I. TIMELINE
A. History of Rome
The origins of Rome
753 BC Legend
tells of the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus (Ab urbe condita).
509 Servius
Tullius establishes the republican regime.
321 The
Romans defeated by the Samnites (episode of the “Caudine Forks”).
275 Defeat
of Pyrrhus at Beneventum. Rome, after
dominating the north and center of the
Italian peninsula, controls the south.
First extra-peninsular
expansion (289-264 BC)
264-241 First
Punic War
219-202 Second
Punic War
197 Hispania
divided into two provinces (Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior).
197-191 Rome
conquers Cisalpine Gaul.
148 The annexation of Greece as a Roman
province.
146 The
destruction of Carthage (Third Punic War).
123-122 The Romans occupy the Balearic Islands.
105 After
his victory over Jugurtha, King of the Numidians, Rome creates its first province
in Africa. Numidia (Algeria and Tunisia) would end up being called ifriquiya:
the origin of the word Africa.
The collapse of the
republican system: the civil wars (88-31 BC)
88 Start
of the civil war in Rome (Mario-Sertorius-Caesar against Sulla-Pompey).
86 Beginning of Sulla’s dictatorship.
82 Sertorius
establishes his base in Tingis (Tangier).
80-72 Sertorian War in Hispania.
80
Landing of Sertorius in Hispania.
77
Pompey in Hispania.
72
Murder of Sertorius. Pompey destroys the
Sertorian army.
63 Catilinian Conspiracy. Cicero (106-43 ) manages
to reestablish republican law.
60-54 First Triumvirate: Caesar, Pompey
and Crassus. Clear break with the republican order.
58-52
Julius Caesar conquers Transalpine Gaul (Gallic Wars).
54
Death of Crassus.
52 Pompey
is appointed sole consul.
49 Caesar
crosses the Rubicon with his army and occupies Rome. Pompey takes refuge in Greece
48 Battle
of Pharsalus (Thessaly). Pompey’s army
is decimated by Caesar.
46 Caesar
fights in Hispania against Pompey’s children.
45 Pompeian
troops defeated at Munda. Caesar manages
to be named Imperator (dictator for life).
44 Assassination
of Julius Caesar in the Senate of Rome on the Ides (15) of March.
43 The
attempt to restore republican legality by killing Caesar fails, as the second triumvirate is established, consisting of
Octavius, Mark Antony and Lepidus.
42 Death
of Lepidus. Confrontation between Octavius and Mark Antony.
31 Naval battle at Actium (Egypt) ends with Mark
Antony’s suicide. Octavius, ruler of Rome.
The Principate (31 BC
- 96 AD)
29 Senate
confirms Octavius as the ruler of Rome.
27 Political
reform. Official establishment of the Principate (from princeps = first) as the
Republic’s parallel and protective institution.
Octavius receives the honorary title of Augustus from the Senate.
19 Virgil’s death.
Publication of the Aeneid.
14 AD Death of Octavius Caesar Augustus.
Julio-Claudian Dynasty (14-68)
14-37 Tiberius.
37-41 Caligula.
41-54 Claudius.
54-68 Nero.
64 The
Burning of Rome. First persecutions of the Christians
67 Decapitation
of St. Paul
Flavian Dynasty (68-96)
68-69 Galba-Otho-Vitellius-Vespasian.
69-79 Vespasian.
79 The
eruption of Vesuvius (Naples).
Destruction of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabies.
79-80 Titus.
80-96 Domitian.
The High Empire (96
-191 AD)
96-98 Nerva.
98-117 Trajan. The Roman Empire reaches its greatest
dimensions.
117-138 Hadrian.
138-161 Antoninus
Pius.
161-180 Marcus Aurelius.
180-191 Commodus.
The crisis (191-284)
191-238 The Severans.
212 Caracalla
grants Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the Empire.
238-249 Military
anarchy.
249-283 The
Illyrians.
The Decline of the
Roman Empire: the Dominate (284-395 AD)
284-293 Diocletian.
