Name Period. Roman Emperors and Monuments

Transcription

1 Name Period Roman Emperors and Monuments

2 Famous Emperors of the Roman Empire During the 500 years of the Roman Empire, there were over 140 different emperors! Here is a summary of just a few of the most important or famous of these emperors. Augustus (27BCE 14CE): Augustus was originally born in 63BCE, with the name Octavian. When he came to power in 44BCE, after the death of Julius Caesar, he worked quickly to reorganize the government to make it legal for him to be emperor for life. After several new laws and ceremonies, in 27BCE, the Roman Senate gave Octavian the name Princeps, which means First Citizen. Octavian, now named Augustus, was the first official Emperor of Rome. Throughout his career, Augustus worked hard to improve the Roman Empire. He reorganized the government to make it more efficient. He had many temples and aqueducts built in Rome. He organized the army so it became stronger and more effective. Augustus also expanded the size of the Roman Empire, bringing in more resources and money to improve Rome s riches. After many years in power, Augustus died of natural causes in 14CE at the age of 75. One of the most famous quotes from his life was, I found Rome a city of bricks, and I made it a city of marble. Caligula (37CE-41CE): In 37CE, one of the most unpopular emperors of Rome, Tiberius, died. His successor, Gaius (nicknamed Caligula), succeeded him as a very popular ruler. He started out very well. Caligula undid many of Tiberius s laws and taxes and he brought back people who had been exiled. The people of Rome were very excited to have Caligula as their Emperor. Shortly after coming to power, Caligula became ill. When he returned from his sickness, Caligula was a changed man. He began to do things differently in Rome. He had criminals executed, without trial, in front of his party guests. He ordered friends and supporters to their deaths. He took much of Rome s money and spent it on statues of himself in Roman temples. Caligula even had part of his palace built right next to the Temple of Jupiter so that he could claim he was next door to Jupiter, making him equal to the gods. Many people began to believe that Caligula was insane. Caligula believed he was a god, and he forced some groups of people to worship him. To try and prove how wonderful he was, Caligula claimed to have conquered the sea, the home of the god Neptune. Eventually, the people of Rome grew tired and scared of Caligula. He was assassinated by his own bodyguard after only four years in power.

3 Nero (54CE-68CE): Nero came to power only 13 years after the terror of Caligula. Like Emperor Augustus though, when Nero became emperor, he treated the senate with respect and gave them greater power. He reduced taxes. He changed the laws so that governors in the provinces could not tax people so much. He thought about ending the killing of gladiators and criminals in the arenas. He acted as a fair judge because he believed that all people should have a fair trial. In the beginning Nero was a good ruler. The people of Rome loved him. Nero loved to sing, dance, and recite poetry. He sometimes performed on a public stage; that shocked the senate and the people. The emperors were never supposed to act in public. That was the job of a lowly actor! In 64CE, a massive fire broke out and burned much of Rome. As Rome burned, legend says that Nero played his fiddle (violin) as he watched the city go up in flames. Many Romans believed that Nero himself had started the fire. Nero however blamed the fire on the Christians. Nero had many of the Christians killed because of this. Nero rebuilt much of the city with his own money. However, he took a lot of Rome s money to build a massive palace for himself. He also began appearing in public in a housecoat type outfit, without a belt, and without shoes. He smelled. He did not bathe very often. He became mean and cruel. Nero began sending people he did not like a note ordering them to commit suicide. If they did not, they were killed without a trial. Senators were executed. Christians were crucified. No one was safe. He even murdered both his mother and his wife. Finally, the senate acted. They ordered the emperor to be beaten to death. Nero heard about it, and chose to commit suicide, which he did in 68CE. His last words were What an artist the world loses in me. Trajan (98CE 117CE): Trajan was the first emperor who did not come from Italy; he actually came from Spain. He was a brilliant general and a modest man. When Trajan arrived in Rome at the turn of the century in 98CE, as emperor, he was greeted with cheers. Trajan entered the city on foot. He hugged senators; he walked among the people. No one had ever seen anything like this. Rome was enchanted. He was a well-educated, attractive man. He loved hunting, hiking, and mountain climbing. He believed in order and in freedom. One of the first things Trajan did was promise the senate and the people that he would always keep them posted on what was going on in government and that their freedoms were important to him. He started huge public works programs to begin to correct the problems of crowding and poverty in Rome. It was Trajan who started the welfare system for children. He started repairing and building projects. He fixed roads, built bridges, and even added a major harbor in Rome. Trajan was not perfect though. He had quite a temper, and he loved war. He was always fighting somebody. Under his direction, the Roman Empire grew to its largest size it covered more geography than at any other time. He died in 117CE from natural causes. Trajan's fame as the near perfect Roman emperor was remembered. Rome did not always have good emperors, but the good ones who came after Trajan tried to live up to the example he had set.

