Ancient Rome Essay

Total Length: 1279 words ( 4 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+

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Introduction

Ancient Rome is the Roman Civilization founded in 8th Century BC in the ancient city of Rome. Ancient Rome succeeded the Western Roman Empire which fell in the 5th Century AD. Before it fell, the Western Roman Empire comprised of the Roman kingdom, the Roman Empire and the Roman republic. Ancient Rome simply refers to the great kingdom and the republic period which replaced the subsequent that Western Roman Empire (Adkins et al., 45).

Civilization of the Ancient Rome began in the 8th Century in a small town in central Italy. The town was located in the casts of central Italy’s River, Tiber. The town then later grew into a massive empire which constituted most of the Europe, Western Asia, Britain, North Africa and the Mediterranean islands (Carcopino, 13). The dominance of ancient Rome is known for many legacies the most common being the widespread use of the Roman languages e.g., Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian and Spanish which were derived from Latin. There are also the modern day Roman alphabets, calendar, as well as the growth and spread of Christianity worldwide (Adkins et al., 168).

Ancient Rome remained an empire for 450 years before it became an empire under the leadership of Julius Caesar. Its first emperor Augustus inspired peace and prosperity in Rome before its fall in the 5th Century. According to the legendary myth, Ancient Rome was founded by twin brothers Romulus and Remus on 21st April in 753 BC. The brothers were born after their father, Mars, the god of war raped their mother Rhea Silvia. They were hence considered half-divine. The then King Amulius, feared the two sons would grow up and over him (Carcopino, 32). Henceforth, he ordered them to be drowned in a basket in River Tiber. However, the twins were rescued and raised by a she wolf. When they were old enough, the twin brothers went and overthrew Amulius and returned the kingdom to its rightful owner, Numitor.
The twins then founded their own city in the banks of river Tiber in 753 B.C. However, the brothers were involved in argument and Romulus killed his brother Remus. Thus, Romulus solely owned Rome, named it after him and became its first king. Rome then later ruled by Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan kings in a non-hereditary basis (Adkins et al., 237).

After its establishment, ancient Rome, massively expanded and became one of the largest historical empires in the ancient world. Despite being ruled from a city, the Roman Empire exponentially grew both in size and power. The empire had approximately between 50 -90 million people, which was about 20% of the entire world population. Similarly, it covered an estimated 5M square kilometers in 117 AD. During its many centuries of existence, Rome evolved from a monarchy, to a republic and finally to an autocratic empire (Carcopino, 56).

During its monarchial years, the power of the monarch was passed to two annually elected magistrates known as the consuls. These consuls also functioned as the army commanders in chief. Though elected by the citizens, the consuls were largely drawn from the senate dominated by patricians or the descendants of Romulus senators (Adkins et al., 267). During the early republic, politics comprised of long struggles between the common people (plebeians) and the patricians. Eventually, the common people succeeded in attaining some political power from the patricians. Later in 450 BC, the first Roman law code was formulated engraved on twelve bronze tablets (Platner, 248).

As a republic, the Roman Empire massively increased its power and size. However, in 390 B.C., the Gauls sacked and burned down Rome but the Romans bounced back into power….....

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