293-305 First Tetrarchy (East: Diocletian
[Augustus ] and Galerius [Caesa];
West: Maximian [Augustus] and
Constantius Chlorus [Caesar]).
305-306 Second
Tetrarchy (East: Galerius [Augustus] and Maximinus Daia [Caesar]; West:
Constantius Chlorus [Augustus] and Severus [Caesar]).
306-337
Rupture of the Tetrarchy
system. Clashes between the different
aspirants to the imperial throne.
324-337 Constantine
I manages to reunite the empire.
337-340 After the death of Constantine I the empire is
divided among his three sons. The fights for power resume.
361-363 New unification with
Julian. Brief pagan reaction against the
excesses of Constantius II.
394-395 Theodosius I is the last emperor
who manages to reunite the Empire.
395 After
the death of Theodosius I the Empire is divided. The Western Empire is inherited by Honorius
(395-423) and the Eastern by Arcadius (395-408).
The End of the Western
Empire (395-476 AD)
476 September 4: Romulus Augustulus is deposed by Odoacer, the Germanic chieftain of the Heruli.
The End of the Western
Empire.
B. Roman Spain (218 BC to 476 AD)
218 BC Romans land in Spain (Ampurias) to fight Carthaginians in
the Second Punic War.
197 First
provincial division of Roman Spain (Hispania Ulterior and Hispania
Citerior).
133 Taking of
Numancia. End of the
Celtiberian-Lusitanian Wars in Hispania.
45 Pompeian
troops defeated by Caesar at Munda, near Cordoba.
40 Lucio
Cornelio Balbo, is the first Spaniard elected as consul in Rome
27 Augustus
divide Spain in three provinces: Baetica (senatorial) and Lusitania and
Tarraconense (imperial)
19 Augustus
come to Spain to fight Northern People (Cantabrian wars).
43 AD The
future emperor Trajan is born in Spain (Italica)
74 Vespasian
through a decree gives Latin right to Spanish cities
76 The
future emperor Hadrian is born in Italica.
II. SOME WORDS:
Civitas
Roman State
Republic
SPQR
Curiae
Comitia
Patrician
Populus
Senate
Magistrate
Praetor
Consul
Tribun of the plebs
Check and balance
Cursus Honorum
Diarchy
Citizenship
Punic War
Civil wars
Triumvirate
Punic War
Civil wars
Triumvirate
Province
Colonies
Municipia
Romanization
Caesar
Rubicon
Rubicon
De Bello Gallico
Pompey
Marc Anthony
Actium
Marc Anthony
Actium
Augustus
Principate
Imperium
Dominate
Tetrarchy
Tetrarchy
Latifundia
Hispania Ulterior and Citerior
Seneca
Lucan
Hispanic emperors
III QUESTIONS:
1) The shortcoming of the polis model.
2) The indoeuropean structure of roman society:
gentilitates, curiae and tribes
3) Republican Rome: an aristocratic polis that
tried to avoid dictatorship
4) On how did Rome consolidated its territorial
expansion through Provinces and Cities
5) The territorial expansion and the crisis of the republican system
6) On how Augustus preserved the Republic
destroying it
7) From diarchy to monarchy, or how appeared
the Roman empire
8) Why last emperors were domini?
9) Did romans invented the state?
10) Roman citizenship: History’s first
nationality?
11) Why is Roman Spain, an example of romanisation.
IV. TEXTS:
a) First text: The Roman civitas
an expanding polis
“ If the history of the state in the West undeniably traces its roots to
Rome it is because the Greek polis lacked the institutional capacity to
organize and control an extensive territory
due to the fact that its system of government and judicial structure
were totally ineffective beyond the walls of the city. Thus, when the population swelled and
economic resources were insufficient, the surplus of citizens abandoned their
polis to found another in a new location. Greece was a relatively poor
territory, spurring many Greeks to emigrate to found colonies along the coasts
of the Mediterranean which, once founded, did not maintain political ties with
the Greek polis from which they had proceeded. Rather, they became independent
for all intents and purposes and, as a result, Greece was never to become a
great, unified state. This was to precipitate its decline at the close of the
4th century BC, in the wake of Alexander’s fleeting empire .
