G.R.A.P.E.SGeography Religion

AchievementsPoliticsEconomy

Social Structure

Geography Location

Expansion and the loss of land

Resources ?

Location Rome is located on a peninsula in what is now France.

Rome was built on along the Tiber River.

Rome was built on seven hills: Capitoline, Palatine, Aventine, Vinimal, Caelian, Esquiline, and Quirinal.

Punic Wars In the first Punic war, Rome fought Carthage for Sicily.

The Second Punic war, Rome conquered Po Valley but, they lost Saguntum. After, Scipio fought Hannibal and won Spain back.

The third Punic war didn’t gain land but almost lost some.

Resources The Tiber River stretched 250 miles giving Rome a water supply.

The Italian Peninsula had arable land.

The Italian Peninsula surrounded by water which had benefits to trade.

Expansion Rome gained Italy in

264 B.C.E. The Etruscans expanded

to Latium in 600 B.C.E.

Rome conquered Po Valley during the second Punic war.

Farming helped Rome grow because of the money that came in from selling the products

Religion Christianity

Greek Mythology Roman Beliefs

Etruscan Mysticism

Christianity Jesus was the Messiah which

means, the anointed leader. It was told that he was God’s son sent down to see about human life.

Christians were fed to the lions because Romans believed there are many gods and not just one.

Well Jesus was in his 30’s when he left home and went to visit his cousin John who was baptizing people in the Jordan River. After he, himself, was baptized he went into the desert for several weeks and came back and taught about Hebrew scripture.

The Romans were afraid he was going to start a war. With this, they tried to find a reason to arrest him. Jesus ended up dying from crucifixion.

Greek Mythology Zeus was the main god in Greek

mythology. Hera, the protector of married women and their house holds, was his wife.

Poseidon and Hades were Zeus’ brothers. Poseidon was the god of the sea well Hades, was the god of the underworld. Apollo was the god of arts, prophecies, and healing. Ares was the god of war, Artemis was in charge of the woods and hunting, Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, and Demeter looked over the crops, harvests, and farming. Athena was wise and calm. She “gave” the olive tree to the Greeks and was brave and fierce during war times.

The gods acted like humans too. They fell in love, got married, got jealous and angry, and had children. Playing tricks and celebrating were always fun for them.

Roman Beliefs Many of the Romans beliefs

came from the Etruscan, Greek, and other Italian spirits. Later on, people started to think that there emperor was a god.

Romans believed there gods lived in trees, rocks, and plants like those. But, they built temples for the most important gods.

Like the Greeks, they put there gods in human forms, like Jupiter was terrifying and proud, his wife, Juno, was ion the form of a peacock. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom and always dressed in armor.

Romans worshipped in great temples and had shrines in their house. At the shrines, they worshipped daily to the gods.

Etruscan Mysticism Etruscans believed that

lighting gave them signs of nature. They would look at the lighting before they went to battle to see who would win.

Etruscans studied seasonal migration of birds.

They would also cut animals open and read their internal organs before conducting a burial.

Diviners read the stars for their layout of their towns.

Achievements Technology

Science and astronomyLanguage and literature

Water systems

Technology Over 50,000 miles of roads

lead to Rome. Even today there are routes built on top of the roads that were meant to last.

These roads were built mainly to move the army around faster. When not fight the soldiers would build the roads.

There was a layer of large, flat stone laid at the bottoms of road beds. Smaller stones and gravel laid on top covered with paving stone and crushed rocks, or concrete. There was always a slight hump to drain the water.

The roads sped up communication too. Messengers could travel 75 miles a day on horseback. It was also easier to see the world.

Water Systems The water systems were

elaborate to supply the town with clean water. They built hundreds of miles of canals ad aqueducts to move water from mountains springs to plains below.

Some Roman aqueducts are still used today.

One in the city, ran through lead pipes for public fountains were most people got there water and to public baths.

The engineers were amazing because there sewer systems could not be equaled until today’s technology. People were

Science and Astronomy Claudius Ptolemy wrote a

book, Almagest, saying we were the center of the universe and many people thought that this was true for centuries.

Hypatia was a teacher of philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and religion. There was a rumor going around saying that she talked about Christians in bad ways and was killed by a mob of Christians. She was noted to be the first women for excellence in mathematics.

Under Roman rule science and mathematics grew very big.

Language and Literature First the main language was

Greek but then went into Latin on the Western Roman empire. But, Greek stayed in the Eastern Roman Empire. The educated knew both of the languages.

Well Augustus ruled it was part of the golden age of literature in Latin. During the peaceful years of the empire, he encouraged his writers and artist.

Roman writers wrote poetry, tragedies, comedies, histories and a common theme: patriotism. Patriotic writers glories Rome’s history

Romance languages are based on Latin. Italian, French, Portuguese, and Romanian. English is not a romance language, but, most of are words have Latin roots.

