How were ancient Roman ruins formed?

Ancient times

According to legend, when the city of Troy was attacked by the Greeks (about 1300-1190 BC), Aeneas, the son of the goddess Venus, He and his followers escaped and traveled westward along North Africa through Carthage to Rome.

From the 8th century BC to the 6th century BC, the Greeks immigrated to southern Italy and established city-states. In the 7th century BC, the process of tribal union began with Palatium as the center. A single Latin tribe united three tribes, including the Sabines and Etruscans, to form a Roman commune. From the end of the 7th century BC to the end of the 6th century BC, the Roman commune was under the rule of the Etruscans. At this time, the transition from clan, tribal commune to city-state was completed. At the end of the 5th century BC, the Gauls entered the Po River plain from the north of the Alps. After a long period of integration and assimilation, these tribes formed the ancestors of the Italians.

The period of King Thoris Austilus

During the time of King Thoris Austilus, Rome and the adjacent town of Alba (Alba) often fought wars. Making the people suffer hardship. Thoris Austylus and King Mettius Fuffetius of Alba were determined to stop fighting, but in order to decide which city's king would get the highest status, Mettius Fuffetius came up with this method: let several soldiers fight, which city's soldiers Be victorious and the king of that city becomes supreme monarch.

Coincidentally, Rome and Alba each have a pair of triplets, and the triplets in Rome (they are named "Horatii") and the triplets in Alba

("Curiatii") were born at the same time. Therefore, Thoris and Mettius chose these two pairs of triplets as representatives of their respective cities.

Not long after the game started, the two Horatii were dead. Fortunately, the surviving Horatius was not injured, while none of the Curiatii brothers died but each suffered varying degrees of injuries. The surviving Horatius pretended to run away, and the Curiatii brothers fell into his trap and chased him, but because they suffered different injuries, some ran fast and some ran slowly, they could not catch up with Horatius at the same time. Therefore Horatius did not have to fight them one by one, but he fought each one separately and killed them one by one.

In this way, Rome won the victory, and Thoris Austilus became the king of Alba.

Period of Servius Tullius

The period from 578 BC to 534 BC was the reign of Servius Tullius. During this period, Servius Tullius implemented reforms, which included:

Dividing citizens who could perform military service into five classes according to their property, and providing varying numbers of military centurions for each class. ***Total 193 centurions. The Congress of Centuries was created to replace the powers of the Congress of Curia to declare war, elect, and judge. 193 centurions, each with one vote. Divide the clan tribes into 4 by region. The reforms of Servius Tullius completed the transition from clan system to state in ancient Rome.

The Period of Lucius Tarquin

The Arrogant King Lucius Tarquin Superb was the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, but he led his soldiers to attack He entered the palace and killed Servius Tullius, and became the king himself, the last king. After Lucius Tarquin Superb came to power, he was tyrannical and cruel. He was expelled from Rome by the Roman common people in 510 BC. The leader was Lucius Junius Brutus, Servius. Son of Tullius.

The Roman people decided they no longer needed a king, and instead elected two people, initially called Praetores and later renamed Consuls, who served for one-year terms. The first consuls were Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquin Coratin. In 509 BC, the Roman Republic, which was controlled by Roman nobles, was established.

The Royal Period

Legend has it that from 754 to 753 BC, the ancient Roman Romulus built the Roman city on the banks of the Tiber River, ushering in the Royal Period. There were 7 kings successively, and the clan and tribal organization still existed intact. The ruling class included the king, the Senate, and the Council of Curia (Rome called the phratry Curia, and every 10 clans formed a phratry, which was later replaced by the Council of Centurions). ). Later, the distinction between nobles and commoners appeared.

In the age of kingship, the king had absolute power. He was the Grand Legislator, the leader of the army, and the chief priest, whose power was only checked by the Senate and the Citizens' Assembly. The Senate was the Council of Elders, composed of the heads of different tribes. According to the constitution and traditional customs, the Senate has the power to pass or veto the king's appointments and to judge the king's legislation and proceedings. The Assembly was composed of all the male citizens of Rome, divided into thirty groups according to kinship; it authorized the monarch to exercise authority, which was finally and formally approved by the Senate.

The establishment of the ancient Roman city

The date of the establishment of the Roman city is not certain, but tradition believes that it was in 753 BC. This has been widely confirmed by archaeological finds, although there may have been some people living there long before.

Traditionally, the Romans attributed the founding of the city to the hero Romulus.

He and his twin brother Remus were descendants of the hero Aeneas. Aeneas, the son of the Greek goddess Aphrodite (called Venus in Roman mythology), came to Italy after the Greeks captured Troy.