Unlike the Greek polises, Rome developed a method of expansion which
allowed it to govern and administrate territories very different from the
metropolis. It constitutes a landmark in
the history of public law in the West because it successfully adapted its model
of political and judicial organization to the circumstances of its
expansion. As the Romans conquered
territories they managed to incorporate them in a stable and structured manner
into a powerful constitutional framework centered around the Roman civitas. The integration of the new territories, however, was difficult,
because it carried with it a profound shift in the system of government and
administration of the Roman state; the crisis which the Roman version of the
polis, the Republic, would suffer in the 1st century BC was a direct
consequence of the Romans’ spectacular territorial expansion.”
b) Second text: The Indo-European origins of Roman Society
“In Rome, as in other Indo-European
societies, it appears that the different gens ended up integrating higher social
groups. The best known were the curias and tribus. Unfortunately, little is known of these
tribus of the archaic period, except that they were nothing at all like the
local “tribus” which would appear later.
Subsequently, however, in historical times, it is undeniable that said
Indo-European structure was reflected in Roman society, specifically in two
Republican assemblies: the comitia curiata and the comitia tributa.”
c) Third text: the Roman republic: an
aristocratic regime
“Rome was never a democracy, either in the
Athenian sense or in the current one.
The transition from monarchy to republic probably meant no more than the
transfer of power from a king for life to some annually elected judges, a
change aimed at assuaging the patricians’ fears of tyrannical governments, like
that of Tarquinius Superbus. This transformation, however, did not alter the
original thrust of Rome’s legal-public organization, nor did the plebeian
movement which, though allowing this social class access to the conduct of public
affairs, and leading to the emergence of institutions aimed at countering the
oppression by patrician magistrates , did not alter the essentially
aristocratic character of the government. Although in theory the Republican
magistracies were open to any citizen, in practice they remained in the hands
of a few families, both patrician and plebeian, whose members all had in common
their status as landowners and holders of wealth, which permitted them the
luxury of being able to dedicate most of their time to public affairs, without
compensation. In this way the patricians’ main activity involved their “public
careers” (cursus honorum), which
assured them significant social prestige, thereby practically monopolizing
public offices. Only on rare occasions did
a homus novus from outside this
closed circle manage to reach the highest magistracies. Cicero, belonging to the equestrian order, is
undoubtedly the best-known exception .
This lack of democracy was particularly evident
in the assemblies. Arising in theory to facilitate the people of Rome’s access
to public affairs, in reality they were not democratically composed. The popular assemblies elected magistrates
and passed laws, but their power was
limited and they were organized in such a way that they could be controlled by
the wealthy. Political power, then, was concentrated in the hands of the
landholding class, which virtually monopolized the seats in the Senate, which
is why it came to be also known as the senatorial class.
The people only acquired a measure of political
influence during the turbulent years of the civil war that shook Rome in the
first century BC, though even then the masses were a mere instrument in the
hands of the demagogues – usually aristocrats – who manipulated them . In addition, this "revolutionary"
period led to the establishment of a new form of monarchical government which
seized from the masses their last remnants of power and gradually undermined
the aristocracy while increasing the burgeoning bureaucracy surrounding the
emperor”.
Fourth text: A political constitution designed
to prevent dictatorship
“The
Roman “constitution” was never expressed in a document which, like the American
Constitution, set forth with the authority of the highest law of the land the
forms, functions, powers and mutual relations of the organs of government. The
Roman “constitution” was, like the English, a complex of ancient principles and
developing practices, supported by some specific enactments, which in their
totality defined the powers and functions of government […] The system of check
and balances was not the result, as in the American Constitution, of a division
of power between the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches of the
government. On the one hand, it consisted in a combination of practically
unlimited powers of the highest officials with powers of veto by officials of
equal or higher rank. On the other, it lay in the political control of the
officials by the Senate, the tribunes of the plebs, and the people. For the people
could reject a bill brought by an official, and the official depended on their
votes when later running for another office”.
