Roman History

The Romans

The ancient Romans built an empire called the Roman empire. They conquered a lot of countries. They managed to grow from Rome to the whole of Europe to parts of Africa. They had a leader called an emperor. The Romans made new battle tactics. They built sanitation to prevent illnesses. They had games for entertainment.

How Rome was founded

Legend says that the daughter of the king Mars had two baby boys. They were put in the basket and then their uncle put them in a basket and it was washed ashore. They landed where there were three hills. The boys were called Romulus and Remus. Later on a female wolf came and she saw them and so she fed them her milk. The two brothers grew up and as they grew up they were later found by a shepherd. The shepherd and his wife took care of them till they reached manhood. They took care of business with the uncle and managed to gain power. They founded a city on the Palatine hills. Romulus welcomed people in difficulty and helped provide wives by festivals with a nearby tribe.
The myth of the two brothers is true and false. Their Dad king Neptune was a war god and he had wolf milk in his belly. The wolf was a sign of strength. This meant that they had people that were a warrior tribe since they invaded so many kingdoms.

The Roman Republic

The Plebes or people sometimes got the right to speak so they could influence the way the empire was ruled. Rome was very weak at the time of the Greeks and the Persians. The Gauls (French) ransacked the Romans as it was not powerful. During the fourth and 3rd century the Romans invaded most of south and north Italy. After that they got powerful enough to invade the Greeks but they also got invaded by the Greeks but they still managed to control it afterwards. The Romans copied the idea of the Greek gods and statues and they brought back literature. This is an other way in which they became so advanced compared to the middle ages. They had monarchy but they then expelled all the kings and became a republic. There was a senate which took care of what to do. There was also a right for the citizens to vote for or against an idea. This is when they became polytheist which means that they worshipped a lot of gods or spirits.

Reasons why it expanded

The city of Rome was invaded by the Etruscans which was a good thing as it helped them. The Etruscans had a powerful influence and so the Romans copied there way of life. They made pottery and metal working so the Romans were already gaining knowledge that could already be useful for later. The Romans attacked little areas and tried to overcome them. these battles were lost and one. At first they had little land but while they expanded they took some of the enemy soldiers and used them in an other province as auxiliaries. They unlike other civilisations took the knowledge from the other civilisations and used it for their own civilisation. Their way of making their statues was copied from the Greeks as was their polytheism etc.

The territories conquered by the Romans

The Romans conquered all the land around the Mediterranean sea. They conquered the whole of Europe from the British isles to Greece. They conquered part of the African continent around the Mediterranean sea. They also conquered part of Asia minor.

The secret to Rome's advanced tools

The secret was that they took the objects from invaded civilisations and used them in their everyday life. When the Etruscan Empire was crumbling they took power of Rome and then it became a Republic.

The Roman world

The Romans had the best technology at the time. Rome also occupied a large area and had educated people. We also have a lot of things that the Romans had then in their civilisation. They had good road networks around the Roman world. They had a language which everyone spoke. This is a bit like America but America is not as great. In modern day Europe we are still trying to be like them with a single currency. We are going to get the Euro which will be used in the European union. As for the language many people can speak English so that might become the next European language.

Some of the battles fought by the Romans

At the beginning the Romans fought only little tribes but as they gained power they moved on to more powerful enemies which they succeeded in defeating thanks to their good road networks and their military training which were superior to the enemy. The battles were not won in one battle but in a series of battles.

In 265 BC the Romans had already conquered the Italian peninsula. They were said to have exploded as they managed to gain land so fast but not without failures. At this time the Gauls were trying to get into the Roman empire but they did not succeed and later they stopped the incursions. The Romans were defeated by Pyrrhus who was king of Epyrus. This was as he had used an elephant corps to attack the Romans. When the Romans conquered the enemies land they had an attitude that they were enlightened and were tactical on how they dealt with it. Some of the people were given probationary citizenship which meant that it was not permanent and if they did something bad they got it taken away form them. Others were given citizenship without the right to vote. Some of there land was taken away and kept by the state while other times it was carved out and given to Roman citizens. The people were sometimes allowed to marry to Romans but other times were not. They were never allowed to marry each other.