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World history
An Overview of Ancient Rome
Conquering armies, monumental architecture, and beautiful art: how did Rome achieve all of this? Sal provides an overview of the origins of the Roman Empire.
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- What is Romulus? and what does it mean?(7 votes)
- Romulus is a Latin boys name meaning simply Citizen of Rome, this was the given name to the character in Roman Mythology Romulus. He was a twin of Remus, his mother was Rhea Silvia and father Mars. If you rewatch the video he gives a little information on the history between the brothers, them being raised by a she wolf and the ultimate death of Remus. I would recommend reading the article here on khan academy about the bronze statue featuring the she wolf and Remus and Romulus feeding from her for more information. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/roman-republic/a/capitoline-she-wolf
I hope this answers your question and helps you understand the name and history of Romulus more.(10 votes)
- Where does the name "Phoenicia" come from? A city? A ruler?(5 votes)
- Phoenicia is an ancient Greek term used to refer to the major export of the region, cloth dyed Tyrian purple from the Murex mollusc, and referred to the major Canaanite port towns; not corresponding precisely to Phoenician culture as a whole as it would have been understood natively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia(4 votes)
- What about the British Empire/Britannia? I believe the Roman Empire never conquered them, isn't that right?(2 votes)
- British Empire doesn't exist then! Although Romans ruled in Britannia. Around 410 there is even an usurpator who tried to rule from there. But Romans' power there, especially behind the Hadrian's Wall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall#/media/File:Hadrians_Wall_map.svg), was never too strong. For more details have a look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall#After_Hadrian(7 votes)
- What influences has ancient Rome given to modern day? (outside of the video)(3 votes)
- Vestiges of the Latin language are prominent from Portugal to Romania. The border between England and Scotland today is that which was set by the Romans long ago.(4 votes)
- What is the difference between a Republic and an Empire?(3 votes)
- A republic is governed by an assembly of citizens who decide things for the population. The power is in those who comprise that assembly. An empire may or may not have an assembly, but power is in the hands of the person at the top, the emperor.(3 votes)
- who was augustus ceasers son?(3 votes)
- Tiberius Caesar Augustus, who became the emperor Tiberius was Augustus' son.(3 votes)
- who is Marius and Sulla? why are they important?(3 votes)
- Marius and Sulla took the Roman Republic to its first civil war in the first century b.c. Marius fought in the side of the "populares" (popular party), while Sulla was an important commander for the "optimates" (aristocratic party). There would be other three civil wars along the century that ultimately would end with the Roman Republic and give birth to the Roman Empire.(3 votes)
- what is the first and the second triumvirate? who involved?(3 votes)
- The first triumvirate was formed in 60 b.c. and was composed by Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus. After the death of Crassus in 53 b.c. Pompey and Caesar fought a civil war which Caesar won, earning the title of dictator for life, but ended being assassinated. The second triumvirate was formed by three former supporters of Julius Caesar: Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus. In practice, Octavian and Mark Antony divided the roman influence in the Mediterranean between them: the west for Octavian and the east for Mark Antony. Octavian prevailed over Antony in the last roman civil war of the first century b.c., becoming the first roman emperor under the name of Augustus.(3 votes)
- what did the people in Ancient Rome do for a living?(2 votes)
- They trade for goods, farming, being a slave which is a bad thing(3 votes)
- who was the sultan of the ottoman empire when they conquered Rome?(2 votes)
- The Ottoman kings were called "sultans". It was the Sultan Mehmed II (the Conqueror) who captured Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Though Ottomans made important inroads into Europe (even besieging Vienna ... twice! First in 1529 then in 1683) they never reached the city of Rome.(3 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] When you
hear of ancient Rome, or the Roman Empire,
or the Roman republic, immediately images of the
Roman legions come to mind. To the conquering armies conquering much of the Mediterranean. You might have images of the Roman Senate. Names like Julius Caesar and
Augustus might come to mind. You might think of some of
the famous architectures. Some of which you can still
see if you were to visit Rome, and these are all real images of Rome, or they're appropriately
associated with it, and we'll talk about most of
these things in some depth, but Rome did not start out that way, and the purpose of this
video is to give us a over arching arc of the history of Rome to be able to place it within history. Both in terms of time and geography. So just to make sure we
can read what I did here ahead of time, up here is I
have a high level timeline and then down here I have
a timeline that zooms in a little bit, goes into
a few more details, and you can see this timeline on top, it's going from the eighth century BCE all the way to the fifth century CE, so it's covering over
1,000 years of history, and I need it to cover
over 1,000 years of history because the Roman Empire, we can even say just
the western Roman Empire covers that much, and that doesn't even
cover the entire legacy of the Roman Empire
because when we get into the fourth century CE, you have a split where
you have the eastern and the western Roman Empire and the eastern, often known
as the Byzantine Empire, that goes on until 1453 CE. So another 1,000 years