WOLFF, Hans
Julius Roman Law. An Historical Introduction. University of Oklahoma Press 1951
(reed. 1995), pages 25 and 27.
Fifth Text: Was the State created by the
romans?
“Initially the Roman state encompassed the
inhabitants of the city (civitas) of
Rome, or the Populus Romanus, according to the expression enshrined in
the texts, at least until late in the Empire’s history. The official documents would also cite, along
with the people, the Senate of Rome, an assembly made up of the former
magistrates and, in general, the city’s most eminent citizens, a fact that made
it a very influential body. It is
significant that in the official name of Rome the Senate preceded the people
and the magistrates acted on behalf of the Senate and People of Rome (SPQR = Senatus
Populusque Romanus).
Even the term republic, from res publica (of the people) lacked the abstract sense it has today, as a model of
state standing in opposition to monarchy.
Originally in Rome the republic designated the affairs (also the
patrimony) of the Populus, considered
as a group of citizens. Only after
Augustus’s reforms when, paradoxically, the monarchy reappeared, the term
republic began to be used at times in its modern sense, i.e. as a synonym of
the state, specifically when the writers of the imperial used the word republic
as opposed to the sovereignty of the emperor”.
Sixth Text: Roman Spain (218 BD to 476 AD)
a) Roman
conquest of Spain
The
complete lack of political or cultural unity among the disparate societies of
the peninsula impeded rather than facilitated their conquest by Rome. The incorporation of Hispania into the empire
was a long, slow process, lasting from 218 B.C. to 19 B.C. (though the major
part was completed by 133 B.C.).[1]
This was a
much longer time than was required to subjugate other major portions of the Mediterranean
littoral. The fact also that it was highlighted by celebrated examples of
diehard resistance--the most famous of which was the struggle to the death of
the town of Numantia in 133 B.C.--has led some Spanish historians to view the
ancient Hispanic tribes as already "Spanish" in their cultural
characteristics, particularly in their xenophobia and obstinate resistance to
foreign domination.[2]
In fact,
the relative difficulties encountered in subduing Hispania stemmed in part from
the [5] very absence of any such coherent entity as "Spain" or an
"Hispanic culture." Many of the tribes had to be conquered
separately, one by one, whereas in more advanced or unified regions defeat of
the central government was enough to bring the whole area under Roman sway. The
cultural particularism of the Hispanic tribes, together with the formidable
geographic obstacles imposed by the peninsula, are as important as Hispanic
xenophobia in explaining the long delay
in consummating the Roman conquest.
Yet the discovery of enduring characteristics
common to prehistoric Hispania and historic Spain may not be entirely the
product of the cultural imagination. Then, as later, the peninsula was a
marginal area culturally as well as geographically, and participated only with
some lag in the major developments of antiquity. Most of the peninsula's societies
were economically and technologically
backward compared with the advanced areas of Mediterranean civilization--a
gap that for the most part was never fully made good in Spanish history. The
ancient population of the peninsula was less
urbanized and not merely more agrarian but more pastoral than the more
sophisticated regions of Mediterranean Europe.
The social structure was obviously more
archaic, and in much of the peninsula dominated by a kind of military aristocracy. The emphasis was
on military much more than on productive values. In some respects, these
qualities of ancient Hispania paralleled those of most of the rest of the
ancient Mediterranean world, but in Hispania they were more pronounced and were
less challenged by alternate developments. Historically, the tendency in the
peninsula toward such ways of life has been more widespread and persistent than
elsewhere in Mediterranean and western Europe.
