Ancient Rome(lat. Roma antiqua) - one of the leading civilizations of the Ancient World and antiquity, got its name from the main city (Roma - Rome), in turn named after the legendary founder - Romulus. The center of Rome developed within the swampy plain, bounded by the Capitol, the Palatine and the Quirinal. The culture of the Etruscans and the ancient Greeks had a certain influence on the formation of the ancient Roman civilization. Ancient Rome reached its peak of power in the 2nd century AD. e., when under his control was the area from modern Scotland in the north to Ethiopia in the south and from Persia in the east to Portugal in the west. Ancient Rome gave the modern world Roman law, some architectural forms and solutions (for example, an arch and a dome) and many other innovations (for example, wheeled water mills). Christianity, as a religion, was born on the territory of the Roman Empire. The official language of the ancient Roman state was Latin. Religion for most of the period of existence was polytheistic, the unofficial coat of arms of the empire was the Golden Eagle (aquila), after the adoption of Christianity, labarums (a banner established by Emperor Constantine for his troops) with a chrism (pectoral cross) appeared.

Story

The periodization of the history of Ancient Rome is based on the forms of government, which in turn reflected the socio-political situation: from royal rule at the beginning of history to an empire-dominance at its end.

Royal period (754/753 - 510/509 BC).

Republic (510/509 - 30/27 BC)

Early Roman Republic (509-265 BC)

Late Roman Republic (264-27 BC)

Sometimes the period of the Middle (classical) Republic 287-133 is also distinguished. BC e.)

Empire (30/27 BC - 476 AD)

Early Roman Empire. Principate (27/30 BC - 235 AD)

Crisis of the 3rd century (235-284)

Late Roman Empire. Dominate (284-476)

During the tsarist period, Rome was a small state that occupied only part of the territory of Latium - the region inhabited by the tribe of the Latins. During the period of the Early Republic, Rome significantly expanded its territory during numerous wars. After the Pyrrhic War, Rome began to reign supreme over the Apennine Peninsula, although the vertical system for managing subordinate territories had not yet developed at that time. After the conquest of Italy, Rome became a prominent player in the Mediterranean, which soon brought it into conflict with Carthage, a large state founded by the Phoenicians. In a series of three Punic Wars, the Carthaginian state was completely defeated, and the city itself was destroyed. At this time, Rome also began to expand to the East, subjugating Illyria, Greece, and then Asia Minor and Syria. In the 1st century BC e. Rome was rocked by a series of civil wars, in which the eventual winner, Octavian Augustus, formed the foundations of the principate system and founded the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which, however, did not last a century. The heyday of the Roman Empire fell on a relatively calm time of the 2nd century, but already the 3rd century was filled with a struggle for power and, as a result, political instability, and the foreign policy situation of the empire was complicated. The establishment of a system of dominance by Diocletian stabilized the situation for some time with the help of the concentration of power in the hands of the emperor and his bureaucratic apparatus. In the 4th century, the division of the empire into two parts was finalized, and Christianity became the state religion of the entire empire. In the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire became the object of active resettlement of Germanic tribes, which finally undermined the unity of the state. The overthrow of the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, by the German leader Odoacer on September 4, 476 is considered the traditional date for the fall of the Roman Empire.

A number of researchers (S. L. Utchenko worked in this direction in Soviet historiography) believe that Rome created its own original civilization based on a special system of values ​​that developed in the Roman civil community in connection with the peculiarities of its historical development. These features included the establishment of a republican form of government as a result of the struggle of patricians and plebeians and the almost continuous wars of Rome, which turned it from a small Italian town into the capital of a huge power. Under the influence of these factors, the ideology and value system of Roman citizens took shape.

It was determined, first of all, by patriotism - the idea of ​​​​the special God's chosen people of the Roman people and the very fate of the victories intended for them, of Rome as the highest value, of the duty of a citizen to serve him with all his might. To do this, a citizen had to have courage, stamina, honesty, loyalty, dignity, moderation in lifestyle, the ability to obey iron discipline in war, the approved law and the custom established by the ancestors in peacetime, to honor the patron gods of their families, rural communities and Rome itself. .

Ancient Rome

After Romulus, according to ancient Roman historians, 6 more kings ruled in Rome:

1. Numa Pompillius
2. Tullus Hostillius
3. Ankh Marcius
4. Servius Tullius
5. Tarquinius the Proud

Historians consider the first three kings to be legendary, and the kings of the "Etruscan dynasty" were real historical figures, the history of whose reign is still controversial among scientists. Therefore, this period in the history of Rome is called "royal".

Roman community

The Roman community is formed. According to legend, Romulus gave the community a proper organization, created a Senate - a council of elders of 100 people, who, together with the king and the people's assembly, began to rule Rome.

The rulers of the Etruscan dynasty created an interesting and peculiar culture in Italy. The Etruscans stood in the 7th - 6th centuries BC. at a higher level of development than the Romans, therefore, with the accession of the Etruscan dynasty in Rome, both the appearance of the city and the nature of royal power change. For example, Servius Tullius surrounded the city with a fortress wall and carried out a very important reform - he divided all the inhabitants of Rome into five property classes and distributed the rights and obligations of the population of the city depending on their state.

The last king, Tarquinius the Proud, was a tyrant, he surpassed everyone in cruelty and arrogance. There was an idea of ​​​​the highest indivisible power - "empires" - and the external signs of its distinction: the king wears a purple robe, sits on an ivory throne, he is accompanied by a retinue of lecturers of 24 people carrying fascias - a bunch of rods with an ax in the middle. Fasci meant the king's right to decide on the life and death of any member of the community. Of course, the Romans did not like this, and they expelled the entire royal family from the city, and the royal power was canceled (510 BC). Anyone who tried to restore it was declared an enemy of the people and sentenced to death. Instead of kings, they began to elect two officials - consuls. The Romans elected Lucius Brutus and Collatinus as the first consuls, and the Roman state began to be called the “Republic”, which means “common cause”. The Roman community now consisted of 2 estates: patricians and plebeians, later settlers who were denied access to the tribal organization of the patricians and their authorities.

Reform of Servius Tulia

A powerful blow to the tribal organization of the patricians was delivered in the middle of the 6th century BC. reform of Servius Tullius, the sixth rex in Roman historical tradition. It was carried out as a military reform, but its social consequences went far beyond just military affairs, having a decisive role in the formation of the ancient Roman state.

Initially, the Roman army was predominantly patrician. The plebeians were not part of the military organization. There was a discrepancy between the population of Rome and the number of warriors he fielded. And the aggressive policy demanded an increase in troops and spending on warfare. The need to recruit plebeians into military service became obvious. Therefore, the entire population of Rome was divided according to the property qualification into 5 categories, each of which was obliged to put up a certain number of military units - centuries.

Ranks Number of exhibited Property qualification

centurion in yugers in assy

• 1 80 from 20 100.000
• 2 20 20 - 15 75.000
• 3 20 15 - 20 50.000
• 4 20 15 - 5 25.000
• 5 30 less than 5 11.000

This is how the central organization looked, depending on the property qualification.

In addition to these centuries, there were 18 centurions of horsemen from the richest Romans, and a qualification of over 100,000 asses (six of them exclusively patrician); as well as five unarmed centuries: two - artisans, two - musicians and one of the poor, who were called proletarians. Thus, there were 193 centuries in total.

The centuries of each of the five categories were divided into two parts: one of them, the old one, which included Romans from 45 to 60 years old, was intended for garrison service; the other - wars from 17 to 45 years old - the youngest, was intended for military campaigns.

