Chapter - 2
An empire spanning three continents
What is a continent?
Continents are landmasses in the middle of the sea in which many countries are located such as -
1. North America
2. South America
3. Europe
4. Asia
5. Africa
6. Australia
7. Antarctica
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was spread far and wide; it was spread across three continents .
1. Europe
2. Western Asia
3. North Africa
Major sources of information on Roman history
Historians had a vast store of source material which can be divided into 3 categories .
1. Text material
- The history of that period written by the people of that time was called Annals. It was written every year. Apart from this, there were letters, sermons, lectures, laws etc.
2. Documents
- Manuscripts written on the leaves of the papyrus tree have been found. Papyrus was a reed-like plant that grew near the Nile River in Egypt. Writing material was prepared from it. Thousands of contracts, articles, correspondences, government documents have been found written on papyrus leaves even today .
3. Archives
- The inscriptions were engraved on stone slabs and hence were not destroyed, and a large number of them have been found in Greek and Latin languages .
4. Physical remains
- Material remains include objects that are mainly found by archaeologists during excavations and surveys such as buildings, monuments, pottery, coins, statues and other types of structures etc.
Roman Empire and Iranian Empire
1. In the period from the birth of Christ to the seventh century, a vast area covering most of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East was ruled by two powerful empires: Rome and Iran.
2. There was rivalry between the Roman Empire and the Iranian Empire, due to which they used to fight among themselves. These empires were very close to each other and were separated by the Euphrates River .
The Early Period of the Roman Empire
The Roman Empire can be divided into two phases .
1. Early Roman Empire :-
- The entire period up to the main part of the 3rd century is called the Early Roman Empire .
2. The Reforming Roman Empire: -
- The period after the 3rd century is called the Late Roman Empire .
Initial period/early stage
Initial administration
i. The Republic in the Roman Empire was a system of government in which the real power was in the hands of the Senate. The Senate was dominated by a small group of wealthy families called aristocrats.
ii. The Republic was an aristocratic government governed through an institution called the Senate. The Republic lasted from 509 BC to 27 BC .
1. The Emperor
The actual worker who ran the government could be his own son or even an adopted son as his successor .
The major emperors were
(i) Julius Sajir
(ii) Augustus
(iii) Tiberius
(iv) Trajan
(v) Nero
1. In 27 BC, Octavian, the adopted son and successor of Julius Caesar, overthrew the republican system and took power into his hands and became the emperor of Rome under the name Augustus .
2. The state established by the first emperor Augustus in 27 BC was known as the Principate .
3. Augustus was the absolute ruler and the real source of power, but the fiction was kept alive that he was merely a leading citizen and not an autocratic ruler, this was done to give respect to the Senate.
Senate
1. The Senate was an institution that controlled the power in the days when Rome was a republic. The institution of the Senate existed in Rome for many centuries.
2. Membership of the Senate was lifelong; wealth and position were given more importance than birth .
3. The Senate was an institution in which the noble and aristocratic class i.e. the wealthy families of Rome were represented, but later on, landowners of Italian origin were also included in it .
4. Most of the books on Roman history were written by them in Greek and Latin. The emperor was judged by his behavior towards the Senate.
5. Those emperors were considered the worst rulers who showed hostility towards the members of the Senate or used violence against them .
6. Some senators longed to return to the Republican era, but most senators realized that this was now impossible .
Army
1. After the Emperor and the Senate, the important institution in the empire was the army. Rome had a professional army in which every soldier was paid a salary and had to serve for a minimum of 25 years .
2. The presence of a salaried army was a distinctive feature of the Roman Empire. The army numbered 600,000 soldiers by the 4th century and certainly had the power to determine the fate of the emperors .
3. Soldiers constantly agitated for better service and pay. If the soldiers felt disappointed by their generals and even the emperor, the agitation would take the shape of a mutiny .
4. The Senate hated and feared the army because it was the source of violence. A tense situation arose when the government had to impose heavy taxes to meet its increasing military expenditure .
5. If the army got divided, it would result in civil war .
👉 Thus it can be said that the emperor, the aristocracy and the army were the three major players in the political history of the empire .
Expansion of Rome
1. In the first century
1. The reign of Augustus is remembered for peace
2. Augustus was succeeded by his son Tiberius
3. Tiberius was adopted by Augustus
4. A special achievement of this period was that the direct rule of the Roman Empire expanded considerably.
5. For this, many dependent states were merged into the Roman Empire. Dependent states were local states that were 'dependent' on Rome. Rome trusted that these rulers would use their armies in support of Rome and in return Rome accepted their separate existence.
2. In the second century
1. By the early years of the second century, the states that lay to the west of the Euphrates River (towards Roman territory) were also captured by Rome. These states were very rich. For example - Herod's state used to earn 54 lakh denarii (125,000 kg gold) per year.
