ROME - THE REPUBLIC

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FROM:

H.G. WELLS - "OUTLINE OF HISTORY"




In 1,200 BCE, before the rise of the Assyrian empire, the siege of Troy and the
final destruction of Cnossos, but after the time of Amenophis IV, Italy, like
Spain, was probably inhabited mainly by dark white people of the more funda-
mental Iberian or Mediterranean race.  This aboriginal population was probably
a thin and backward one.  But already in Italy, as in Greece, they had inter-
married with their darker predecessors and established a group of Aryan
languages, the Italian group, more akin to the Keltic (Gaelic) than to any other,
of which the most interesting from the historical point of view was that spoken by the Latin tribes in plains south and east of the river Tiber.  Meanwhile the Greeks
had been settling down in Greece, and now they were taking to the sea and
crossing over to  South Italy and Sicily and establishing themselves there. 
Subsequently they established colonies along the French Riviera and founded
Marseilles upon the site of an older Phoenician colony.  Another interesting
people also had come into Italy by sea.  These were a brownish sturdy people,
to judge from the pictures they have left of themselves; very probably they were
a tribe of those Aegean "dark whites" who were being driven out of Greece and
Asia Minor and the islands in between by the Greeks.  These Etruscans, as they were called in Italy, were known even in ancient times to be of Asiatic origin, and
it is tempting, but probably unjustifiable, to connect this tradition with the Aeneid,
the epic of the Latin poet Virgil, in which Latin civilization is ascribed to Trojan
immigrants from Asia Minor.  (But the Trojans themselves were probably an
Aryan people allied to the Phrygians.)  These Etruscan people conquered most
of Italy north of the Tiber, from the Aryan tribes who were scattered over the
country.  Probably the Etruscans ruled over a subjugated Italian population, so
reversing the state of affairs in Greece, in which the Aryans were uppermost.

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Of all the peoples actually in Italy, the Etruscans were by far the most civilized. 
They built sturdy fortresses of the Mycaenean type of architecture; they had a
metal industry; they used imported Greek pottery of a very fine type.  The
Latin tribes on the other side of the Tiber were, by comparison, barbaric.

The Latins were still a rude farming people.  The centre of their worship was a
temple to the tribal god Jupiter, upon the Alban Mount.  There they gathered for their chief festivals.  This gathering-place was not a town; it was a high place of assembly.  There was no population permanently there.  There were, however, twelve townships in the Latin league.  At one point upon the Tiber there was a
ford, and here and there was a trade between Latins and Etruscans.  At this ford
Rome had its beginnings.  Traders assembled there, and refugees from the twelve towns found an asylum and occcupation at this trading centre.  Upon the seven hills near the ford a number of settlements sprang up, which finally amalgamated
into one city.

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Most people have heard the story of the two brothers, Romulus and Remus, who
founded Rome and the legend of how they were exposed as infants and shelt-
ered and suckled by a wolf.  The date 753 is given for the founding of Tome, but there are Etruscan tombs beneath the Roman Forum of much earlier date than
that, and the so-called tomb of Romulus bears an indecipherable Etruscan in-
scription.

The peninsula of Italy was not then the smiling land of vineyards and olive
orchards it has since become.  It was still a rough country of marsh and forest,
in which the farmers grazed their cattle and made their clearings.  Rome, on
the boundary between Latin and Etruscan, was not in a very strong position
for defence.  At first there were, perhaps, Latin kings in Rome; then it would
seem, the city fell into the hands of Etruscan rulers whose tyrannous conduct
led at last to their expulsion, and Rome became a Latin-speaking republic.

Of the struggle between the Romans and the Etruscans we cannot tell in any
detail here.  The Etruscans were the better armed, the more civilized and the
more numerous, and it would probably have gone hard with the Romans if they
had had to fight them alone.  But two disasters happened to the Etruscans,
which so weakened them, that the Romans were able at last to master them
altogether.  The first of these was a war with the Greeks of Syracuse in Sicily,
which destroyed the Etruscan fleet (474 BC), and the second was a great raid
of the Gauls from the north into Italy.  These latter people swarmed into North
Italy and occupied the valley of the Po towards the end of the fifth century BC,
as a couple of centuries later their kindred were to swarm down into Greece
and Asia Minor and settle in Galatia.  The Etruscans were thus caught between
hammer and anvil and, after a long and intermittent war, the Romans were abble
to capture Veii, an Etruscan fortress, a few miles from Rome, which had hitherto
been a great threat and annoyance to them.

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But the invasion of the Gauls was one of those convulsions of the nations that
leave nothing as it has been before.  They carried their raiding right down the
Italian peninsula, devastating all Etruria.  They took and sacked Rome(390 BC).
According to Roman legends, the citadel on the Capitol held out, and this also the Gauls would have taken by surprise at night, if certain geese had not been awakened by their stealthy movements and set up such a cackling as to arouse
the garrison.  After that the Gauls, who were ill-equipped for siege operations,  perhaps suffering from disease in their camp, were bought off, and departed to
the northward again.  And, though they made susequent raids, they never again
reached Rome.

The leader of the Gauls who sacked Rome was named Brennus.  It is related of
him that as the gold of the ransom was being weighed, there was some dispute
about the justice of the counterpoise, whereupon he flung his sword into the
scale, saying, "VAE VICTIS!" ("Woe to the Vanquished!") - a phrase that has
haunted the discussions of all subsequent ransoms and indemnities down to
the present time.