To assess the property of citizens, the entire territory of Rome was divided into tribes, which had nothing in common with the previous three tribal tribes. New, territorial tribes were initially created 21: 4 urban and 17 rural. The tribes recruited troops and levied a tax for military needs.

Over time, the army, consisting of centuries, began to take part in resolving issues related not only to war and military affairs. Gradually, the centuriate assemblies passed on the solution of cases that were previously in charge of the assembly of Roman patricians for the curiae. According to tradition, the centuriae met outside the city limits, and curiat meetings were held in the city. There arose a new type of popular assemblies, in which both patricians and plebeians were represented - centuriate assemblies.

Each of the 193 centuries had one vote in voting. The richest Romans, mostly patricians, horsemen and centuriates of the 1st category, had 98 votes, which provided them with an advantage in resolving any issues. However, the patricians dominated the centuriate assemblies not as such, by virtue of their ancestral privileges, but as the most wealthy landowners. Therefore, the plebeians could get into these centuries. Consequently, the plebeians emerged from their isolated position in relation to the Roman community.

Thus, the important social significance of the reform of Servius Tullius was that it laid the foundations for a new organization of Roman society, not only along clan lines, but along property and territorial lines.

However, the tribal system has not yet been completely crushed. Moreover, only gradually, centuriate assemblies supplanted the tribal organization. This happened in a bitter struggle between the plebeians and the patricians, which became especially aggravated after the overthrow of the last rex. In the entire process of the formation of the Roman state, a significant place is occupied by wars, the military organization of the population. The creation by Servius Tullius of a new militia, which replaced the tribal squads, served to destroy the ancient patriarchal system and form new orders that were political in nature. Having eliminated the tribal division of the population and dividing the whole society, including the plebeians, into property categories, Servius Tullius thereby deprived the tribal nobility and tribal organization of almost all significance. At the same time, his reform served as the basis for the creation of the Roman army in the form of a slave militia. The army now consisted only of wealthy citizens, whose armament and nature of military service depended on the amount of property. It is important to keep in mind that the centuriate organization was also intended for political purposes, since the centuriate comitia acquired the right to resolve the most important political issues. The centuriate comitia were meetings of the army, in which 98 centuries of the first category already constituted a majority against 95 centuries of all other categories combined. The purpose of such a political organization is quite obvious. It was defined by Cicero: voting in the new comitia was to be in the power of the rich, and not the masses of the people.

Thus, in the VI-V centuries. BC. the property difference in Rome was reflected in its military organization. The participation of one or another citizen in the protection of communal property and in its joint disposal depended on the size of the land plot owned. At this stage, public power was concentrated in the hands of citizens liable for military service.

For the formation and approval of the state in Rome, the division of the population according to the reform of Servius Tullius into territorial districts - tribes was of great importance. According to the territorial tribes, a qualification was held, according to which citizens were enrolled in one or another Servian category, depending on their property status. In addition, the tribes were recruited into the army and a tax was levied on citizens for military needs. The basis of the new division of the population was to satisfy, first of all, the military needs of the state and the organization of state unity, so this can be called a military-administrative division. The supreme command in the army was carried out by the body of the patrician nobility - the senate. The Senate played a huge role in declaring war and all matters related to the conduct of wars, distributing command among the magistrates, rewarding commanders, and allocating funds for the conduct of war.

The masters received the supreme command from the centuriate comitia (praetors, consuls) or from the senate (dictators). They embodied the institution of supreme command. All the main Roman masters, according to the reform of Servius Tullius, were associated with the military department: the quaestors were in charge of military expenses; censors, conducting the qualification, determined the military and tax service of citizens. Officers were divided into higher and lower. The lower officers were, at the direction of Servius Tullius, commanders of the centuries. They were nominated for this position from ordinary legionnaires and, as a rule, did not reach higher posts. The highest officers were military tribunes, legates, quaestors and chiefs of cavalry. The military tribunes belonged to the senatorial or equestrian class and usually began their political career with this service. Each legion had six tribunes. The legates, direct assistants to the commander-in-chief, were appointed by the senate and were themselves senators. They commanded legions or their formations. Citizens aged 17 to 60 who met the property qualification requirement were considered to be liable for military service. Infantrymen who had served for at least 16-20 years (participants - 16-20 campaigns) and horsemen who had served for at least 10 years were exempted from military service. Persons who owned land, but were unfit for military service, instead of military service, paid money for the maintenance of horses. Recruitment was carried out for each military campaign. During the reform period of Servius Tullius, the army "took" upon itself the performance of a number of important functions, internal and external, economic: supplying the economy with slaves and material values. The growth of magistracies was due to conquests. Thus, the complication of the state apparatus was largely due to the military factor. So at the turn of the VI-V centuries. BC. a slave-owning Roman state was created, which was characterized by a class and territorial division of the population, a special public authority and taxes necessary for its maintenance. It existed in the form of a slave republic. Rome of this period is a city-state in which free citizens jointly owned the state land fund and had private lands. At the same time, they were an association of warriors protecting the lands. The same military organization embodies the main power of the ruling class and plays a leading role within the state. Its elements were the centuriate and tributary comitia, where three types of power are concentrated. The army here acts as an organ of power and coercion at the same time.

Thus, the reform of Servius Tullius was carried out as a military reform, but its social consequences went far beyond military affairs, having a decisive role in the formation of ancient Roman statehood.

It laid the foundations for a new organization of Roman society, not on a tribal basis, but on a property and territorial basis. The result of the class struggle between the plebeians and the patricians was that the tribal system was undermined by the division into classes and replaced by a state organization, and the plebeians emerged from their isolated position in relation to the Roman community. However, the tribal system has not yet been completely crushed. The organization of power, based on the tribal system, continued to exist alongside the new, and only gradually did the new supplant it. War and organization for war were regular features of public life; public power was concentrated in the hands of citizens liable for military service. The military organization embodied the main power of the ruling class and played a leading role within the state. For the formation and approval of the state in Rome, the division of the population according to the reform of Servius Tullius into territorial districts - tribes was of great importance. The reform also made it possible to create a powerful, trained army of Ancient Rome in order to pursue an aggressive policy.

Question 17

During the period of the republic, the organization of power was quite simple and for some time met the conditions that were in Rome at the time of the emergence of the state.

Over the next five centuries of the existence of the republic, the size of the state increased significantly. But this had almost no effect on the structure of the highest organs of the state, which were still located in Rome and carried out centralized administration of vast territories. Naturally, such a situation reduced the effectiveness of management and eventually became one of the reasons for the fall of the republican system. In contrast to the slave-owning democracy in Athens, the Roman Republic combined aristocratic and democratic features, with a significant predominance of the former, which ensured the privileged position of the noble wealthy elite of slave owners. This was reflected in the powers and relationships of the highest state bodies. They were the people's assemblies, the senate and the magistracies. Although popular assemblies were considered the organs of power of the Roman people and were the personification of democracy inherent in the policy, they did not predominantly govern the state. This was done by the senate and magistrates - the bodies of real power of the nobility. In the Roman Republic, there were three types of popular assemblies - centuriate, tributary and curate. The main role was played by centuriate meetings, which, thanks to their structure and order, ensured the decision-making of the predominant aristocratic and wealthy circles of slave owners. True, their structure from the middle ||| in. BC. with the expansion of the state and the increase in the number of freemen, it changed not in their favor: each of the five categories of wealthy citizens began to put up an equal number of centuries - 70 each, and the total number of centuries was brought to 373. But the predominance of the aristocracy and wealth still remained, since in The centuriae of the higher ranks had far fewer citizens than those of the lower ranks, and the propertyless proletarians, whose numbers increased considerably, still constituted only one centuria. The competence of the centuriate assembly included the adoption of laws, the election of the highest officials of the republic (consuls, praetors, censors), the declaration of war and the consideration of complaints against sentences to death. The second type of people's assemblies were tributary assemblies, which, depending on the composition of the inhabitants of the tribes participating in them, were divided into plebeian and patrician-plebeian. At first, their competence was limited. They elected lower officials (quaestors, aediles, etc.) and considered complaints about fines. BC. they also received the right to pass laws, which led to the growth of their importance in the political life of Rome. But at the same time, as a result of the increase in the number of rural tribes to 31 by this time (with the surviving 4 urban tribes, there were a total of 35 tribes), it became difficult for residents of distant tribes to attend meetings, which allowed wealthy Romans to strengthen their positions in these assemblies. Curiat meetings after the reforms of Servius Tullius lost their former importance. They only formally installed persons elected by other assemblies, and, in the end, were replaced by an assembly of thirty representatives of the curia - lictors.

