Chapter 5: Imperial Rome, 146 B.C.E. - 192 C.E.

• The Republic broke down after the Punic Wars
  • The following years were full of fighting, death, and destruction which brought many farmers to ruin
  • The war damaged the farmland leading the farmers to lose their land and sold it to the wealthy
  • Those that either lost or sold their land ended up becoming laborers, tenant farmers, etc. and since they were no longer landowners, they weren’t eligible for the army
• There was an increase in the slave population after the Punic Wars due to the small wages paid to free laborers
  • Slaves made up for one-third of the total population in 1st century B.C.E.
• Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were the social reformers of the time with them wanting to help ordinary Romans
• Tiberius Gracchus
  • First of the political leaders who appealed to the populace
  • He was the leader of an annually elected pleb assembly
  • Introduced a land reform program that would allow citizens to agriculture
  • Came up with a law that limited the amount of public land a person could hold as he wanted to distribute land recovered by the state to landless peasants
  • Was murdered alongside 300 of his supporters by a group of senators that broke into an assembly meeting during
• Gaius Gracchus
  • Tiberius Gracchus’s younger brother
  • Tribune
  • Wanted to limit the Senate’s power
  • Replaced senators with equestrian class
  • Attempted to extend citizenship to non-Roman-Italians which the Senate didn’t like
  • Encouraged colonization to provide land for the poor
  • His ideas weren’t successful
  • Was murdered along with 3000 of his supporters at the hands of the Senate
• Julius Caesar founded colonies in in Italy, Asia, Greece, Africa, Spain, and Gual
  • Extended Roman citizenship to parts of Spain and Gual
  • Was appointed dictator by the Senate
• Declared himself dictator for life
• Was turning Rome into a monarchy
• Assassinated by group of senators to save the republic
• His death led to civil war in Rome
• Augustus, despite becoming the first emperor, wanted to keep the facade of Rome being a republic
  • Held 4 terms as consul
  • Was Tribune for life after 23 B.C.E.
  • Reduced number of senators from 1000 to 600
  • The empire experienced peace and stability for two centuries under his and his successors’ leadership
• Augustus’ stepson, Tiberius was recognized as the ruler of Rome after his death
  • Tiberius was unpopular
• Nero was a tyrannical ruler
• Jews refused to be a part of the polytheistic cults of Rome and were allowed to keep their monotheistic cults and didn’t have to make sacrifices to Roman Gods
• Jesus was raised as a Jew in Galilee
  • Preached messages of peace and love for God
• Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor believed that Jesus posed a threat to law and order
  • In 30 C.E. Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus to be put to death by crucifixion
  • Jesus’s followers announced he had risen 3 days after death
  • To his followers, his resurrection was proof of him being the Messiah
• Christianity spread past its origins as a Jewish sect because of Paul of Tarsus who was a Jew that had become an early Christian convert from Asia Minor

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