Moreover,
there is some support for the notion that the rather baroque quality of Spanish
esthetics was also characteristic of ancient times. In the more developed areas
there was considerable emphasis on the
gaudy and sumptuous. Much of the gold in the ancient Mediterranean came
from the peninsula, which seems to have been the "El Dorado" of ancient
times, and Hispanic gold ornaments were known throughout the ancient world. It
has even been conjectured that the valuing of gold as a precious metal
originated in the peninsula. Certainly the opportunity to obtain gold and other
metals whetted Roman interest.
b)
Romanization
With the
peninsula finally subjugated, the “Roman peace" lasted throughout the
early centuries A.D. They were centuries
of law and order, efficient administration, expanding production olive oil,
wheat, wine, honey - and prosperous trade. Roman roads facilitated
communication - the Via Augusta stretched from Cadiz to the Pyrenees. Latin became the official language,
from which modern Spanish and Portuguese were derived. Large Roman cities grew
up, which were centres of government, of trade, and of cultural activity. The
native peoples were gradually allowed to become full Roman citizens. Roman Spain contributed to the Roman Empire
many famous men: the writers Seneca,
Lucan, Quintilian and Martial, all in the first century A.D., and the Emperors
Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius in the second century and Theodosius the
Great in the fourth. When Rome officially adopted Christianity early in the 4th
century, Romanized Spain and Portugal readily followed suit.[3]
The Romans
brought political unity and
juridical norms to the peninsula for the first time. Endemic warfare and
raiding between the pastoral tribes and the more settled communities was
brought to an end. The Roman road system was extended throughout, unifying
Hispanic communications. During the golden
age of Roman Hispania--from the first to the third centuries A.D.--the entire
peninsula [6] was incorporated militarily and most of the population was
incorporated culturally into the Roman world.
Linguistic
unity was slowly achieved as Latin-derived dialects replaced the former
native languages, even among most of the common people. This process
encountered the least resistance and went forward most rapidly in the more
cosmopolitan south and east, where the upper classes, who controlled most of
the land, often made common cause with the Romans. In other regions, tribal
chiefs were brought into the Roman
property system as latifundists.
There was
extensive Roman immigration to the
more developed eastern and southern areas of the peninsula. In other regions
Roman culture was spread by administrators, educators, soldiers, merchants, and
technicians. Sons of the Hispanic upper classes were sometimes sent to Rome for
education.
During the early part of the second century
A.D. Rome was ruled by emperors of
Hispano-Roman origin, and there were three more emperors from Hispania in
the late fourth and early fifth centuries. Several important philosophers and
writers of the empire, including Seneca and Lucan, came from the peninsula. Yet
it should be noted that nearly all these major figures were the offspring of
Roman officials and colonists living there, not of Romanized native Hispani.
Large
numbers of Hispanic troops served in
the Roman forces; the closing phases of the conquest of the peninsula itself
had been carried out to a considerable degree by Hispanic auxiliaries from the conquered
regions. Indeed, the majority of the "Roman" troops that besieged
Numantia had been Hispanic auxiliaries. (But conversely, the loss of life in
the Hispanic wars had been a major factor in decimating the old Roman citizen
army and converting it into a professional mercenary force.) Hispanic warriors
had served abroad as mercenaries under Carthage, and later fought under diverse
foreign banners after the fall of Rome. Altogether, the peninsula was the major
source of mercenaries in The
Mediterranean for nearly two thousand years.
The vital
centers of Roman Hispania were its flourishing cities, and the key unit of local administration, the civitas,
combined both town and countryside in a single district organized around the
city. The boundaries of the civitas were often based upon ancient Iberian or
Celtiberian tribal districts but under the Roman system were geared to the
social and economic needs of the urban centers. In 73 A.D. the right of Roman law and citizenship was apparently
extended to nearly all Hispanic towns. During the first and second centuries
there was a great expansion of urban wealth and a fairly strong Hispanic urban middle class was formed.
During the troubled final centuries of the empire the Hispanic cities seem to
have been somewhat more [7] orderly than those of the eastern part of the Roman
world, and economic decline from the
third century on apparently affected
Hispania proportionately rather less than certain other regions of the
empire, including the most advanced and prosperous sectors.
Roman
capital dominated commerce, in which
Hispania played an essentially colonial role. Hispanic metals, especially gold,
and Hispanic wool were imported by Rome in great volume. The peninsula also
shipped large quantities of the three Mediterranean food staples, grain, olive
oil, and wine, to Rome. By the fourth century, Hispania bad begun to rival
Egypt as the empire's most important granary and continued to sustain a
considerable volume of Mediterranean commerce as late as the fifth century.