Popular assemblies in Rome were convened at the discretion of the highest officials, who could interrupt the meeting or postpone it to another day. They also presided over the meeting and announced issues to be resolved. Participants of the meeting could not change the proposals made. Voting on them was open, and only at the end of the republican period was a secret ballot introduced (special tables for voting were distributed to the meeting participants). An important, most often decisive role was played by the fact that the decisions of the centuriate assembly on the adoption of laws and the election of officials in the first century of the existence of the republic were subject to approval by the senate, but also then, when in the 111th century. BC. "This rule was abolished, the Senate received the right to preliminary consideration of issues submitted to the assembly, which allowed it to actually direct the activities of the assembly.

The senate played an important role in the state mechanism of the Roman Republic. Senators (in the beginning there were 300 of them, according to the number of patrician families, and in the 1st century BC the number of senators was increased first to 600, and then to 900) were not elected. Special officials - censors, who distributed citizens by centuries and tribes, once every five years compiled lists of senators from representatives of noble and wealthy families, who, as a rule, already occupied the highest government positions. This made the Senate an organ of the top slave-owners, virtually independent of the will of the majority of free citizens.

Formally, the Senate was an advisory body, and its resolutions were called senatus-consuls. But the competence of the Senate was extensive. He, as indicated, controlled the legislative activity of the centuriate (and later plebeian) assemblies, approving their decisions, and subsequently preliminary considering (and rejecting) bills. In exactly the same way, the election of officials by the people's assemblies was controlled (at first by the approval of the elected, and subsequently by the candidates).

The circumstance that the treasury of the state was at the disposal of the Senate played an important role. He established taxes and determined the necessary financial expenses. The competence of the Senate included decisions on public security, improvement and religious worship. The foreign policy powers of the Senate were of great importance. If war was declared by the centuriate assembly, then the peace treaty, as well as the treaty of alliance, was approved by the senate. He also allowed recruitment into the army and distributed the legions among the commanders of the armies. Finally, in emergency circumstances (a dangerous war, a powerful uprising of slaves, etc.), the senate could decide to establish a dictatorship.

In Rome, magistracies were public positions. As in ancient Athens, in Rome there were certain principles for the replacement of magistracies. Such principles were electivity, urgency, collegiality, gratuitousness and responsibility.

All magistrates (except the dictator) were elected by centuriates or tributary assemblies for one year. This rule did not apply to dictators, whose term of office could not exceed six months. In addition, the powers of the consul who commanded the army, in the event of an unfinished military campaign, could be extended by the Senate. As in Athens, all magistracies were collegiate - several people were elected to one position (one dictator was appointed). But the specifics of collegiality in Rome was that each magistrate had the right to make his own decision. This decision could be overruled by his colleague (right of intercession). The magistrates did not receive remuneration, which, naturally, closed the path to the magistracy (and then to the Senate) for the poor and the poor. At the same time, magistracy, especially at the end of the republican period, became a source of significant income. The magistrates (with the exception of the dictator, censor and tribune of the plebs) upon the expiration of their term of office could be held accountable by the popular assembly that elected them.

It is necessary to note another significant difference between the Roman magistracy - the hierarchy of positions (the right of a higher magistrate to cancel the decision of a lower one).

The power of the magistrates was divided into higher and general. This power belonged to the dictator, consuls and praetors. The dictator had the "supreme imperium", which included the right to sentence to death, not subject to appeal. The consul owned a large imperium - the right to pronounce the death sentence, which could be appealed to the centuriate assembly if it was pronounced in the city of Rome, and not subject to appeal if it was pronounced outside the city. The praetor had a limited imperium - without the right to sentence to death.

Power was vested in all magistrates and included the power to issue orders and impose fines for non-compliance.

Masters were divided into ordinary (ordinary) and extraordinary (extraordinary). Ordinary magistracies included the positions of consuls, praetors, censors, quaestors, aediles

The consuls (two consuls were elected in Rome) were the highest magistrates and headed the entire system of magistracies. Particularly significant were the military powers of the consuls: recruitment and command of the army, the appointment of military leaders, the right to conclude a truce and dispose of military booty. Praetors appeared BC. as assistant consuls. Due to the fact that the latter, commanding the armies, were often absent from Rome, the administration of the city and, most importantly, the leadership of the judiciary, which, by virtue of the imperium they had, made it possible to issue universally binding decrees and thereby create new rules of law, passed to the praetors. At first, one praetor was elected, then two, one of which considered the cases of Roman citizens (the city praetor), and the other - cases involving foreigners (the praetor of the peregrines). Gradually the number of praetors increased to eight.

Two censors were elected once every five years to compile lists of Roman citizens, distribute them into tribes and ranks, and to compile a list of senators. In addition, their competence included monitoring morality and issuing appropriate edicts. The quaestors, who were at first assistants to the consuls without special competence, eventually became in charge (under the control of the senate) of financial expenses and the investigation of certain criminal cases. Their number, accordingly, grew and by the end of the republic reached twenty. The aediles (there were two of them) observed the public order in the city, trade in the market, organized festivities and spectacles.

The colleges of the "twenty-six men" consisted of twenty-six men who were part of five colleges in charge of overseeing prisons, minting coins, clearing roads, and some court cases.

A special place among the masters was occupied by the plebeian tribunes.

Their right played a big role in the period when the struggle of the plebeians for equality was completed. Then, as the role of the Senate increased, the activity of the plebeian tribunes began to decline, and the attempt of Gaius Gracchus in the 11th century. BC. strengthen it ended in failure. Extraordinary magistracies were created only in emergency circumstances threatening the Roman state with particular danger - a difficult war, a great uprising of slaves, serious internal unrest. The dictator was appointed at the suggestion of the Senate by one of the consuls. He had unlimited power, to which all magistrates were subject. The right of a plebeian tribune did not apply to him, the orders of the dictator were not subject to appeal, and he was not responsible for his actions.

True, in the first centuries of the existence of the republic, dictatorships were introduced not only in emergency circumstances, but to solve specific problems and the powers of the dictator were limited to this task. Outside it, ordinary magistracies operated. During the heyday of the republic, almost no resort was made to dictatorship.

The term of the dictatorship was not to exceed six months.

At the same time, during the crisis of the republic, this rule was violated and even life-long dictatorships appeared (Sulla's dictatorship "for issuing laws and organizing the state").

Extraordinary magistracies can also include commissions of decemvirs, formed during one of the upsurges in the struggle of the plebeians for their rights for the preparation of Laws X11 tables, created

18th question

Gradually, the power of the emperors increased. The need for its disguise by republican institutions and the influence of republican traditions, manifested in the intermittent conflicts between the emperor and the senate, are a thing of the past. By the end of the II century. the senate is finally removed from government. It passes to the bureaucratic and military apparatus, headed by the emperor. At the end of the III century. the monarchy is approved in its pure form Chernilovsky Z.M. Reader on the general history of state and law. M. 1999. .