For half a century after this experience Rome was engaged in a series of wars to
establish herself at the head of the Latin tribes.  For the burning of the chief city
seems to have stimulated rather than crippled her energies.  However much she
suffered, most of her neighbours seem to have suffered more.  By 290BC Rome
was the mistress city of all Central Italy from the Arno to south of Naples.  She had
conquered the Etruscans altogether, and her boundaries marched with those of
the Gauls to the north and with the regions of Italy under Greek dominion (Magna
Graecia) to the south.  Along the Gaulish boundary she had planted garrisons and
colonial cities, and no doubt it was because of that line of defence that the raiding
enterprises of the Gauls were deflected eastward into the Balkans.


FROM:

H.G. WELLS - "THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY"

[unknown]

great book!

HG WELLS outline of history is great way to get a thorough overview of western history.

I highly recommend it

[Bianca]

Hi, Unknown:

Yes, I also think  "The Outline of History" is great!   

It has helped me answer my children's and my grandchild's questions
when they were growing up, without lugging out the Britannica and
without giving them a whole lot of useless (for them) information that
would have bored them out of their minds.

I look forward to using it again for that purpose when my two great-
grandaughters start asking questions.

Love and Peace,
Bianca

[unknown]

It is so well written and conscise, with just enough detail to be entertaining, but not so much that it overshadows the important points.

If your Granddaughters learn history from it, they will diffently have a understanding of history. I wish I would have found it as a kid.

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History of Ancient Rome begins in a small village in central Italy; this unassuming village would grow into a small metropolis, conquer and control all of Italy, southern Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt, and find itself, by the start of AD time, the most powerful and largest empire in the world. They managed what no other people had managed before: they ruled the entire world under a single administration for a considerable amount of time. This imperial rule, which extended from Great Britain to Egypt, from Spain to Mesopotamia, was a period of remarkable peace. The Romans - citizens of ancient Rome, would look to their empire as the instrument that brought law and justice to the rest of the world; in some sense, the relative peace and stability they brought to the world did support this view.

They were, however, a military state, and they ruled over this vast territory by maintaining a strong military presence in subject countries. An immensely practical people, the Romans devoted much of their brilliance to military strategy and technology, administration, and law, all in support of the vast world government that they built.

Ancient Rome, however, was responsible for more than just military and administrative genius. Culturally, the Romans had a slight inferiority complex in regards to the Greeks, who had begun their city-states only a few centuries before the rise of the Roman republic. The Romans, however, derived much of their culture from the Greeks: art, architecture, philosophy, and even religion. However, the Romans changed much of this culture, adapting it to their own particular world view and practical needs. It is this changed Greek culture, which we call Graeco-Roman culture, that was handed down to the European civilizations in late antiquity and the Renaissance.

People have lived in Italy for a long time, because Italy is a fairly fertile area, but the time when Rome was powerful did not begin until after the greatest power of Egypt and Greece.

History of Ancient Rome is usually divided into three main periods: before the rise of Rome, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire. The Empire is usually divided up according to who was emperor.



 

BEFORE THE RISE OF ROME:

 
Stone Age (to 3000 BC)
Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BC-1000 BC)
Etruscans (ca. 1000 BC-500 BC)



THE REPUBLIC:

 
The early period (ca. 500 BC-300 BC)
The Punic Wars (ca. 275 BC-146 BC)
The Civil Wars (ca. 146 BC-30 BC)




ROMAN EMPIRE

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                                                 R O M A N   F A S C E S
       
 
 
FASCES: set of rods bound in the form of a bundle which contained an axe. In ancient Rome, the bodyguards of a magistrate carried Fasces.

The word fasces means "bundle" and refers to the fact that it is a bundle of rods, which surrounded an ax in the middle. In ancient Rome, the lictors carried fasces before consul, praetors and dictators, i.e., magistrates that held imperium (which means that they had the right to command and interpret the flight of the birds). Other people escorted by lictors with fasces were Vestal Virgins, governors, and the commanders of legions.

On festive occasions (e.g., a military victory), fasces could be crowned with laurel; on the other hand, when the city was in mourning, the fasces were sometimes cloaked. If the ax was left out, it could mean that the magistrate wanted to request something from the people or had something to apologize for.

The fasces were a symbol of authority, but the precise meaning is unknown. It is often claimed that the rods could be used to lash people, and the ax to execute them. This may have been true in the days of the monarchy, but not during the republic. After the Laws of the Twelve Tables, no Roman magistrate could summarily execute a Roman citizen.

The Romans believed that the fasces were introduced in Rome from Etruria. Again, this may be true, but the tradition is open to some criticism. So far, only one set of fasces has been found in Etruria, in the Tomba del littore near Vetulonia, in 1890. This find has been hailed as a confirmation of the tradition, but it should be noted that the archaeologists only found a lot of small rusty flakes, which were interpreted as Etruscan fasces, which, they had to admit, were not identical to Roman fasces.

They were entirely made of metal, the ax had two blades, and finally: the Etruscan fasces were extremely small. It has been said that the find from Vetulonia is only a miniature model, but this is poor method: to rescue an interpretation, one introduces a hypothesis.
   
Of course, doubts about this find do not prove that the fasces did not come from Etruria. One argument for this tradition is that the least unconvincing etymology of the word lictor is that it is derived from a Etruscan word that means "royal" (more).

In the eighteenth century, the fasces received a second life, when the young United States and republican France started to use ancient Roman symbols. Both were progressive revolutionary nations that imitated the Roman republican constitution.

The use of fasces by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is quite another story. In 1921, he called his political movement Fasci di Combattimento, fascio being the Italian word for peasant organizations and labor unions. When il duce chose the ancient Roman fasces as symbol of the fascist party, he was at the same time playing with the similarity of the words fascio and fasces, chosing an ancient symbol, and drawing a parallel between fascism and progressive movements of the past.



     Ancient Rome
 

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CINCINNATUS RETURNS TO HIS FARM AFTER SAVING ROME