Caligula, that's his nickname, is a bit of an infamous figure,
one of the infamous figures, in history amongst the Roman Emperors 'cause he's really viewed
as a sadist, as a pervert. He's known for killing
people just for fun, and he is quickly assassinated. His term only, or his power,
only lasted for several years. Then, in his place is
put his uncle, Claudius. After Claudius comes another
infamous figure of history, and that is Nero. Nero, he's known for, Rome had
a significant fire in 64 AD. Many of the Roman citizens
believed that Nero did it intentionally to clear
out space for a palace. Significant number of
Romans died in that fire. He killed a ton of people,
including his mother. He's maybe most famous for
persecuting Christians. There's some accounts that
he would dip them in oil and set them on fire in his garden just as a source of light. These people, to say that
they were insane, or demented, or sick, normally I try to
avoid making any judgement on some of these historical
figures, but both Caligula, and Nero, if we believe the accounts that we get from that period,
and shortly after that period, were not, by any stretch of
the imagination, good people. Nero eventually does commit
suicide, and, with Nero's end, you actually have the end of
the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Let me write that down, Julio, Julio, Claudian, Claudian dynasty. The reason why it's called
the Julio-Claudian dynasty is that all of these
characters, let me circle them, or underline 'em. All of these characters right over here are essentially from the same family. They're descended from both
the Julian line, Julius Caesar, and the Claudian family. That's why it's called the
Julio-Claudian dynasty. Now, at the end of the
Julio-Claudian dynasty, you have a new dynasty, Vespasian. There's a short civil
war, so the Pax Romana is not without some war and bloodshed. In fact, this whole time, there's a lot of relatives being killed, people who might threaten
the Emperor being killed, and that's just talking
about the Romans, themselves. They're constantly fighting
the Germanic tribes, and groups in the Middle East, and taking more, and
more, and more territory, and these are extremely bloody thing. They're constantly enslaving people. The Roman Empire sometimes it
looks like this neat, clean, idealistic thing, but there was a lot of enslaving of people, destroying of towns. Killing people out of paranoia, or really just out of the joy of killing, if you take the case of Caligula, or Nero. Then, you have the Flavian dynasty. I don't have the three Flavian Emperors depicted right over here. You have Vespasian, you have
Titus, and you have Domitian. Of note, the Colosseum. The famous Colosseum in Rome
was built during their time. They're also known for the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. Then, after that, you
have what historians, and especially Niccolo Machiavelli, so this is many centuries
later, called the Good Emperors. The Good Emperors are these characters, let me square them off right over here. And these are really
the last five emperors of the Pax Romana. We should even use the term,
Good, maybe in quotation marks, because for Rome's enemies,
for the slaves of Rome, for the people who were
thrown into the Colosseum just because they were a prisoner
of war, or they committed some simple crime, the Roman
Empire didn't seem good. The reason why they were viewed good is they were viewed as
able administrators. They continued to expand the Roman Empire. Trajan in particular, the
peak of the Roman Empire comes, in terms of Geography,
comes under Trajan's rule. That's this map right over here. This is the largest geographic extent that the Roman Empire takes on. Trajan is succeeded by Hadrian, most known for Hadrian's Wall. He had the upper-bound
of the Roman Empire. Then, the Pax Romana ends
with Marcus Aurelius, who is viewed as a, he's
actually wrote meditations. He's a philosopher-emperor. He's viewed as one of the
last great stoic philosophers. With that, you have the end
of this period of Pax Romana. As we'll see in the next few videos, we then start really
getting into the decline of at least the Western Roman Empire, as we'll see the Eastern
Roman Empire outlives the West by a good thousand years.