The period of the empire is usually divided into two stages: 1) principate (I century BC - III century AD), from "princeps-senatus" - the first senator. This title was first received from the Senate by the founder of the empire, Octavian Augustus, who was placed first on the list of senators and received the right to be the first to speak in the Senate, which made it possible to predetermine the decisions of the latter; 2) dominat (III-V centuries), from "dominus" - lord, lord, which testified to the final recognition of the absolute power of the emperor.

Principate. The transfer of government to the princeps took place due to the granting of the supreme power of the imperium, the election to the most important positions, the creation by him of a bureaucracy separate from the magistracies, provided by the formation of his own treasury of the princeps, and the command of all armies. Octavian already received imperium, which included, in addition to the traditional command of the army (he took command of all the armies), the right to declare war, conclude peace and international treaties, maintain his own guard (praetorian cohorts), the right of the highest criminal and civil court, the right to interpret laws. The decrees of the princeps are beginning to be regarded as having the force of law, and by the end of the principate it will be generally accepted that "what the princeps decides has the force of law." The princeps are elected consuls, censors and tribunes of the people at the same time, in violation of republican traditions (Octavian was elected consul 13 times, 3 times censor and 37 times tribune of the people). As a consul, he could, using the right of intercession, cancel the decision of any magistrate, as a censor - to form a senate from his supporters, as a tribune - to veto a decision of the senate or a decision of a magistrate. In addition, Octavian received the title of pontiff - the high priest in charge of religious worship. Initially, the power of the princeps was not hereditary. Legally, he received power by decision of the senate and the Roman people, but he could designate his successor (usually a son or adopted), whom the senate elected princeps. At the same time, there were more and more cases of the overthrow of princeps and the appointment of new ones as a result of palace coups carried out with the help of the army. Octavian's successors began to use the same powers, gradually increasing the power of the princeps, although at first they sometimes had to overcome the opposition of the senate. The competence of the Senate changes significantly. Since only tributary assemblies have survived from the people's assemblies, which, moreover, were convened less and less, from the 1st century. resolutions of the Senate - Senate-consultants receive the force of law. But the right of the princeps to appoint senators and the "purges" of the senate periodically carried out by the princeps led to the fact that from the 2nd century. the senate practically only approved the proposals of the princeps. Almost the same thing happened with the right to elect and control magistrates, transferred from the popular assembly to the senate - some of them could be elected only from candidates proposed by the princeps. The rights of the Senate to manage public finances and manage provinces are limited. His competence in the military and foreign policy areas is completely lost Karavaev A.K. History of Ancient Rome. M. 2000.

In parallel with the republican magistracies, an imperial bureaucracy was created, at the top of which stood the council and the office of the princeps, which included several departments with a staff of officials. The council included prefects, "friends" of the emperor, heads of departments of the office. The chancellery included the departments of finance, petitions, official correspondence, personal property of the emperor, the imperial court, etc. The members of the council, which performed advisory functions, and the heads of departments of the chancellery were appointed by the princeps himself from among his entourage. Freedmen of the emperor, and even his slaves, began to receive bureaucratic positions. The senior officials, appointed from senators and horsemen, included the prefect of the praetorium, who commanded the imperial guard, the prefect of the city of Rome, in charge of police cohorts, the prefect of Egypt, the prefect in charge of food supply, etc.

There was a reorganization of the administration of the provinces, which became the constituent parts of the Roman state. They were divided into imperial and senatorial. The former were ruled by legates appointed by the princeps, who exercised military and civil power with the help of their own council and office, the latter by proconsuls and propraetors appointed by the senate, who were elected from among the senators by lot and were in double subordination - the senate and the princeps. The created bureaucracy did not represent a coherent system and was, especially in the first centuries of the empire, relatively small in number. But in comparison with the republican one, it ensured more effective management of the expanded state due to the emerging centralization and hierarchy of bureaucracy. The division of the provinces into imperial and senatorial had another important consequence. Revenues from the Senate provinces went to the state treasury, which was controlled by the Senate, while revenues from the imperial provinces went to the treasury of the princeps - a fix. Since the first included a few (11 out of 45) provinces long conquered and, therefore, plundered by Rome, the treasury of the senate was permanently meager, and sometimes empty. The imperial provinces were relatively recently conquered, and their plunder was just beginning, which gave the princeps enormous income, increased by proceeds from the imperial estates and the widely practiced proscriptions. The Senate was sometimes compelled to borrow money from the princeps. Gradually, the power of the princeps extended to the senatorial provinces, and by the 3rd century. they all became imperial.

Army. The right to command the army and the ability to support it at the expense of not only the state, but also their own treasury, allowed the princeps to turn it into a powerful support for personal and state power. Moreover, the army is turning into an influential political force, on which the fate of the princeps himself sometimes depended. If under the republic the unity of political power and military force was personified by the centuriate assembly of citizens liable for military service and the senate in charge of the army, now this unity was personified by the princeps. In Rome, a single military-bureaucratic organization of management arises. After the transition to a professional army, it turns into a corporate organization. Octavian reorganized it, dividing it into three parts. A privileged position was occupied by the Praetorian Guard. Her cohorts under Octavian numbered 9,000 men. Praetorians were recruited from Roman citizens of Italian origin and received a salary of 3.5 times more than legionnaires, served 16 years and, after retirement, had solid property and joined the ranks of the ruling class. The main part of the army (under Octavian 300,000 people) were legionnaires recruited from citizens of the Roman provinces. They served 20 years and received a salary that allowed them to start a small slave-owning economy after retirement and join the provincial nobility. The third part of the army was made up of auxiliary troops (numbering up to 200,000 people), recruited from residents of the provinces who did not have the rights of Roman citizens. And although their salary was three times less than that of the legionnaires, and the term of service was 25 years, and the discipline was tougher and the punishments more severe, service in the auxiliary troops still attracted the opportunity to obtain Roman citizenship, and for the poor, save some money. After the aforementioned edict of Caracalla, which gave Roman citizenship to all free empires, the social difference between legionary and auxiliary units disappears, the corporate spirit of the army grows, which further increases its political role.

Dominat. Already in the period of the principate, the slave system in Rome began to decline, and in the II-III centuries. its crisis is brewing. The social and class stratification of the free is deepening, the influence of large landowners is increasing, the importance of colonial labor is growing and the role of slave labor is decreasing, the municipal system is falling into decay, the polis ideology is disappearing, Christianity is replacing the cult of traditional Roman gods. The economic system based on slave-owning and semi-slave-owning forms of exploitation and dependence (colonates) not only ceases to develop, but also begins to degrade. By the 3rd century slave uprisings, almost unknown to the initial period of the principate, become more and more frequent and widespread. Columns and the free poor join the rebellious slaves. The situation is complicated by the liberation movement of the peoples conquered by Rome. From wars of conquest, Rome begins to move to defensive ones. The struggle for power between the warring factions of the ruling class sharply escalates. After the reign of the Sever dynasty (199-235), a half-century era of "soldier emperors" begins, brought to power by the army and ruling for half a year, a year, at most five years. Most of them were killed by the conspirators. The principate suppressed the spirit of citizenship among the Romans, republican traditions are now a thing of the distant past, the last stronghold of republican institutions - the senate finally submitted to the princeps. From the end of the 3rd century a new stage in the history of the empire begins - the dominance, during which Rome turned into a monarchical state with the absolute power of the emperor.

