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Romans
The Greeks arrived in Italy During the 8th century BC. They came from Euboea, Argolis,
Locris, Crete and the Aegean islands, settling on the southern coasts and eastern and
southern Sicily. They founded many colonies whose economy was generally based on
agriculture and commerce. Often they allied together against common enemies but they were
soon to be divided by disagreement and rivalry. Among the first to settle on the Italian
coasts were the Achaeans who founded towns like Taranto, Metaponto, Posidonia, and
Sibaris. Locrians and then Chalcidians followed them from Euboea who founded Naxos,
Zancle. The Corinthians founded Siracusa (Syracuse) and Croton, still in the 8th century
BC, and the Megarians Megara Hyblaea on the Gulf of Augusta. Finally, the Phocaeans
founded Elea (Velia) in Campania. Between the years of 900 and 800 BC a mysterious race of
people came and settled on what we now know as the Italian peninsula. As to where these
people came from is still unknown.
Historians and archaeologists alike believe that they came from the eastern Mediterranean,
possibly Asia Minor. The name that is given to this race was the Etruscans. There is no
concrete evidence as to where this race came from and why they decided to settle in Italy.
What we do know is that these people when they came brought with them a civilized way of
life and an organised way of living called urbanisation. The part of Italy they decided to
settle in was in the north eastern part, between the Apennine mountain range and the
Triennia River. It was on this river that this small group of Latin's would settle, and
would eventually become Rome….Therefore, the Romans that were living their as simple
villagers incorporated into their life style the Etruscans way of living, religious ideas,
and their language.
The Etruscans greatly influenced the Romans with their transition into a civilised race.
The Etruscans lived in independent, fortified city-states; the city-states would branch
out into small confederacies. In the beginning, these city-states were ruled by a monarch,
but were later ruled by oligarchies that governed through a council and through elected
officials. The Etruscans like the surrounding populace had an economy based on
agriculture, but they also had a strong military force to keep the villagers and the
surrounding villages in check. The Etruscans used their military might to subdue the local
Romans into doing the field work while they devoted their time to commerce and industry.
During the 7th and 6th century the Etruscan military might had conquered most of Italy and
the island of Corsica. The Etruscans used an alphabet based on the Greek alphabet an
original form of sculptural and painting traditions, a religion based on human type gods
that they had acquired from the Greeks, and a complicated set of rituals for prophesising
the future, that they handed down to the Romans. While the Etruscans were busy building
their power though out Italy and engaging in active trade with the east and with Africa, a
city to the south began to grow slowly but surely, a city closely linked to the Etruscans
form of living in many ways: the kingdom of Rome. The town and territory occupied by the
Latino expanded gradually during the royal period (753-510 BC), under the seven kings of
Rome: Romulus, Enuma Pompilius, Tulles Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquin Priscus, Servius
Tullius and Tarquin. In this period the juridical and social organization of the new
nation evolved, revealing clear influence from the nearby Etruscan civilization.
Territorially, at the end of the 6th century BC, Roman Lazio extended itself to cover
about 2000 sq km. It covered the lower Aniene Valley as far as its junction with the Tiber
and from there to the sea, including the major part of the Alban Hills and the coast from
the mouth of the Tiber to the promontory of Anzio. Stock rearing and agriculture the main
economy of the Latin monarchy was based on commerce, favoured by Rome's geographic
position between Campania (Magna Grecian) and Etruria as well as by the proximity of the
mouth of the Tiber, which was a harbour of growing importance also because of salt pans to
be found there. The transition from monarchy to republic (510-509 BC) was not a simple
institutional change. It involved a judicial and social transformation, as with the
emancipation of the intellectuals who succeeded in gaining access to the highest offices
of state, previously a monopoly of the patrician oligarchy. The complex events of the
social struggles with the latter class produced written laws for the first time. These
Laws called the Twelve Tables were carved in bronze. Upon their acceptance into Roman
society, other laws followed quickly. While developing its own social structures, the
Roman state found itself involved in a series of conflicts with the neighbouring races.