2. Denarius was a silver coin of Rome which contained about 4.5 grams of pure silver.
3. Except Italy, all regions of the empire were divided into provinces and taxes were collected from them.
4. When Rome was at its height in the second century, the Roman Empire extended from Scotland to the borders of Armenia, and from the Sahara to the Euphrates and sometimes beyond.
5. Many cities were established far and wide across the empire through which the entire empire was controlled.
6. The large urban centres established on the Mediterranean coasts (Carthage, Alexandria and Antioch) were the core of the imperial system.
7. It was through these cities that the 'government' was able to impose taxes on the provincial rural areas, which provided most of the wealth of the empire.
8. This meant that the local elite classes actively assisted the Roman Empire in tax collection and administration of their territories.
3. Changes in the second and third centuries
1. During the second and third centuries, most administrators and military officers came from these upper provincial classes.
2. Thus they formed a new elite class which was more powerful than the members of the Senate because it had the support of the emperors.
3. As this new group emerged, the emperor Gallienus (253-68) strengthened the rise of this new class by removing the senators from military command.
4. Emperor Gallienus banned senators from serving in the army or having access to it. Gallienus did not want the control of the empire to fall into the hands of the senators in any way .
Crisis of the Third Century
1. The first and second centuries were marked by peace, prosperity and economic expansion, but the third century showed signs of internal tension.
2. In 225 AD, the Roman Empire was being repeatedly invaded by the aggressive dynasty of Iran ('Sassanids' dynasty) and within just 15 years it rapidly expanded towards the Euphrates.
3. In an inscription carved in three languages, the Iranian ruler Shapur I claimed to have destroyed a Roman army of 60,000
4. Also captured Antioch, the eastern capital of the Roman Empire.
5. Many tribes of Germanic origin, (Alamannii, Franks, Goths) started moving towards the borders of the Rhine and Danube rivers and attacked the Roman Empire and captured many territories .
6. In the 3rd century a number of emperors came to power at short intervals (25 emperors in 47 years). This shows that the empire had to go through a lot of tension during this period .
Gender, Literacy and Culture
1. Family and marriage
1. In those days, the 'nuclear' family was prevalent in Rome . Slaves were also included in the family .
2. (Till the first century BC) the form of marriage was such that the wife did not transfer her property to her husband but she retained all her rights in her paternal family.
3. The marriage age for men was 28-29 or 30-32 while for women it was 16-18 or 22-23 .
4. A woman's dowry went to her husband during the marital period .
2. Status of women
1. The woman remained the primary heir of her father and became the independent owner of his property on his death.
2. However, women were often dominated by their husbands and women were regularly beaten by men .
3. Nevertheless, Roman women had extensive legal rights to own and manage property.
4. Divorce was easy .
3. Literacy
1. There was working literacy in Rome at that time
2. Literacy was relatively widespread among certain classes of people, such as soldiers, military officers and estate managers.
4. Culture
1. Cultural diversity existed in Rome society
2. Rome had a great diversity of religious sects and local deities
3. There were many spoken languages
4. There were various styles of different costumes
5. There used to be a variety of foods
Economic expansion
1. Business
1. The number of ports, quarries, brick kilns, mines, olive oil factories etc. was quite large, due to which its economic infrastructure was quite strong.
2. The olive oil extraction enterprise in Spain was at its peak in the years 140-160 AD.
3. Olive oil produced in Spain was mainly transported in containers called 'Dressle 20'.
4. There was rivalry between Spanish oil producers and Italian oil producers
2. Banking system
- The Roman Empire had a well-organised commercial banking system
- Money was widely used
3. Major economic sectors
There were many regions within the empire that were renowned for their exceptional fertility;
1. Campania, Sicily in Italy :-
2. Faiyum, Galilee, Byzacium (Tunisia) in Egypt
3. Southern Gaul (called Gallia Narbonensis) and Baetica (southern Spain).
👉The best quality grape wine came from Campania
👉 Sicily and Byzantium - exported large quantities of wheat to Rome.
👉 Intensive agriculture was practiced in Galilee
👉 Spanish olive oil came from the estates along the banks of the Guadalquivir River in the south of Spain
4. Industrial area
1. Spain's gold and silver mines were excavated using water power
2. In the first and second centuries, minerals were extracted from these mines on a massive industrial scale.
Control over workers in the Roman Empire
slavery
1. Slavery was widespread in the Roman Empire
2. The total population in Italy was 75 lakhs out of which 30 lakhs were slaves only.
3. Slaves were viewed as capital investment
4. Upper class people treated slaves cruelly but common people sympathized with slaves
5. When there was a shortage of slaves, slave breeding was encouraged
6. The work of slaves was monitored so that no one could shirk work
Social categories in the Roman Empire
Early states | Later period |
Senator | King |
Equestrian | Elite |
Honorable class | Middle class |
lower class | lower class |
Slave | Slave |