Under Roman
rule much of the countryside was transformed. Extensive irrigation projects
were completed and the area under cultivation greatly expanded. Yet despite
extension of the latifundia system,
a sizable proportion of the cultivated area was evidently exploited as small,
individual properties during the first part of the Roman period, partly as a
result of the Roman breakup of collective and communal patterns in the
north-center and west. Moreover, Roman reorganization and expansion of
agriculture relocated and stabilized part of the tribal population in the north
and west, bringing the people down from the hills and settling them on small farming plots. In general, the
concentration of land in large latifundia was not as extensive as in Italy or
Gaul until the second or third centuries.
At its
height Roman Hispania may have had a population
of five million or more. This was concentrated particularly in the more urban south and east but was also
fairly dense in the south-central region, in Lusitania, and in parts of the
northwest. Yet the Romanization of the peninsula was far from complete. Much of
the north and northwest was influenced little by Roman life. Resistance was
always strongest among the more primitive, warlike tribes of the Cantabrian mountain range in the far
north. A somewhat tenuous military dominion was maintained, but even at the
height of the empire there were only a few Roman towns in the far north. The Basques offered less direct military
resistance but remained even more impervious to cultural assimilation.
Source: Payne,
Stanley G. A History of Spain and Portugal Volume 1. The library of Iberian
resources online (http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne1.pdf)
Last retrieved (18.09.2013).
Seventh Text: Speech of Julius Caesar to the
inhabitants of Hispalis (Seville)
“During these transactions at Munda and
Ursao, Caesar, who had returned from Gades to Hispalis, assembled the citizens,
and made the following speech: "That when he was advanced to the
quaestorship, he had chosen their province in preference to all others, and
during his continuance in that office, had done them every service in his
power; that during his praetorship he had obtained for them from the senate the
abolition of the taxes imposed by Metellus, declared himself their patron,
procured their deputies a hearing at Rome, and made himself many enemies by
undertaking the defense both of their private and public rights. In fine, that
when he was consul, he had, though absent, rendered the province all the
services in his power; that instead of making a suitable return for so many
favors, they had always discovered the utmost ingratitude both toward him and
the people of Rome; as well in this last war as the preceding. "You,"
says he, "though no strangers to the law of nations and the rights of
Roman citizens, have yet like barbarians often violated the sacred persons of
Roman magistrates. You attempted in open day, in the public square, to
assassinate Cassius. You have been always such enemies to peace that the senate
could never suffer the province to be without legions. You take favors for
offenses, and insults for benefits, are insolent and restless in peace, and
cowardly and effeminate in war. Young Pompey, though only a private citizen,
nay a fugitive, was yet received among you, and suffered to assume the ensigns
of magistracy. After putting many citizens to death, you still furnished him
with forces, and even urged him to lay waste the country and province. Against
whom do you hope to be victorious? Can you be ignorant that even if I should be
destroyed, the people of Rome have still ten legions, capable not only of
opposing you, but even of pulling down heaven?”
Julius Caesar De Bello
Gallico. The Spanish
Wars. 42.
[1] Rome divided Spain (in 197) into
two provinces: Hispania Citerior (Hither Spain) in the north, Hispania Ulterior
(Farther Spain) in the south, and later formed the province of Lusitania in the
west, corresponding roughly with modern Portugal.
[2] It took the Romans a hundred years to overcome
all major areas of resistance, and a further hundred years to subdue the whole
peninsula. The Lusitanian’s for long resisted stubbornly led by the heroic
Viriatus, around 140 B.C. they temporarily regained a lot of territory from the
Romans. Equally heroic was the defense of the city of Numantia in northern
Spain. Besieged for some twenty years until the city fell in 133 B.C., the
Numantians were nearly all killed or committed suicide, and the city was
totally destroyed.
[3] Stanford A Short History of Spain
and
Portugalhttp://aero-comlab.stanford.edu/jameson/world_history/A_Short_History_of_Spain_and_Portugal.pdf. (Last retrieved September 18, 2013)
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