4 Hadrian (117CE 138CE): Hadrian was the emperor who immediately followed the popular Trajan. Hadrian was another well-loved emperor who was responsible for many improvements throughout Rome. He was an architect who liked to design buildings. Hadrian designed and had many monuments built in Rome, including his massive palace and the Pantheon, a temple to the gods that still stands today. Hadrian also had a long defensive wall built in Britain to try and end the constant fighting that was going on there. This wall, now known as Hadrian s Wall, was a wall that was designed to say Stop! This is the border of the Roman Empire! Hadrian believed more in improving Rome rather than enlarging it. He traveled all throughout the Roman Empire trying to improve the cities and communities he visited. Back in Rome, he put together the first Code of Laws since the Law of the Twelve Tables, which was now more than 500 years old! Rome became stronger and continued to prosper under his rule. Diocletian (284CE 305CE): In 285CE, Diocletian became the Emperor of Rome. Before he came to power, the Roman Empire had suffered years of war, famine, and instability. Diocletian wanted to change this; he wanted Rome to return to its past glory. Diocletian decided the Roman Empire was too big for one man to govern. He split the empire down the middle into two huge pieces. The western half included the city of Rome, while the eastern half included Asia Minor. He chose his good friend, Maximian, to rule the Western Roman Empire. Diocletian ruled the Eastern Roman Empire, and was considered the Senior Emperor. He also assigned two men the roles of assistants to the emperors. They acted like junior emperors. It was a four-headed approach to government. Once he had leaders installed in various sections of the empire, he set about fixing some of the problems that had been facing the empire for many years. Diocletian changed the military system so that men served a term of 20 years. After that, they could retire with honor. He tried to restore the treasury with coins that had value and started new taxes on property and individuals. He tried to restore the Roman religion, which meant he ordered people to return to the temples and worship the gods in the old ways. He believed Christianity was a threat to the Roman way of life. In 303CE, he ordered the destruction of all Christian places of worship and the death of all Christians. These new laws actually seemed to increase the number of Christian followers, but Christians were persecuted until Diocletian was no longer emperor. In 305CE, twenty years after he took power, Diocletian abdicated (turned over) his job as emperor, and retired to his beloved palace on the Croatian Coast. He believed he had put the Roman Empire back on course.

5 Constantine (306CE 337CE): Constantine was the first Christian emperor. He made a great many changes. In 312CE, by the Edict of Milan, he made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire. People could now worship without fear of persecution. He took the treasures from the temples in Rome and used this wealth to pay for the construction of new Christian churches. He outlawed gladiator contests. He reorganized the army by disbanding the Praetorian Guard, the guard who had held strong influence over the empire for so long. Those who lived in the city of Rome had to pay their taxes in gold or silver. This tax was levied every four years. If citizens didn t pay, they were beaten and tortured. People sold their children into slavery to pay their taxes. Constantine was a hard, vain, ruthless man, with a horrible temper. He had his own son executed without any proof of guilt. Constantine is possibly most famous for building the city that carried his name Constantinople (later changed to Istanbul.) He decided that Rome was too riddled with crime and poverty to worry about it anymore. Constantine moved to the Eastern Roman Empire, and used tax monies from Rome to build his new capital. He was careful about it. He announced that the senate in Constantinople was of a lower rank than the Senate in Rome, but he clearly intended that his new capital would someday replace Rome. He died of natural causes in 337CE. Valens (364CE 378CE): Emperor Valens was a military man. When his brother became the emperor of the Western Roman Empire the half that included Rome he asked Valens to rule the other half, the Eastern Roman Empire. When his brother died, Valens took over as senior-augustus, the main emperor. He put his nephew, another military man, in charge of the Western Roman Empire. There were problems starting in Rome. The Visigoths, the barbarians to the north, were fleeing from the Huns, another barbarian tribe. The Visigoths entered the Roman Empire to escape the Huns. Emperor Valens allowed them to stay. Many people did not agree with this and felt the Visigoths should be kicked out. However, hundreds of thousands of Visigoths settled in the northern Roman provinces. Things might have ended differently if the Visigoths had been treated kindly. Emperor Valens had promised food, shelter, and other help to the settlers, but he did not keep his promise. The Visigoths were forced to live in horribly crowded conditions, and they were starving. It is not surprising that the Visigoths rebelled. To make matters worse, while the Visigoths kept the army busy, the Huns were free to enter the Italian peninsula as well. Things were a mess back in Rome. Valens decided to take on the Goths (Visigoths) by himself. Valens army was wiped out, and Valens himself died in the battle in 378CE. Because he allowed the Visigoths into the empire and then could not lead his army to defeat the barbarians, Valens is remembered as the emperor who began the downfall of the Roman Empire.