Rome succeeded in strengthening her military might to such an extent that by the end of
the 3rd century she equalled the other four great military Mediterranean powers: Carthage,
Egypt, Syria and Macedonia. After survived the battles from Gallic invaders in 390 BC, the
Gaul's crossed the Po Valley and the Apennines mountains to sack Rome itself. After having
defeated the Roman army, first at Chiusi and then on the banks of the Allia in 387 BC,
Rome completed the conquest of Lazio. It did this by conquering the towns of the Volsci
(Anzio) to the south and those of the Etruscans (Tarquinia, Faleri and Caere) to the north
of the Tiber; Veio having been conquered after a ten-year siege at the beginning of the
century (396 BC) by Furius Camillus. Following its gradual expansion in the mid 4th
century BC the Roman military came up against the Samnites who had descended from the
heart of the central-southern Apennines Mountains towards the fertile lands of Campania,
where they swiftly annihilated the flourishing towns of Capua in 438 BC, and Cumae in 421
BC. The Luciana's had already occupied the prosperous town of Pasteur. Rome wisely entered
an alliance with the Samnites in 354 BC against the wishes of the nearby towns.
Conflict with the Samnites for Campania dominance was however inevitable and lasted for
well over half a century (343-290 BC). Roman dominance in Central Italy was consolidated,
Rome prepared to extend it over the rest of the peninsula during a ten-year conflict with
Taranto (282-272 BC), who was allied with the King of Epirus, Pyrrhus. While they enjoyed
a modest victory at Ausculum (279 BC), they were heavily defeated at Beneventum (275 BC).
Rome thus achieved total supremacy of the Italian peninsula and set up a complicated
system of alliances between the territory of Rome, towns, and colonies enjoying full or
partial Roman citizenship and others who, while being independent, recognized Roman
sovereignty as a confederation. Extending over some 130,000 sq km and protected by half a
million soldiers, made up from Romans and its neighbouring allies. During the middle years
of the Third Century, the Roman Empire went through several changes that almost destroyed
it. Barbarian invasions threatened the empire from the outside. Emperors placed on the
throne by the army were to be murdered by the same people that had placed them there, and
then to be replaced by yet another despot ruler. During the reign of Gallienus, the Roman
government literally went bankrupt. Silver was removed from the coins and the inflation
crisis it caused nearly led to the financial ruin of the people. This is a period about
which there is little reliable information. Suetonius, Tacitus, Livy, Dio Cassius, and our
other early sources of information died before this period. Ammianus Marcellinus,
Claudian, Herodian, Cassiodorus, and Merobaudes who came later but either did not write
about this period or their works were lost or destroyed. Information about the period was
written at a much later date, inscriptions on coins, fragments of information from
inscriptions on monuments and evidence from archaeological digs. During the middle of the
second century much that was written is said to be reliable. However, after 235 AD a lot
of what was written has been put down to myths, legends, and hearsay. Theodosius I was the
last of the great emperors of the Roman Empire. He died in 395 AD from a congestive heart
disease. He divided his empire equally between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius.
Because Honorius was young and possibly feeble minded Theodosius made Stilicho regent to
keep an eye on him as he ruled the west of Roman. In the east Arcadius ruled his part of
the empire from Constantinople. However, he soon fell under the influence of his
Praetorian Prefect and Lord Chamberlain. A strong Emperor would never again rule the Roman
Empire. As time went by the east gradually drifted away from the life they had known under
Theodosius and they began to incorporate the Greek way of life including their language
and culture. In the west the once powerful empire gradually weakened under a series of
weak rulers. Even if the west had a strong leader it still would still have broken up and
fallen to the barbarian kingdoms. If it were not for two strong and competent soldiers,
Flavius Aetius and Flavius Stilicho, the west would have collapsed completely, being lost
to the Visigoths in the early years of the Fifth Century.
Their masters possibly due to jealousy or paranoia murdered both these soldiers. Some even
believe that hey had indeed plotted to overthrow their respective Emperors and claim the
throne for themselves. But nothing said can take away the fact that both of these men did
everything in their power to hold together what was once the greatest living entity the
world had ever known. Both Flavius Aetius and Flavius Stilicho sacrificed their own lives
for their country. Soon after that Rome was to suffer the indignity of being invaded and
sacked twice. Odovacer sent its last teenage Emperor back to the Eastern emperor with his
imperial regalia, sceptre, and robes, with the message "We no longer have need of
these, or an emperor here in Rome.
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