Text book notes: assassination and another Caesar

Page 101: Assassination and another Caesar

- Pompey was hasitily commissioned to defend thee Senate, but his forces were no match for Caesar's veterans
- Forced to flee from Italy, Pompey was later defeated by Caesar in Greece and murdered in Egypt, where he had taken refuge 
- Caesar moved swiftly to make himself supreme ruler of the Republic 
- The people's assemblies continued to exist, but they did little more than endorse Caesar's proposals 
- Caesar extended Roman citizenship to parts of Gaul and Spain and appointed citizens from the provinces to the Senate 
- He gave the Romans splendid public buildings and rods, and introduced reforms into every department and administration

• this is where Rome changes from Republic to empire  

- romans at home and abroad applaud Caesar's deeds, but these remained a stubborn core pf senators who were disturbed by his successors 
- Caesar appeared in the senate house, unarmed and unguarded, according to his custom, and a crowd of senators struck him down with their daggers 
- his murder did not restore the republic; instead, his death produced yet another crop of warlords and yet more bouts of civil war 

Page 103 The Roman Peace

- Augustus's new system of government kept many features of the Roman Republic, allowed subject peoples a good deal of self-rule, and brought Rome's destabilizing expansion to a halt. The result was two hundred years of stability that modern scholars call the Roman peace. 

- within the empire, the roman version of Greco-Roman civilization prevailed in the western territories and the Greek version was dominant in the east

- in many ways, the dominant international civilization undermined the traditions of other peoples of the empire 

Pages 104-107 LO1: The rule of the emperors

princeps: "first citizen" a traditional roman name for prominent leaders who were considered indispensable to the republic that came to be used by Augustus and other early emperors

• soon after Octavian's triumph at Actinium, the senate conferred on him a new title, Augustus ("revered one"), the name under which he has gone down in history  

THE AUGUSTAN SETTLEMENT 

• at the time, Augustus did his best to make it seem as if no such historic change was under way

THE FIRST CITIZEN

• unlike Sulla and Caesar, Augustus refused to offer a long-term dictatorship and referred to himself simply as pinceps (first citizen), a traditional name for prominent leaders who were considered indispensable to the republic 

THE DIVINE BEING

• in spite of avoiding Caesar's open exercise of supreme power, Augustus followed the dictator's even more arrogant-seeming example of accepting religious worship of himself 
• augustus also acquired the title of father of the fatherland and took seriously the fatherly duty of supervising the behavior of his "household"-- especially of the upper classes in rome

REFORM, RECONSTRUCTION, AND THE END OF EXPANSION 

• ensuring peace and stability involve not only changing the way the roman city-state worked but also reorganizing the whole of Rome's empire 
• first he brought the system of government appointments under his personal control
• second, Augustus showed respect for local institutes and encouraging provincial leaders to fulfill their responsibilities  
• third, he reorganized the army to ensure the loyalty of the rank- and- file soldiers 
• then he gradually brought about his single most drastic reform 

THE END OF ROMAN EXPANSION

• even after Augustus's troop cuts, his army was still far larger than the forces that Rome has usually maintained in the past
• he kept part of his arms in rome guarded to back up his power at the empires center but moved most of his forces to the frontiers of the empire 

 PERMANENT MONARCHY

• augustus was convinced that if romes new peace and stability were to last, the changes he had made in its government system must continue after his death  

caesar- the imperial title given to the designated successor of a reigning emperor

augustus- the imperial title given to a reigning emperor

roman peace- a term used to refer to the relative stability and prosperity that roman rule brought to the Mediterranean world and much of western Europe during the first and second centuries (AD)

LO2 LITERATURE AND THOUGHT IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

- as rome's conquest brought it into closer contact with the Greek world, the romans began to share in the cultural traditions of Greece and Latin joined as a language of literature and thought