The final transition to dominance dates back to 284 and the coming to power of Diocletian, who ordered to call himself Dominus. The titles of the emperor - Augustus and Dominus emphasized the unlimited nature of his power. As a rule, emperors were deified, and some of them after death were declared gods with their religious cults. The population of the empire turned from citizens into subjects of the emperor, who began to be regarded even as his slaves - serfs. The council of the princeps that existed under the principate turns into a council of state - a consistorium. There is a developed apparatus of officials, divided into ranks, with a defined hierarchy and rules for promotion. With the separation of civil power from the military, civil and military officials appear. The third group of officials stands apart - the courtiers, headed by the manager of the emperor's palace, who plays a large role. In contrast to the principate, the old republican institutions have lost all national significance. Rome began to be ruled by a prefect appointed by the emperor and subordinate to him. The Senate became the council of the city of Rome, and the magistrates became municipal officials. The military organization has also changed. In connection with the mass uprisings of slaves and conquered peoples, as well as the increased need to protect the borders of the state from the invasion of German, Slavic and Asia Minor tribes, the army is divided into mobile (to suppress uprisings) and border troops. "Barbarians" get wide access to the army, sometimes the armed forces of their tribes are also used. The Praetorian Guard, which played an important role in the era of the "soldier emperors", was transformed into a palace guard, which, however, sometimes also determined the fate of the emperors. The general imperial police was headed by the head of the imperial office (in Rome - by the prefect of the city), the developed secret police - by the prefect of the praetorium. Of great importance for the future fate of the empire were the reforms of Diocletian, enshrined and developed in the legislation of Constantine. Diocletian carried out economic, military and administrative reforms. In the economic field, Diocletian tried to stop the depreciation of money as a result of the issuance of coins with a low content of the precious metal. He issued full-fledged gold and silver coins, but they soon disappeared from circulation, and he had to return to the issuance of low-grade coins. Tax reform proved to be more effective. Most of the taxes began to be collected not in kind, but in money. In order to ensure the receipt of taxes, a periodically repeated population census was introduced. The basis of taxation in rural areas was the size of land ownership and the number of persons cultivating the land. Poll taxes were introduced in the cities. Since landowners and city officials were responsible for paying taxes, the reform contributed to attaching the bulk of the rural and urban population (colons and artisans) to their place of residence and profession. The military reform, which consolidated the formation of border and mobile troops, introduced, in addition to the existing set of volunteers in the army, a recruiting set. Landowners, depending on the size of the landholding, were required to supply a certain number of recruits from the columns and agricultural workers. Diocletian's administrative reform had the most far-reaching consequences. The difficult domestic political situation, the difficult foreign political situation of the empire, the far-reaching processes of economic isolation of the provinces, and the endless coups d'état of the times of the "soldier emperors" that preceded Diocletian's coming to power forced him to appoint a co-ruler - Caesar in 285. A year later, Caesar was declared Augustus, with the same authority as Diocletian's to manage part of the empire. The empire was divided into two parts - western and eastern. True, the legislation still remained unified, since the laws were issued on behalf of both emperors. Each of them appointed a co-ruler - Caesar. As a result, a tetrarchy arose, consisting of four parts, including 100 provinces. Rome was singled out as a special 100th province, but the city of Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire. The capital of the Western Empire was moved to Mediolan (Milan), and then to Ravenna. Nicomedia, located on the eastern shore of the Sea of ​​Marmara, became the capital of the Eastern Empire. After the twenty-year reign of Diocletian and the subsequent struggle for power between his successors, the period of the thirty-year reign of Constantine (306-337) begins, again restoring the unity of power. Constantine continued the economic reforms of Diocletian. The new monetary reform turned out to be more successful and led to the stabilization of monetary circulation. The streamlining of taxation further strengthened the attachment of columns and artisans to land and profession. By the edicts of Constantine, the craft colleges were turned into hereditary, and by the decree (constitution) "On the runaway columns" of 332, the runaway columns returned to their plots and had to work in chains like slaves. Those who sheltered the runaway columns, as a punishment, had to pay taxes for them. In the military field, the profession of a warrior became hereditary. Barbarians began to be widely recruited into the army, receiving Roman citizenship and the opportunity to advance through the ranks up to the highest positions. The administrative reform of Diocletian was also completed. Although the tetrarchy was abolished, two prefectures were formed in each of the two parts of the empire, governed by prefects with civil power. The military power in the prefectures belonged to the military masters - two chiefs of infantry and two chiefs of cavalry. The prefectures were divided into dioceses (6 in the western part of the empire and 7 in the east), headed by vicars, dioceses - into provinces, which were ruled by rectors, provinces - into districts with district administration. If these events of Constantine were a continuation of the work begun by Diocletian, then in matters of religious policy the former moved to positions opposite to Diocletian. Diocletian in the Christian church saw an organization autonomous from the state and, therefore, preventing the establishment of autocracy, and therefore he forbade the administration of Christian religious rites, the destruction of churches, and the persecution of Christians. Constantine, on the other hand, grasped that Christianity, from the religion of the poor and the oppressed, as it was in the period of its inception, has turned into a religion that can strengthen the state system by ideological means. He saw in the Christian church a strong support for the absolute power of the emperor, which led to a sharp turn in religious policy. In 313, by an imperial edict, Christianity was recognized as equal in rights with other religions that existed in the empire, and then, after the baptism of Constantine in 337, it was recognized as the state religion. The army, bureaucracy and the Christian church become the three main pillars of the dominance - military, political and ideological. Finally, considering that the eastern part of the empire was relatively less than the western, subjected to attacks by barbarian tribes and was economically more developed, Constantine moved his capital there - to the ancient Greek city of Byzantium, giving it a new name of Constantinople. In 330, Constantinople was officially proclaimed the capital of the empire. The transfer of the capital to Constantinople consolidated the process of the empire's disintegration into two parts, which in 395 led to its final division into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The economic isolation and political division of the empire coincided with a period of further deepening of the general crisis of the slave system and was its manifestation and result. The division of a single state was objectively an attempt to prevent the death of this system, which was destroyed by a fierce political and ideological struggle, uprisings of conquered peoples, and invasions of barbarian tribes, from which the Western Roman Empire suffered especially. In 476, the commander of the imperial guard, the German Odoacer, overthrew the last Roman emperor from the throne and sent the signs of imperial dignity to Constantinople. The Western Roman Empire ceased to exist.

Until 510 BC, when the inhabitants expelled the last king Tarquinius the Proud from the city, kings ruled Rome. After that, Rome became a republic for a long time, power was in the hands of officials elected by the people. Every year, from the members of the Senate, which included representatives of the Roman nobility, the citizens chose two consuls and other officials. The main idea of ​​such a device was that one person could not concentrate too much power in his hands. But in 49 BC. e. Roman commander Julius Caesar (top left), using the support of the people, led his troops to Rome and seized power in the republic. A civil war began, as a result of which Caesar defeated all rivals and became the ruler of Rome. The dictatorship of Caesar caused discontent in the Senate, and in 44 BC. e. Caesar was killed. This led to a new civil war and the collapse of the republican system. Caesar's adopted son Octavian came to power and restored peace in the country. Octavian took the name Augustus and in 27 BC. e. proclaimed himself "princeps", which marked the beginning of imperial power.

In the symbol of the law

The symbol of the power of the magistrate (official) was the fascia - a bunch of rods and an ax. Wherever the official went, his assistants carried behind him these symbols, which the Romans borrowed from the Etruscans.

Did you know?

Roman emperors did not have crowns like kings. Instead, they put laurel wreaths on their heads. Previously, such wreaths were awarded to commanders for victories in battles.

In honor of August

The marble "Altar of Peace" in Rome glorifies the greatness of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. This bas-relief depicts members of the imperial family.