6 Famous Monuments of the Roman Empire Coliseum: In 80CE, one of the greatest monuments to ever be created in Ancient Rome was opened to the public: the Coliseum. Originally called the Flavian Amphitheater, the Coliseum was a massive stadium that could seat over 50,000 people. It was used to offer entertainment to the people of Rome in the form of speeches, plays, gladiator battles, animal hunts, and even naval battles. Because so many people and animals died in the Coliseum, it earned the nickname the Arena of Death. The Coliseum was a massive building that had 240 arches to help support the incredible weight of all the stones used for building. There were statues of gods and goddesses throughout the upper levels of the Coliseum. The roof was even retractable! There were several awnings that could be pulled out over the spectators to shield them from the sunlight. The Coliseum is considered one of the greatest Roman achievements of all time. In modern times, it is partially ruined because of several earthquakes. Today it is recognized as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Circus Maximus: The Circus Maximus was a long, oval track used primarily for chariot-racing, although it was used on occasion for hunts or mock battles. It had approximately 300,000 seats and was famous throughout the ancient world. Built in the 6th century BCE, there was a long barrier called the spina that ran down the middle of the track. In addition to obelisks, fountains, statues, and columns, there were also two temples on either end of the spina, one with seven large eggs and one with seven dolphins. At the end of each lap of the seven lap race, one egg and one dolphin would be removed from each temple, to keep the spectators and the racers updated on how many laps had been completed. In the Circus Maximus, unlike other amphitheaters of the day, men and women could sit together. The Circus Maximus also had the ancient equivalent of the skyboxes now seen in stadiums for professional sports. The Emperor had a reserved seat, as did senators, soldiers, those who financially backed the race, those who presided over the competition, and the jury who awarded the prize to the winners. The last race held at the Circus Maximus was in 549CE, nearly a full millennium after the track's construction.

7 Pantheon: The Pantheon was a temple devoted to the Roman gods and goddesses. It was originally built in 31BCE, but it was ruined and nearly destroyed multiple times by fires. In 126CE, the emperor Hadrian redesigned the Pantheon and had it repaired and rebuilt, and is now considered one of the most lasting achievements of Roman engineering. The Pantheon is a large circular temple that has a dome for a roof (it was actually the world s largest dome for over 1,300 years). The Romans built this 142-foot long dome out of concrete, making it extremely heavy. To lighten the load, the Pantheon has a large hole in the middle of the ceiling, called an oculus. This oculus provided light for the entire Pantheon, as it still does today. The interior of the Pantheon was decorated with many statues and pictures of the Roman gods and goddesses. Trajan s Column: In the year 113CE, after the emperor Trajan had just completed a long and difficult war against a group of people called Dacians, a monument was built to honor his victory. Trajan commissioned a huge 125-foot tall column that told the story of his great victory; thus it is called a victory column. Wrapped around the column is a series of pictures depicting Trajan s victory, a spiral frieze, that shows the emperor Trajan defeating his enemy. On the top of the column, there used to be a statue of Trajan himself, but that was replaced in later years by a statue of St. Peter, which still stands there today.

8 Aqueducts: As Rome grew larger, water problems became more significant. How would they make sure they had enough drinking water? How much water would be needed to supply the Public Baths? What about all the wonderful fountains throughout the city? To answer these questions, the Romans built one of the greatest aqueduct networks in the entire world. Aqueducts are structures that allow water from a mountain spring to travel to a city. It is basically a bridge for water. In 500 years, the Romans built 11 massive aqueducts for the city of Rome. Each one started in the mountains, then traveled through many tunnels and over valleys, and finally into Rome itself. The aqueducts were built with the help of many arches. These arches helped support and stabilize the structure, making sure it survived for hundreds of years. The aqueducts are considered one of the greatest achievements of the Roman Empire and many of them still stand today. Hadrian s Wall: One of the most expensive building projects ever undertaken in Rome was the construction of Hadrian s Wall. This wall, built in Britain around 122CE, was designed as a defensive wall that told everyone Stop! This is the border of Rome! The Romans were constantly fighting the groups from northern Britain, so in an effort to keep them out of Rome, a massive 70-mile long wall was built that stretched across the entire British island. There were numerous forts, ditches, and other defensive measures built along the wall as well. Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of the wall and personally inspected it as it was being built. Today, much of the wall still stands, although it is ruins. Many stones from the wall were removed for building projects in nearby communities as time went on.