Chapter Notes

EMPIRES

Over the two millennia after empires first emerged in Mesopotamia, many groups attempted to build their own vast states. By the sixth century BCE, Iranians controlled large parts of the former Assyrian empire, which spurred the growth of trade networks over land and sea. This benefited Greek cities in the eastern Mediterranean.

One of the most significant empire-builders was Alexander, the ruler of Macedon. In the late fourth century BCE, he conquered territories in North Africa, West Asia, and Iran, reaching as far as the Beas river in India. After his death, his empire quickly fell apart, but its cultural impact was enormous. The region became "Hellenised," meaning Greek culture and language (spoken by the Hellenes, as the Greeks were called) spread widely. This era is known as the Hellenistic period.

Following the collapse of Alexander's empire, a new power rose: the city-state of Rome. From the second century BCE, Rome's military forces established control over North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. This empire would grow to become one of the most influential in world history.

AN EMPIRE ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS

The Roman Empire was a massive territory that included most of modern-day Europe, the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East, and North Africa. It was one of two superpowers of its time, alongside the empire of Iran.

How We Know About the Romans

Historians have a wealth of information about the Roman Empire from three main types of sources:

• Texts: These include histories written by people of that time (called 'Annals'), as well as letters, speeches, and laws.
• Documents: These are official records like inscriptions carved on stone and everyday writings on papyrus, a reed-like plant from Egypt used to make a writing material. Scholars who study these are called 'papyrologists'.
• Material Remains: These are physical objects discovered by archaeologists, such as buildings, pottery, coins, and mosaics.

Two Great Empires: Rome and Iran

From the birth of Christ to the early seventh century (around the 630s CE), Rome and Iran were the two dominant powers. They were rivals who often fought each other. Their empires were located next to each other, separated by a thin strip of land along the Euphrates river.

• The Roman Empire: Its heart was the Mediterranean Sea. Rome controlled all the lands surrounding it. Its northern boundaries were the Rhine and Danube rivers, and its southern boundary was the vast Sahara desert.
• The Iranian Empire: It controlled the area south of the Caspian Sea down to eastern Arabia.

These two empires had divided most of the world known to them.

The Early Empire

The history of the Roman Empire is often divided into two phases, with the third century CE as the turning point. The period before is called the 'early empire', and the period after is the 'late empire'.

A key difference between Rome and Iran was their cultural makeup. The Iranian empire was largely populated by Iranians. The Roman Empire, in contrast, was a mosaic of different territories and cultures, held together by a common system of government.

• Languages: Many languages were spoken, but Latin (in the west) and Greek (in theeast) were used for administration.
• Ruler: Everyone in the empire was a subject of a single ruler, the emperor.

The Three Main Players in Politics

The political world of the Roman Empire revolved around three key groups:

1. The Emperor: The supreme ruler and source of all authority.
2. The Senate: A body representing the aristocracy—the wealthiest landowning families of Roman and Italian descent. Emperors were often judged by how they treated the Senate.
3. The Army: A paid, professional force where soldiers served for a minimum of 25 years. It was the largest single organised body in the empire (numbering 600,000 by the fourth century) and had the power to decide the fate of emperors. The Senate often feared the army's power and unpredictability.

The Principate and the Augustan Age

The regime established by the first emperor, Augustus, in 27 BCE was called the Principate. Augustus cleverly maintained the fiction that he was only the 'leading citizen' (Princeps in Latin) and not an absolute ruler. This was done to show respect for the Senate, which had governed Rome during its time as a Republic (509 BCE - 27 BCE).

The reign of Augustus is remembered as the 'Augustan age' because it brought peace after centuries of internal conflict and military conquest. For the first two centuries of the empire, external warfare was rare. The empire was already so vast that further expansion was considered unnecessary. The only major expansion campaign was by Emperor Trajan between 113-17 CE, but his successors quickly abandoned the newly conquered territory.

How Was the Vast Empire Governed?

With a population of around 60 million in the mid-second century, administering the empire was a huge challenge. The solution lay in its cities.

• Urban Centers: Great cities like Carthage, Alexandria, and Antioch were the foundation of the imperial system.
• Local Collaboration: The government taxed the provincial countryside through these cities. This system worked because the local upper classes actively collaborated with the Roman state, helping to administer their own territories and collect taxes.
• Shift in Power: Over the second and third centuries, power gradually shifted from Italy to the provinces. The provincial upper classes began to supply most of the administrators and military commanders. Emperor Gallienus (253-68) even banned senators from serving in the army to prevent them from gaining too much power.

The Third-Century Crisis

While the first two centuries were a time of peace and prosperity, the third century brought major internal strain.