Town Square

The center of any Roman settlement or city was the forum. It was an open square, on the sides of which stood public buildings and temples.

Elections and court hearings were held at the forum.

Faces in stone

On relief images in layered stone, the so-called cameos, portraits of famous people were often carved. This cameo depicts the emperor Claudius, his wife Agrippina the Younger and her relatives.

Roman society

In addition to citizens, there were people in ancient Rome who did not have Roman citizenship. The citizens of Rome were divided into three classes: wealthy patricians (here one of them is depicted with busts of his ancestors in his hands), wealthy people - horsemen and ordinary citizens - plebeians. In the early period, only patricians could be senators. Later, the plebeians also received representation in the Senate, but in the imperial era they were deprived of this right. The "non-citizens" included women, slaves, as well as foreigners and residents of the Roman provinces.

Story

The periodization of the history of Ancient Rome is based on the forms of government, which in turn reflected the socio-political situation: from royal rule at the beginning of history to an empire-dominance at its end.

• Royal period ( / - / 509 BC).
• Republic (510/ - /27 BC)
  • Early Roman Republic (509-265 BC)
  • Late Roman Republic (264-27 BC)
    • Sometimes the period of the Middle (classical) Republic (287-133 BC) is also distinguished.
• Empire (30/27 BC - AD)
  • Early Roman Empire. Principate (27/30 BC - AD)
  • Late Roman Empire. Dominat ( - years)

Map of Rome in antiquity

During the royal period, Rome was a small state, which occupied only part of the territory of Latium - the area inhabited by the tribe of the Latins. During the period of the Early Republic, Rome significantly expanded its territory during numerous wars. After the Pyrrhic War, Rome began to reign supreme over the Apennine Peninsula, although the vertical system for managing subordinate territories had not yet developed at that time. After the conquest of Italy, Rome became a prominent player in the Mediterranean, which soon brought it into conflict with Carthage, a major state founded by the Phoenicians. In a series of three Punic Wars, the Carthaginian state was completely defeated, and the city itself was destroyed. At this time, Rome also began to expand to the East, subjugating Illyria, Greece, and then Asia Minor and Syria. In the 1st century BC e. Rome was rocked by a series of civil wars, in which the eventual victor, Octavian Augustus, formed the foundations of the principate system and founded the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which, however, did not last a century. The heyday of the Roman Empire fell on a relatively calm time of the 2nd century, but already the 3rd century was filled with a struggle for power and, as a result, political instability, and the foreign policy situation of the empire was complicated. The establishment of a system of dominance by Diocletian stabilized the situation for some time with the help of the concentration of power in the hands of the emperor and his bureaucratic apparatus. In the 4th century, the division of the empire into two parts was finalized, and Christianity became the state religion of the entire empire. In the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire became the object of active resettlement of Germanic tribes, which finally undermined the unity of the state. The overthrow of the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, by the German leader Odoacer on September 4 is considered the traditional date for the fall of the Roman Empire.

The magistrates could submit a bill (rogatio) to the senate, where it was debated. The Senate originally had 100 members, during most of the history of the Republic there were about 300 members, Sulla doubled the number of senators, later their numbers varied. A seat in the Senate was obtained after passing ordinary magistracies, but the censors had the right to conduct a lustration of the Senate with the possibility of excluding individual senators. The Senate met on calendars, nones and ides of each month, as well as on any day in the event of an emergency convocation of the senate. At the same time, there were some restrictions on the convening of the Senate and comitia in the event that the appointed day was declared unfavorable for one or another "sign".

Dictators, who were elected on special occasions and for no more than 6 months, had extraordinary powers and, unlike ordinary magistrates, lack of accountability. With the exception of the dictator's emergency magistracy, all positions in Rome were collegiate.

Society

The laws

As for the Romans, for them the task of war was not just to defeat the enemy or establish peace; the war was only concluded to their satisfaction when former enemies became "friends" or allies (socii) of Rome. The goal of Rome was not to subjugate the whole world to the power and imperium (dominion - lat.) of Rome, but to spread the Roman system of alliances to all countries of the earth. The Roman idea was expressed by Virgil, and it was not just a fantasy of the poet. The Roman people themselves, the populus Romanus, owed their existence to such a war-born partnership, namely, an alliance between patricians and plebeians, whose internal strife between them was brought to an end by the famous Leges XII Tabularum. But even this document of their history, consecrated by antiquity, the Romans did not consider inspired by God; they preferred to believe that Rome had sent a commission to Greece to study the systems of law there. Thus the Roman Republic, itself based on law—an indefinite alliance between patricians and plebeians—used the leges instrument chiefly to treat and administer the provinces and communities that belonged to the Roman system of alliances, in other words, to the ever-expanding group of Roman socii that formed the societas. Romana.

The social structure of Roman society

Over time, the social structure as a whole became noticeably more complex. Horsemen appeared - persons not always of noble origin, but engaged in trading operations (trade was considered an unworthy occupation of the patricians) and concentrating significant wealth in their hands. Among the patricians, the most noble families stood out, and some of the genera gradually faded away. Approximately in the III century. BC e. the patriciate merges with the equites into the nobility.

Until the late Republic, there was a kind of marriage cum manu, "at hand", that is, the daughter, when she married, fell into the power of the head of the husband's family. Later, this form of marriage fell into disuse and marriages began to be sine manu, without a hand, in which the wife was not under the authority of the husband and remained in the authority of the father or guardian. Ancient Roman marriage, especially in the upper classes, was often based on financial and political interests.

Several families with kinship ties formed a clan (gens), the most influential of which played an important role in political life.

The fathers of families, as a rule, entered into marriages between their children, guided by prevailing moral standards and personal considerations. A father could marry a girl from the age of 12, and marry a young man from the age of 14.

Roman law provided for two forms of marriage:

When a woman passed from the power of her father to the power of her husband, that is, she was accepted into the family of her husband.

A woman after marriage remained a member of the old family, while claiming the inheritance of the family. This case was not the main one and looked more like cohabitation than marriage, since the wife could leave her husband and return home at almost any moment.

Regardless of which form young people preferred, marriage was preceded by betrothal between the young. During the betrothal, the young people made a marriage vow. Each of them, when asked if he promised to marry, answered: “I promise.” The groom handed over to his future wife a coin, as a symbol of the wedding union concluded between the parents, and an iron ring, which the bride wore on the ring finger of her left hand.

At weddings, all the affairs of organizing a wedding celebration were transferred to the manager - a woman who enjoyed general respect. The steward took the bride into the hall and handed her to the groom. The transfer was accompanied by religious rituals in which the woman played the role of a priestess of the hearth. After the feast in the house of the parents, the newlywed was sent off to the house of her husband. The bride had to theatrically resist and cry. And the manager stopped the girl's stubbornness by taking her from her mother's arms and handing her over to her husband.

The celebrations associated with the appearance of a new family member began on the eighth day after childbirth and lasted three days. The father raised the child from the ground and gave the baby a name, thereby announcing his decision to accept him into the family. After that, the invited guests gave the baby gifts, usually amulets, the purpose of which was to protect the child from evil spirits.

It was not necessary to register a child for a long time. Only when a Roman came of age and put on a white toga did he become a citizen of the Roman state. He was presented before officials and entered into the list of citizens.

For the first time, registration of newborns was introduced at the dawn of a new era by Octavian August, obliging citizens to register a baby within 30 days from the moment of birth. Registration of children was carried out in the temple of Saturn, where the office of the governor and the archive were located. This confirmed the name of the child, his date of birth. His free origin and the right of citizenship were confirmed.

