The Roman Period
Timeline of Roman Period
Early History * 1000 BC - Latins begin to settle in Italy. * 753 BC - The city is allegedly founded in this year by Romulus and Remus. * 750 BC - Tarpeia besieges cities, and hands it over to the Sabines * 700 BC - Near Rome, the Etruscan civilization more or less begins. * 659 BC - The enemy city of Alba Longa is destroyed by the Romans. * 616 BC - The first Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus establishes a Forum and a Circus Maximus. * c.600 BC - Cloaca Maxima is probably first built around this year. * 578 BC - Servius Tullius becomes the next Etruscan king of Rome * 565 BC - Servian Walls are built. * 534 BC - King Servius is assassinated. * 510 BC - Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol is completed and consecrated. * 509 BC - Lucius Brutus founds the republic and expels the Etruscans and Tarquin the Proud from Rome. * 508 BC - A Treaty is made between Rome and Carthage. * 507 BC - The famous war against the Etruscans begins, featuring hero Horatio.

Republic * 499 BC - A battle against foreign tribes commences, including the construction of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. * 396 BC - The Etruscan city of Veio is defeated by the Romans * 390 BC - Rome is sacked by the Gauls after the Battle of the Allia * 380 BC - The once destroyed Servian Wall is reconstructed. * 312 BC - The Via Appia and Aqua Appia are constructed. * 264 - 241 BC - First Punic War * 220 BC - Via Flamina is constructed. * 218 - 202 BC - Second Punic War * 168 BC - The Romans have a great victory in the Macedonian War, conquering Greece. * 149 - 146 BC - The Third Punic War * 133 BC - 120 BC - The Gracchi brothers are controversially killed. * 71 BC - Spartacus is killed and his rebel army destroyed. * 60 BC - Pompey, Crassus and Caesar form the first triumvirate. * 58-50 BC - Caesar conquers Gaul.

Imperial City * 49 BC - Caesar crosses the Rubicon in order to take Rome. * 44 BC - Caesar elects himself dictator, and in March is killed by Brutus and Cassius * 27 BC - Augustus is made Rome's first emperor. * 13 BC - The Ara Pacis is constituted since Augustus secured his empire. * 42 AD - The apostle St Peter arrives in Rome. * 64 AD - The Great Fire of Rome, rumored to be blamed by Nero on the Christians. * c. 65 AD - The Romans begins to massacre Christians . * 67 AD - St Peter is crucified in Rome, and similarly St Paul is executed. * 72 AD - Work on the Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum) begins. * March, 80 AD - The inauguration of the Colosseum begins. * 121 AD - Hadrian's Wall is completed. * 125 AD - Emperor Hadrian has the Pantheon reconstructed to more or less how it is today. * 212 AD - All the inhabitants of the empire are granted citizenship. * 216 AD - Work on the Baths of Caracalla is finally over, as the building gets completed. * 247 AD - The first millennium of Rome is celebrated.
270 AD - Construction of the Aurelian Wall begins.
284 AD - Diocletian partitions administration of the Roman Empire in half, thereby establishing the Eastern Roman Empire in Byzantium.

Early Medieval Ages * 312 - Constantine the Great defeats Maxentius at Battle of the Milvian Bridge to become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire * c.320 - Old St. Peter's Basilica is constructed. * 325- Constantine convenes the First Council of Nicaea. * 380 - The Christian emperor Theodosius makes Christianity the official religion of Rome, persecuting pagans and destroying temples. * 395 - Ravenna becomes the capital of the Western Roman Empire, whilst Constantinople that of the east. * 410 - Rome is sacked by Alaric, King of the Visigoths * 422 - The Church of Santa Sabina is founded. * 455 - Rome is sacked by Genseric, King of the Vandals * 476 - Romulus Augustulus is deposed, traditionally considered the end of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Europe. Byzantium continues to be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. * 496 - The first pope to achieve the Pontifex Maximus is Anastasius II. * 546 - Rome is sacked by Totila, King of the Ostrogoths * c. 590 - 604 - Pope Gregory the Great makes the Christian church exceedingly strong. * 609 - The Pantheon becomes a Christian church. * 630 - The Church of Sant' Agnese is the first Roman church to be constructed in Byzantine style. * 725 - The King Ine of Wessex is the first man to create a hostel for pilgrims to Rome. * 778 - Charlemagne conquers Italy and Rome. * 800 - Charlemagne is crowned the emperor in St. Peter's Basilica. * 846 - The Arab sack of Rome plundered the environs of Rome, including Old St. Peter's Basilica, but were prevented from entering the city itself by the Aurelian Wall * 880 - 932 - A rare occasion, the city is governed by women, Theodora and later her daughter Marozia. * 961 - King Otto the Great of Germany becomes in Rome the first Holy Roman Emperor.