until they are conquered by the Ottomans. So the legacy of the Roman Empire, even formally as an
empire, is significant, and then it continues on. Much of western civilization, especially Europe and the Mediterranean has its foundations in the Roman Empire and then before that, Greek civilization, and the Roman Empire is really up there alongside the Persian Empire as one of the really great
civilizations or empires, and when I say great, you should take that with a grain of salt. Great I'm saying it was
big, it was powerful, but not everything they did was great. They had a lot of slavery,
they were very cruel, they were sometimes very violent. So take these terms great
with a grain of salt. So now that we get this timeline up here and then down here I'm gonna go, whoops. Down here I have some maps that are gonna show how
the Roman Empire grew and then eventually splits and declines, but as we go to this top timeline, we see the founding of Rome
in the eighth century BCE, and this date 753 is the
date that's often given to the founding of Rome by Romulus, one of twin brothers Romulus
and Remus raised by a she-wolf. They were abandoned and
raised by the she-wolf as legend would have it, and then Romulus eventually
kills his brother and then becomes the first king of Rome. We don't know how much of this is true. I suspect a lot of this is very legendary. Legend would have it that
Rome is named for Romulus, but some historians today think well it might have been
the other way around. We have the city of Rome,
they needed a founding story, hey let's say this person
Romulus started it, and we don't know the exact date, but there seems to be
a reasonable consensus that around this mid eighth century BCE you have the founding of the city of Rome, but it's important to
realize that at that point the founding of the city
that the kingdom of Rome, it wasn't a significant power
on the Italian Peninsula at the time. Where I have this X marked,
that's where Rome is, and what you see in
green, this is actually the Etruscan civilization, and for most of this period
of the Roman kingdom. So this period right over here, it's actually the Etruscans
that are dominant power and for significant fractions of this they were dominant over the Roman kingdom. Over the city of Rome, but as we get to 509 BCE, this is when the Roman
Republic is established and in this blue green
color, this is the kingdom. The gold color, this yellow
color is the republic and then the red color is when
the empire gets established by Julius Caesar and his
adopted son Augustus, and as we get into this, I guess you could say
this republic period of, or into the Roman Republic. This is when it starts
to really exert itself as more of a dominant
influence in the region, and it continues to be a
dominant influence in the region for several hundred years, and then as we get into the
first several hundred years in the common era. So after the time of Jesus. As we get into the 200s, the 300s, this is when we start
to see a real decline of the Roman Empire and
the western empire at least gets sacked multiple times
in the fifth century, and the year 476 is what's typically given for the end of the Roman Empire, but even that's not exactly
the end of the Roman Empire, because in the fourth century you have the Roman Empire splitting into this eastern and western empires, and the eastern later gets
known as the Byzantine Empire. That goes on for another 1,000 years until it's, as I
mentioned, I think earlier, taken over by the Ottomans, but to get more appreciation for how the Roman Empire grew and then eventually starts to shrink, I have some maps over here. So this first map, this
is roughly from the third century BCE and third century BCE you might remember Rome is
a republic at this time, but it's not the dominant
power in the Mediterranean. Just to give ourselves some bearings, you might remember that in
the later fourth century BCE that's when Alexander conquers much of, or most of Greece, Macedonia,
the Persian Empire. Which included at the time Egypt, and as we get into the third century BCE, you still have the fragments
of Alexanders empire, but these are still significant
powers in the regions. You also have the Carthaginian Empire. Which you see here in blue in North Africa and southern Spain, and this period you have a series of wars between the Romans and the Carthaginians known as the Punic Wars, and we'll do videos in
depth on the Punic Wars. They're called the Punic Wars because the term Punic, it comes from what the Romans called the Phoenicians, and Carthage was actually settled, founded by ancient Phoenicians. So you can kinda consider
this the Phoenician War or the descendants of the Phoenician Wars, but that's why it's called Punic, but the Romans eventually
win the multiple rounds of Punic Wars, take over their territory, and eventually destroy Carthage. Carthage is destroyed in 146 BCE, and we'll talk about that in more detail. Now as we go into the first century BCE, this is when Rome goes form
being a republic to an empire, and it happens when the
general, Julius Caesar, he's able to conquer Gaul
for the Roman Republic. So Gaul is modern day France and some other surrounding regions, and he is so powerful that
when he comes back to Rome, a civil war ensues and
Julius Caesar is able to essentially win the civil war, declare himself a dictator, and then his adopted son
Augustus, right over here, is in 27 BCE declared Emperor, and that's the beginning
of the Roman Empire, and we keep going, and I
think I've already mentioned it once in this video, but eventually we get a split
in the fourth century CE where we have eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. The western side centered at Rome, the eastern side centered at
what was originally Byzantium, renamed Constantinople,
and today Istanbul, and as we get into the fifth century, that's when the western empire especially starts to
really go into decline and is eventually sacked in 476, but the eastern empire keeps on going.