Status of women

The woman was subordinate to the man because she, according to Theodor Mommsen, "belonged only to the family and did not exist for the community." In wealthy families, a woman was given an honorable position, she was engaged in the management of the household. Unlike Greek women, Roman women could freely appear in society, and, despite the fact that the father had the highest power in the family, they were protected from his arbitrariness. The basic principle of building Roman society is reliance on the elementary cell of society - the family (surname).

The head of the family - the father (pater familias) reigned supreme in the family, and his power in the family was formalized by law. The family included not only father and mother, but also sons, their wives and children, as well as unmarried daughters.

The surname included both slaves and all household property.

The power of the father extended to all members of the family.

Almost all decisions regarding family members were made by the father himself.

At the birth of a child, he determined the fate of the newborn; he either recognized the child, or ordered to kill, or abandoned without any help.

The father alone owned all the property of the family. Even having reached the age of majority and married, the son remained disenfranchised in the surname. He had no right to own any immovable property during his father's lifetime. Only after the death of his father, by virtue of a will, he received his property by inheritance. The unlimited dominance of the father existed throughout the Roman Empire, as well as the right to control the fate of loved ones. In the late period of the existence of the Roman Empire, fathers were freed from objectionable children due to economic difficulties and the general decline in the moral foundations of society.

In Roman families, a woman had great rights, since she was entrusted with the duties of housekeeping. She was the absolute mistress of her house. It was considered good form when a woman established a good family life, freeing up her husband's time for more important state affairs. The dependence of a woman on her husband was limited, in essence, to property relations; A woman could not own and dispose of property without the permission of her husband.

A Roman woman freely appeared in society, went to visit, and attended ceremonial receptions. But politics was not a woman's business, she was not supposed to be present at the meetings of the people.

Education

Boys and girls began to be taught from the age of seven. Wealthy parents preferred homeschooling. The poor used the services of schools. At the same time, the prototype of modern education was born: children went through three stages of education: primary, secondary and higher. The heads of the family, taking care of the education of their children, tried to hire Greek teachers for their children or to get a Greek slave to teach.

The vanity of parents forced them to send their children to Greece for higher education.

At the first stages of education, children were mainly taught to write and count, they were given information on history, law and literary works.

At the Higher School, training was held in oratory. During practical classes, students performed exercises that consisted in making speeches on a given topic from history, mythology, literature, or social life.

Outside of Italy, education was received mainly in Athens, on the island of Rhodes, where they also improved in oratory, got an idea of ​​​​the various philosophical schools. Education in Greece became especially relevant after Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Licinius Crassus, being censors in 92 BC. e. , closed Latin rhetorical schools.

At the age of 17-18, the young man had to leave his studies and do military service.

The Romans also made sure that women were educated in connection with the role they had in the family: the organizer of family life and the educator of children at an early age. There were schools where girls studied with boys. And it was considered honorable if they said about a girl that she was an educated girl. In the Roman state, already in the 1st century AD, they began to train slaves, as slaves and freedmen began to play an increasingly prominent role in the economy of the state. Slaves became managers in the estates and were engaged in trade, were placed overseers of other slaves. Literate slaves were attracted to the bureaucracy of the state, many slaves were teachers and even architects.

A literate slave was worth more than an illiterate one, since he could be used for skilled work. Educated slaves were called the main value of the Roman rich man Mark Licinius Crassus.

Former slaves, freedmen, gradually began to make up a significant stratum in Rome. Having nothing in their souls but a thirst for power and profit, they sought to take the place of an employee, manager in the state apparatus, engage in commercial activities, usury. Their advantage over the Romans began to manifest itself, which consisted in the fact that they did not shy away from any work, considered themselves disadvantaged and showed perseverance in the struggle for their place under the sun. In the end, they were able to achieve legal equality, to push the Romans out of government.

Army

For almost the entire time of its existence, the Roman army was, as practice proved, the most advanced among the other states of the Ancient World, having gone from the people's militia to professional regular infantry and cavalry with many auxiliary units and allied formations. At the same time, the main fighting force has always been the infantry (in the era of the Punic Wars, the Marine Corps, which proved to be excellent, actually appeared). The main advantages of the Roman army were mobility, flexibility and tactical training, which allowed it to operate in various terrain and in harsh weather conditions.

With a strategic threat to Rome or Italy, or a sufficiently serious military danger ( tumultus) all work stopped, production stopped and everyone who could simply carry weapons was recruited into the army - residents of this category were called tumultuarii (subitarii), and the army - tumultuarius (subitarius) exercitus. Since the usual recruitment procedure took longer, the commander-in-chief of this army, the magistrate, took out special banners from the Capitol: red, indicating recruitment into the infantry, and green, into the cavalry, after which he traditionally announced: “Qui rempublicam salvam vult, me sequatur” (“Who wants save the republic, let him follow me"). The military oath was also pronounced not individually, but together.

culture

Politics, war, agriculture, the development of law (civil and sacred) and historiography were recognized as deeds worthy of a Roman, especially from the nobility. On this basis, the early culture of Rome took shape. Foreign influences, primarily Greek, penetrating through the Greek cities of the south of modern Italy, and then directly from Greece and Asia Minor, were perceived only in so far as they did not contradict the Roman value system or were processed in accordance with it. In turn, Roman culture at the time of its heyday had a huge impact on neighboring peoples and on the subsequent development of Europe.

The early Roman worldview was characterized by the feeling of being a free citizen with a sense of belonging to a civil community and the priority of state interests over personal ones, combined with conservatism, which consisted in following the mores and customs of ancestors. In - centuries. BC e. there was a departure from these attitudes and individualism intensified, the individual began to be opposed to the state, even some traditional ideals were rethought.

Language

Latin, the appearance of which is attributed to the middle of the III millennium BC. e. constituted the Italic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. In the course of the historical development of ancient Italy, the Latin language supplanted the other Italic languages ​​and eventually took over the dominant position in the western Mediterranean. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. Latin was spoken by the population of a small region of Latium (lat. Latium), located in the west of the middle part of the Apennine Peninsula, along the lower reaches of the Tiber. The tribe that inhabited Latium was called the Latins (lat. Latini), its language is Latin. The city of Rome became the center of this region, after which the Italian tribes united around it began to call themselves the Romans (lat. Romans).

There are several stages in the development of Latin:

• Archaic Latin
• Classical Latin
• Postclassical Latin
• Late Latin

Religion

Ancient Roman mythology is close in many aspects to Greek, up to the direct borrowing of individual myths. However, in the religious practice of the Romans, animistic superstitions associated with the veneration of spirits also played a large role: genii, penates, lares, lemurs and mans. Also in ancient Rome there were numerous colleges of priests.

Although religion played a significant role in traditional ancient Roman society, by the 2nd century BC. e. a significant part of the Roman elite was already indifferent to religion. In the 1st century BC e. Roman philosophers (primarily Titus Lucretius Carus and Marcus Tullius Cicero) largely revise or question many of the traditional religious tenets.

Art, music, literature

Life

The social evolution of Roman society was first studied by the German scientist G. B. Niebuhr. Ancient Roman life and life were based on developed family law and religious rites.

To make the best use of the daylight, the Romans usually got up very early, often around four in the morning, and after breakfast, they began to attend to public affairs. Like the Greeks, the Romans ate 3 times a day. Early in the morning - the first breakfast, around noon - the second, in the late afternoon - lunch.

In the first centuries of the existence of Rome, the inhabitants of Italy ate mostly thick, hard-boiled porridge made from spelt, millet, barley or bean flour, but already at the dawn of Roman history, not only porridge was cooked in the household, but also bread cakes were baked. Culinary art began to develop in the III century. BC e. and under the empire reached unprecedented heights.