Politics Emperors

Roman ConstitutionTripartite GovernmentPatrons and Clients

Emperors Trajan hired honest and

reliable people to be governors and gave a fund to the poor people, especially poor children.

Hadrian reformed the Roman legal system and listened well to the concerns of his people.

Nero established literary academies but was also very selfish and took most of everyone's money for luxuries purposes.

Augustus built new aqueducts and tolerated criticisms and had a great sense of humor, but, was a very private person.

Roman Constitution The basic principles grew

at this time because of the Struggle of the Orders. But, Check and Balances help with not to give to much power going to one branch.

Rule of Law was the second basic principle. Rule of Law means the Romans accepted written laws.

In 287 B.C.E., the law Lex Hortensia was past. This law gave plebeians many rights. For example this gave the Tribal Assemblies power to pass laws without the approval of Senate or Consuls.

Patrons and Clients Patrons were patricians,

which were wealthy plebeians. Clients were plebeians.

Patrons offered assistance to clients in return to get there political support.

This relationship began earlier in the republic. This, also, allowed patricians to help people less-fortunate then themselves and receive there vote in return.

Triumvirate government A tripartite government means a three

part government. It is made up of the Magistrates, Senate, and Assemblies. And these three reflected three different types of rule: Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Democracy.

The Magistrates represented the Monarchy. There were two consuls as the top magistrates who were elected for a one year term. They led the government and army and also acted as judges and priests.

The senate represented the tradition of oligarchy. The senate advised the consuls and controls state finances and passed laws.

The Two Assemblies made up the last branch and they represented the democratic element. The Centuriate Assembly placed all men in classes of how much military equipment they could provide. The wealthy patricians gained more votes since they had more money the plebeians. The Tribal Assembly plebeians were in charge. This Assembly became a powerful force in Rome. The Tribal Assembly elected the tribunes who had veto power over the branches

EconomyFarming

TradeStable Currency

Pax Romana

Farming There was a huge

market for grain and olives.

The farmers could even pay taxes with grain.

With the money from the products, they paid for schools, temple, and public baths.

Rome shipped some grain to armies to keep them strong.

Trade Rome traded to the Greeks,

Egypt, and other places in Europe.

Romans traveled by ships because it was safer then climbing mountains.

Romans shipped goods like wool, linen cloth, glass, pottery, metal work, wine, and olive oil.

They also shipped red pottery to Britain, silver bowls to India, and they sent bronze ware to Russia and northern Europe, and they also sent luxury goods like silk to as far as China.

Stable Currency Augustus issued a new

currency in coins. The main coin was the

gold denarius, second was the silver denarius. The silver was worth 12 less then the gold denarius.

The coins were like news headlines.

The coins were excepted all over the empire.

Pax Romana Pax Romana was the

long time period when there was no fighting and we were in peace.

During Pax Romana there wasn’t a nation that was powerful enough to attack Rome.

There were over 60 million people that were able to farm, trade, and do business peacefully.

Social StructureRole of men

Role of womenPatriciansPlebeians

Role of Men The Roman families are

patriarchal, or in other words, centered around men.

The father or grandfather had complete control of his wife, children, and slaves. He could sell his own children as slaves or kill them if he chose to.

When the father died, his eldest son would take the lead. If the father did not have a son in his family, his wife and daughters would have to live with his closest relative that was a male.

Although he had a lot of power, he had to respect his family. If he didn’t, he was not admired.

Role of Women Unlike the women in

Greece, Roman women were allowed to own land. But, they had to have a male guardian through out her life.

The most important role of a women was to bare children and raise them with traditional values.

The ideal wife was being a faithful and a good mother devoted to her home and children.

Patricians Patricians are wealthy

plebeians. Patricians held most

government power especially in the Two Assemblies.

Patricians were part of a system called Patrons and Clients. Patricians were Patrons and plebeians were Clients.

The Patrons would help the Clients and in return they would get the Clients vote.

Plebeians Plebeians are the lower

class group of the Roman society.

Plebeians did not have control what so ever until, Lex Hortensia came into act. Meant that they didn’t have to run everything by Senate or Consuls.

They did not have as much money as the patricians and it was much harder for them to live since they didn’t have good housing and the wealthy were sitting on silk pillows sipping wine.

ConclusionThe Romans were incredible people the were obviously

glorified by the world. They inspired us to have so many things like building aqueducts, sewer systems, and much, much more. Everything was so important that without one of them, it could not be as great. I learned about the geography, religion, achievements, politics, economy, and social structures. They all have an impact of how I will look at Rome. Some day when I go there, I will think of how these people tried so hard to make the empire beautiful with paintings, building, and other architectural achievements. I will see the common people around me and the Patricians in front of me. I will see the roads that stretch thousand of miles and think of their great army. When I see statues of emperors I will think of how they led Rome to greatness and success. All in all, ancient Rome was a remarkable empire that will be remembered forever.