High Medieval Ages * 1084 - The city of Rome is attacked by the Normans * 1108 - The church of San Clemente is in this year rebuilt. * 1140 - The church of Santa Maria in Trastevere is restored. * 1200 - The city becomes an independent commune * 1232 - The cloisters in the Basilica of St. John Lateran are finished. * 1300 - Pope Boniface VIII proclaims the First Holy Year. * 1309 - The Papacy is moved to Avignon under Pope Clement V * 1347 - The patriot and rebel Cola di Rienzo tries to restore the Roman Republic. * 1348 - As in most of Europe, the Black Death strikes Rome.

Brief history of Roman Period
The founding of Rome goes back to the very early days of civilization. It is so old, it is today known as “the eternal city”. The Romans believed that their city was founded in the year 753 BC. Modern historians though believe it was the year 625 BC.
Early Rome was governed by kings, but after only seven of them had ruled, the Romans took power over their own city and ruled themselves.
They then instead had a council known as the “senate” which ruled over them. From this point on one speaks of the “Roman Republic”.
The word ‘Republic’ itself comes from the Latin (the language of the Romans) words ‘res publica’ which mean ‘public matters’ or ‘matters of state’.
The senate under the kings had only been there to advise the king. Now the senate appointed a consul, who ruled Rome like a king, but only for one year. – This was a was idea, as like that, the consul ruled carefully and not as a tyrant, for he knew that otherwise he could be punished by the next consul, once his year was up.
Rome knew four classes of people. This division was very important to the Romans. The lowest class were the slaves. They were owned by other people. They had no rights at all. The next class were the plebeians. They were free people. But they had little say at all. The second highest class were the equestrians(sometimes called as knights). Their name means ‘riders’, as they were given a horse to ride if they were call to fight for Rome. To be an equestrian you had to be rich.
The highest class were the nobles of Rome. They were called ‘patricians’. All the real power in Rome lay with them.
The Roman Republic was a very successful government. It lasted from 510 BC until 23 BC- almost 500 years. In comparison the United States of America only existed since 1776 – less than 250 years. The greatest challenge the Roman Republic faced was that of the Carthaginians. Carthage was a very powerful city in North Africa which, much like Rome, controlled its own empire. The fight between the two sides was a long one and took place on land and on sea.
The most famous incident came when the great Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the mountain chain of the Alps to the north of Italy with all his troops, including his war-elephants !, and invaded Italy.
Though Rome in the end won and Carthage was completely destroyed in the year 146 BC. After Caesar followed the many emperors of Rome - and there were truly very many of them.
So, here are some of the most famous ones. | Augustus | Rome's first emperor. He also added many territories to the empire. | Claudius | He conquered Britain. | Nero | He was insane. He murdered his mother and his wife and threw thousands of Christians to the lions. | Titus | Before he was emperor he destroyed the great Jewish temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. | Trajan | He was a great conqueror. Under his rule the empire reached its greatest extent. | Hadrian | He built 'Hadrian's Wall' in the north of Britain to shield the province from the northern barbarians. | Diocletian | He split the empire into two pieces - a western and an eastern empire. | Constantine | He was the first Christian emperor. He united the empire again chose his capital to be the small town Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. | Romulus Augustus | He was the last emperor of Rome, nicknamed Augustulus which means 'little Augustus'. | Justinian | He was the last 'great' emperor. He conquered many territories, created the 'Justinian Code' and built the fantastic church Santa Sophia. | Constantine XI | The last emperor of Constantinople. He died defending his great city against the Turks. | |