The science

Main article: ancient roman science

Roman science inherited a number of Greek studies, but unlike them (especially in the field of mathematics and mechanics), it was mainly applied in nature. For this reason, it was the Roman numeration and the Julian calendar that received worldwide distribution. At the same time, its characteristic feature was the presentation of scientific issues in a literary and entertaining form. Jurisprudence and agricultural sciences reached a special flowering, a large number of works were devoted to architecture and urban planning and military equipment. The largest representatives of natural science were encyclopedic scientists Gaius Pliny Secundus the Elder, Mark Terentius Varro and Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

Ancient Roman philosophy developed mainly in the wake of Greek philosophy, with which it was largely associated. Stoicism has received the greatest distribution in philosophy.

Remarkable progress was made by Roman science in the field of medicine. Among the prominent physicians of Ancient Rome, one can note: Dioscorides - a pharmacologist and one of the founders of botany, Soranus of Ephesus - an obstetrician and pediatrician, Claudius Galen - a talented anatomist who revealed the functions of the nerves and brain.

Written in the Roman era, encyclopedic treatises remained the most important source of scientific knowledge during most of the Middle Ages.

Legacy of Ancient Rome

Roman culture, with its developed ideas about the expediency of things and actions, about a person’s duty to himself and the state, about the importance of law and justice in society, complemented ancient Greek culture with its desire to know the world, a developed sense of proportion, beauty, harmony, and a pronounced game element. . Antique culture, as a combination of these two cultures, became the basis of European civilization.

The cultural heritage of Ancient Rome can be traced in scientific terminology, architecture, and literature. Latin has long been the language of international communication for all educated people in Europe. Until now, it is used in scientific terminology. Based on the Latin language, Romance languages ​​arose in the former Roman possessions, which are spoken by the peoples of a large part of Europe. Among the most outstanding achievements of the Romans is the Roman law they created, which played a huge role in the further development of legal thought. It was in the Roman possessions that Christianity arose, and then became the state religion - a religion that united all European peoples and greatly influenced the history of mankind.

Historiography

Interest in the study of Roman history arose, in addition to the writings of Machiavelli, also during the Enlightenment in France.

The first major work was the work of Edward Gibbon "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", covering the period from the end of the 2nd century until the fall of a fragment of the empire - Byzantium in 1453. Like Montesquieu, Gibbon valued the virtue of Roman citizens, however, the decomposition of the empire along it began already under Commodus, and Christianity became a catalyst for the collapse of the empire, undermining its foundations from the inside.

Niebuhr became the founder of the critical direction and wrote the work "Roman History", where it was brought to the First Punic War. Niebuhr made an attempt to establish how the Roman tradition arose. In his opinion, the Romans, like other peoples, had a historical epic, preserved mainly in noble families. Niebuhr paid some attention to ethnogenesis, viewed from the angle of the formation of the Roman community.

In the Napoleonic era, the work of V. Durui "History of the Romans" appeared, which focused on the then popular Caesarian period.

A new historiographic milestone was opened by the work of Theodor Mommsen, one of the first major scholars of the Roman heritage. An important role was played by his voluminous work Roman History, as well as Roman Public Law and the Collection of Latin Inscriptions (Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum).

Later came the work of another specialist, G. Ferrero - "The Greatness and Fall of Rome." The work of I.M. Grevs “Essays on the history of Roman land tenure, mainly in the era of the Empire”, where, for example, information appeared about the farm of Pomponius Attica, one of the largest landowners at the end of the Republic, and the farm of Horace was considered a model of the average estate of the August era.

Against the hypercriticism of the works of the Italian E. Pais, who denied the authenticity of the Roman tradition up to the 3rd century AD. e. , De Sanctis spoke in his "History of Rome", where, on the other hand, information about the royal period was almost completely denied.

The study of Roman history in the USSR was closely connected with Marxism-Leninism, which had no specialized works at its core and relied on such frequently cited works as The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Chronological Extracts, Forms Preceding Capitalist Production ”, “Bruno Bauer and early Christianity”, etc. The emphasis was on the uprisings of slaves and their role in Roman history, as well as agrarian history.

A great place was given to the study of the ideological struggle (S. L. Utchenko, P. F. Preobrazhensky), which was seen even in the most favorable periods of the empire (N. A. Mashkin, E. M. Shtaerman, A. D. Dmitrev, etc.) .

Attention was also paid to the conditions for the transition from the Republic to the Empire, considered, for example, in the work of Mashkin "Principate of Augustus" or in "Essays on the History of Ancient Rome" by V. S. Sergeev, and to the provinces, in the study of which A. B. Ranovich stood out.

Among those who studied the relations of Rome with other states, A. G. Bokshchanin stood out.

Since 1937, the Herald of Ancient History began to appear, where articles on Roman history and archaeological excavations began to be published frequently.

After a break caused by the Great Patriotic War, in 1948 the "History of Rome" by S. I. Kovalev and "The History of the Roman People" by critic V. N. Dyakov were published. In the first work, the Roman tradition is considered reliable in many respects, in the second, doubt was expressed on this point.

see also

primary sources

• Dio Cassius. "Roman History"
• Ammianus Marcellinus. "Acts"
• Polybius. "General history"
• Publius Cornelius Tacitus. "History", "Annals"
• Plutarch. "Comparative Lives"
• Appian. "Roman History"
• Sextus Aurelius Victor. "On the Origin of the Roman People"
• Flavius ​​Eutropius. "Breviary from the founding of the city"
• Gaius Velleius Paterculus. "Roman History"
• Publius Annaeus Florus. "Epitomes of Titus Livius"
• Herodian. "History of Rome from Marcus Aurelius"
• Diodorus Siculus. "Historical Library"
• Dionysius of Halicarnassus. "Roman Ancient History"
• Gaius Suetonius Tranquill. "Biography of the Twelve Caesars"
• The so-called "Authors of the biographies of the Augusts" ( Scriptores Historiae Augustae): Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Vulcation Gallicanus, Aelius Lampridius, Trebellius Pollio and Flavius ​​Vopiscus

Fragments

• Gnaeus Nevius. "Punian War"
• Quintus Ennius. "Annals"
• Quintus Fabius Pictor. "Annals"
• Lucius Cincius Aliment. "Chronicle"
• Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder. "Beginnings"
• Pompey Trog. "Philip's Story"
• Gaius Sallust Crispus. "Yugurtinskaya war"
• Granius Licinianus

Later fundamental works

• Theodor Mommsen Roman History.
• Edward Gibbon History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
• Platner, Samuel Ball. A topographical dictionary of Ancient Rome

Notes

Links

	Portal "Ancient Rome "
	Ancient Rome at Wikimedia Commons

• X Legio - Military equipment of antiquity (including fragments of Russian translations of Roman authors and articles on the military affairs of Ancient Rome)
• Roman glory Antique warfare
• The Roman Law Library by Yves Lassard and Alexander Koptev.
• Art of Ancient Rome - Stevan Kordic Photo Gallery

Ancient Rome
Epochs	Founding of Rome Royal Period Republic (Early, Middle, Late) Empire (Principate and Dominate) Western Roman Empire / Eastern Roman Empire
Constitution	History · Constitution of the Imperial Rome / Republic / Empire / Late Empire · Senate · Assemblies of the People (Comitia Curiata, Comitia Centuriatae, Comitia Tributes, Plebeian Council) · Magistracy
State	Curia Forum Cursus honorum Collegiate Emperor Legate Dux Official Prefect Vicar Vigintisexviri Lictor Master of War Emperor Emperor Princeps of the Senate Pontifex Grand Augustus Caesar Tetrarch Province Prefecture Diocese
Masters