Roman historian Titus Livy described this mythical story like this: The grandfather of these twin brothers was Numitor, who was the king of the Alba Kingdom in the Alban Mountains southeast of Rome. The king's evil brother Amulius expelled the king and made the king's only daughter Rhea Silvia a virgin to prevent her from having children (virgin girls were not allowed to have children) to prevent the king from having children. descendants to take revenge. But Rhea Silvia violated his constraints, fell in love with Mars, the god of war, and gave birth to twins. When the twins were abandoned on the banks of the Tiber, they were nursed by a she-wolf and later found by a shepherd, whose wife raised them. When they grew up, the twin brothers became the leaders of the green forest. After Remus was captured and brought to King Amulius, Romulus and his men rescued him and killed Amulius. At this time, the fate of the twin brothers was revealed, and their grandfather Numitor was restored to the throne. The brothers left their grandfather and founded their own city where they were discovered by shepherds. When deciding who would rule the city, the oracle told them to decide by seeing a bird that predicted success. Remus saw 6 vultures while standing on the Aventine Hill, and Romulus saw 12 vultures while standing on the Palatine Hill. The latter number was luckier, but Remus was the first to see the signs. A quarrel ensued between the brothers, and Romulus eventually killed Remus and became king of the new city. He ruled for a long time, and after his death he was accepted into the pantheon and became the revered Quirinus, the god of war.

The Peace Period

From the 5th century BC to the beginning of the 3rd century BC, the struggle between the common people and the nobility came to an end, and the Italian peninsula was basically unified. The centurions elected two consuls from the nobles to exercise the highest administrative power for a period of one year; the main institutions for managing the country were the Senate, senior officials and the Citizens' Assembly, which were responsible for protecting the rights of the common people from infringement by the nobles. This also marked the birth of Roman law. In 326 BC, debt slavery was abolished.

When Rome was first founded, it was still a small country. Since the beginning of the 5th century BC, it has successively defeated some cities in the Latin League and its close neighbors such as the Etruscans. It has also conquered the indigenous and Greek city-states in the southern part of the Italian Peninsula, becoming a great power in the western Mediterranean. Rome launched three more Punic Wars, conquered Carthage in 146 BC and made it a Roman province. From 215 BC to 168 BC, he launched three Macedonian wars, conquered Spain, Macedonia and controlled all of Greece. He also conquered eastern lands such as Syria through Roman-Syrian wars and diplomatic means.

The economy developed rapidly during this period, but it also intensified social conflicts. Due to the formation of the large estate system and the widespread use of slave labor, Italy's agriculture, industry, commerce, and usury industries flourished, and the slave economy developed tremendously; bankrupt farmers became homeless in large numbers, intensifying social conflicts in Rome. From the 230s BC to the 1st century BC, the interweaving process continued. For example, the Gracchi brothers' reforms took place between 133 BC and 123 BC.

In 107 BC, with the support of the democrats, Gaius Marius was elected consul and began to implement military reforms. He implemented a recruitment system, which caused a large number of landless or landless citizens to flow into the army.

In 90 BC, in order to fight for Roman citizenship, the Italians revolted, known in history as the Confederate War.

In 82 BC, Sulla, supported by the aristocracy, led an army to occupy Rome.

In 60 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar, Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pompey Magnus secretly concluded a treaty to fight against the senators. Yuan, known as the First Three Heads Alliance in history.

In 53 BC, Crassus was completely wiped out in the Battle of Calle in the expedition to Parthia, and he himself was killed, leaving only two of the Big Three. During this period, Caesar fought in Gaul and gained a lot. His reputation and status rose sharply, which aroused Pompey's jealousy and alarm. Pompey then united with the Senate to fight against Caesar.

In 48 BC, Julius Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus. Pompey fled to Egypt and was killed. Caesar was declared dictator for life, combining military and political power. He carried out strict reforms, but his dictatorial rule aroused the hatred of his political enemies, and he was assassinated by aristocratic conspirators on March 15, 44 BC. After Caesar's death, civil war broke out in Rome. In 43 BC, Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian publicly formed an alliance and gained the legal power to rule the country for five years. It was known as the Triumvirate in history.

Octavian then defeated the other two, and in 27 BC the Senate granted Octavian the title of "Augustus" and established the head of state system. The French Republic was declared destroyed, and Rome entered the imperial era.

The Imperial Period

The political system created by Augustus, known in history as the Heads of State, was actually an imperial system in name only.

After the death of Augustus, his adopted son Tiberius succeeded to the throne, thus creating the imperial succession system. The period from 27 BC to 192 BC is called the Pre-Imperial Period and includes three dynasties: the Claudian dynasty, the Flavian dynasty and the Antonine dynasty. Society was relatively stable during this period.

During the reign of Emperor Trajan (98-117 AD) of the Antonine dynasty, the empire reached its largest territory: starting from Spain and Britain in the west, to the upper reaches of the Euphrates River in the east, from northern Africa in the south, to the Rhine and Danube rivers in the north, and the Mediterranean Sea became the empire. the inland sea. The economy is booming as never before. Christianity emerged in the middle of the 1st century AD and spread rapidly in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.

In the Western Roman Empire, the economy continued to experience crises, the population decreased, the fields were deserted, urban and rural areas were depressed, and the rule was increasingly weakened. In 410, the Visigoths briefly occupied Rome. In 452, Attila the Hun invaded Italy. In 455, the Vandals attacked Italy and fell into Rome. Barbarian countries such as the Visigothic Kingdom, the Vandal-Alan Kingdom, the Burgundy Kingdom and the Ostrogothic Kingdom were successively established. In September 476, the Germans invaded, and their mercenary leader Odoacer deposed the last monarch, Romulus Augustulus, and the Western Roman Empire was declared destroyed.

The Eastern Roman Empire lasted until 1453, when it was destroyed by the Ottoman Empire.