The Roman empire in the end was overrun by millions of barbarians from the north and east of Europe. It is believed to have happened two or three times in history that huge migrations took place across Europe, where peoples moved to settle in new territories. The great migration proved too much for the Romans to stem. Their armies were designed to defeat other armies, not entire folks and peoples flooding toward them. The collapse was completed when Rome itself was conquered by the Visigoth Odoacer and his men in the year AD 476.
The Stoics
Around 200 BCE, some conservative Romans wished that their city avoid entanglements in Greece in order to avoid contacts with fancy philosophies they believed would corrupt their fellow Romans. One of them, the statesman Marcus Porcius Cato – Cato the Elder – disliked the softer manners of the Greeks. He was fluent in Greek but opposed to Greek literature, poetry and art, and he opposed Greek medicine, claiming that it was poisoning Romans. Cato joined other Roman conservatives in fighting against the spread of Greek sophistication. He was influential in deporting from Rome two Epicureans whom he thought had been sneering at religion, and he played a role in deporting a host of other philosophers and rhetoricians from east of the Adriatic.
Romans adopted Greek philosophies despite these conservatives. The conservative general, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who took power as a dictator in 82 BCE, was also intellectually aggressive, and after retiring he took up gardening and became an Epicurean. Another intellectually aggressive individual, Julius Caesar, a generation after Sulla, also became an Epicurean, but he was in politics to his end.
Stoicism was adopted more widely accepted. Cicero, a contemporary of Caesar, saw the Greeks as having thought of every philosophical alternative, and he sided with the Stoics against the Epicureans, for whom he had contempt. He believed it necessary to persuade Romans that there were gods who governed all things, that these gods were the benefactors of mankind and that the gods judged the character, acts, intentions and the piety of individuals. Cicero had come to believe in Stoicism's brotherhood of man, and he saw this brotherhood as compatible with Roman imperialism. Rome, he believed, had created safety, that Rome was the light of the world, and the Roman Empire was the work of the gods.
Another Stoic was Marcus Brutus, of et tu Brute fame. He was a senator with a reputation as an idealist. Fifteen years younger than Caesar, Caesar had considered him almost a son. He was at least close to him, Caesar having pardoned him for his alliance with his adversary Pompey. When he joined the conspiracy his prestige inspired twelve other senators to join in the assassination conspiracy. Brutus' philosophy about the brotherhood of man did not inhibit him from slashing into Caesar with his knife. Caesar, he thought, was doing a disservice to the state by turning himself into a king. Brutus paid for his act with his life. Surrounded by hostile forces two years after the assassination, he committed suicide. A follower of Epicurus might have seen it as another example of the benefits of living a peaceful life outside of politics.
And there was the Stoic philosopher Seneca, one century later. He too became mixed up in politics. He accepted the position of tutor to the adopted son of an emperor, a boy named Nero. Nero took power at the age of sixteen, after his mother poisoned her husband, Emperor Claudius. Nero remained under Seneca's influence for the first five years of his rule. Seneca became a power behind the throne and applied his Stoic sentiments by opposing the use of torture as evidence. And he was opposed to slow death and physical torments involved with execution by crucifixion. During this time, Nero gave slaves the right to file complaints against their masters – a tiny reform. Nero also pardoned people who had written unflattering descriptions of him. He left the charge of treason unused. He gave assistance to cities that had suffered from disasters. And, he won the hearts of many of his subjects by lowering taxes. But no matter Seneca's wisdom, Nero was a mediocrity unsuited emotionally for the power that had been given him. Difficulties grew, including Nero getting rid of his mother by having her murdered. Seneca retired during Nero's eighth year of rule. His replacement was Tigellinus, who amused Nero with his callousness and described Stoics, including Seneca, as hypocrites for proclaiming preference for living simply. Seneca began to devote himself again to study and writing. Three years later, he was accused of conspiring to kill Nero – most likely a falsehood. Seneca was ordered by Nero to kill himself, and he did so, severing several of his veins and bleeding to death.