Part Two:Part Two: From Republic From Republic

To EmpireTo Empire

•1. For all its success – Rome was unstable

•2. Power switches from the many to the few

Growing Inequality & Unrest

•Landed aristocracy governed Rome

•Wealthy, powerful families

•Senate & political offices

•Small farmers losing land to large, wealthy landowners

•New urban class of landless poor

•Latifundia – Large Landed Estates (like Plantation)

LatifundiaLatifundia

•Tiberius & Gaius Gracchus, reform-minded aristocrats

•Called for laws giving public land back to the landless poor

•Both brothers eventually killed

•Discontent & unrest grew

VIDEO: Rise of Tiberius

Video: Tiberius Champions the Poor

SPQR?

• S.P.Q.R. is an initialism of a Latin noun phrase, Senatus Populusque Romanus ("The Senate and the Roman People")

Video: Cicero Takes the Lead

The Collapse of the Republic

•Civil Wars 82 - 31 B.C.•Crassus, Pompey & Julius Caesar emerged as victors

•combined wealth & power to dominate the political scene

The First The First TriumvirateTriumvirate

•60 B.C. •Crassus, Pompey Crassus, Pompey & Caesar& Caesar

•Crassus killed in 53 B.C.

Video: Caesar’s Leadership

•Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the river

•Caesar and Pompey start a civil war

•Caesar defeats Pompey’s forces

•Caesar become a dictator – an absolute ruler

Video: Caesar Starts Civil War

Julius Julius CaesarCaesar

•44 B.C. a group of leading senators assassinated him

The Second TriumvirateThe Second Triumvirate

•Octavian, Antony & Lepidus

•Octavian took the west & Antony, the east

•Antony allied himself with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII

•Like Caesar before him, Antony had fallen in love with her

Mark Anthony

Cleopatra

•Battle of ActiumBattle of Actium: Octavian’s forces smashed the army & the navy of Antony & Cleopatra

•Both committed suicide a year later

The Age of Augustus•27 B.C. Octavian became “Augustus” the revered one

•Maintained a huge army•Becomes Golden Age of Literature - Virgil

Octavian

Emperors of the Early Emperors of the Early EmpireEmpire

•Nero: had people killed if he wanted them out of the way - including his mother

Nero

Roman legions revoltedNero committed suicide by stabbing himself in the throat

Video: The Horror of Nero’s Reign

Emperors of the Early Emperors of the Early EmpireEmpire

•5 good emperors:

Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius & Marcus Aurelius

Pax RomanaPax Romana = Roman Peace100 Years of Peace