• War on Multiple Fronts: From the 230s CE, the empire faced simultaneous threats.
  • In Iran, a new, aggressive dynasty called the Sasanians emerged in 225 CE. The Sasanian ruler Shapur I claimed to have destroyed a Roman army of 60,000.
  • Germanic tribes (Alamanni, Franks, Goths) began to invade Roman provinces along the Rhine and Danube rivers.
• Political Instability: The constant warfare led to immense political turmoil. In a period of just 47 years, there were 25 different emperors, a clear sign of the crisis facing the empire.

Gender, Literacy, Culture

Family and Women's Rights

Roman society had several features that might seem modern:

• Nuclear Family: The common family structure was nuclear, meaning adult sons did not live with their parents. Slaves, however, were considered part of the household.
• Women's Property Rights: A wife did not transfer to her husband's authority upon marriage. She retained full rights to the property of her birth family and became an independent property owner after her father's death. This gave Roman women considerable legal rights in owning and managing property.
• Divorce: Divorce was relatively easy and could be initiated by either the husband or wife.
• Inequality: Despite these legal rights, inequality existed. Men married in their late twenties or early thirties, while women married in their late teens, creating an age gap. The Catholic bishop Saint Augustine wrote that his mother was regularly beaten by his father, suggesting that domestic abuse was common.
• Father's Control: Fathers had significant legal control over their children, including the power to decide whether to raise a newborn child or leave it to die in the cold.

Literacy

The ability to read and write, known as casual literacy, varied across the empire.

• In Pompeii, a city buried by a volcanic eruption in 79 CE, advertisements and graffiti on walls suggest that literacy was widespread.
• In Egypt, however, surviving papyrus documents show that formal contracts were often written by professional scribes because the people involved could not read or write.
• Literacy was more common among certain groups like soldiers, army officers, and estate managers.

Cultural Diversity

The empire was a melting pot of cultures. This diversity was seen in:

• Religion: A vast number of religious cults and local gods were worshipped.
• Languages: Aramaic was dominant in the Near East, Coptic in Egypt, Punic and Berber in North Africa, and Celtic in Spain and the northwest.
• Lifestyle: People had different styles of dress, food, and social organisation.

Economic Expansion

The Roman Empire had a sophisticated economy with a strong infrastructure of harbours, mines, quarries, and factories.

• Major Trade Goods: Wheat, wine, and olive oil were traded in massive quantities. They came mainly from Spain, the Gallic provinces (France), North Africa, and Egypt.
• Amphorae: Liquids were transported in large containers called amphorae. Archaeologists can study the fragments of these containers to determine what they carried and where they were made.

A Sophisticated Economy

The Roman economy was far from primitive. Key features included:

• Advanced Technology: Romans used water power for milling and advanced hydraulic mining techniques in Spanish gold and silver mines.
• Organised Finance: Well-organised commercial and banking networks existed.
• Widespread Use of Money: Money was used extensively throughout the empire.

While some regions like southern Spain and Sicily were exceptionally fertile and wealthy, other parts of the empire were less developed. For instance, in Numidia (modern Algeria), pastoral communities practiced transhumance—the regular movement of herds between summer and winter pastures.

Controlling Workers

Slavery and Labour

Slavery was a fundamental institution in the ancient world.

• Slaves as Investment: In the Roman Empire, slaves were seen as an investment. Landowners were advised against using them in situations where their health might be damaged, not out of sympathy, but because of the economic cost.
• Decline in Supply: As the empire became more peaceful in the first century, the supply of slaves from warfare decreased. This forced slave owners to turn to slave breeding (encouraging slaves to have children) or cheaper alternatives like wage labour.
• Management of Labour: Supervision was considered essential. The writer Columella recommended organising workers into squads of ten to make supervision easier. Another writer, Pliny the Elder, condemned the practice of chaining slaves together in gangs.
• Harsh Conditions: Some industries had extremely tight controls. In the frankincense factories of Alexandria, workers had to wear masks and were stripped before leaving to prevent theft.
• Debt Bondage: Many poor families entered into debt bondage to survive, essentially selling themselves into servitude. Records show that parents sometimes sold their children into servitude for 25-year periods.

Social Hierarchies

The historian Tacitus described the social groups of the early empire as:

• Senators: The highest class, also called 'fathers' (patres).
• Equites: The 'knights' or 'horsemen', the second-wealthiest group, often involved in business.
• Respectable Middle Class: People connected to the great houses as clients.
• Lower Class (plebs sordida): The common people, who were said to be addicted to circus shows and theatre.
• Slaves: The lowest group in society.

By the late empire, this structure had changed. The senators and equites merged into a single, wealthy aristocracy. A new 'middle' class emerged, consisting of people in the bureaucracy and army. The vast mass of the lower classes were known as humiliores (literally, 'lower'). This group included rural labourers, mine workers, artisans, and casual labourers.

The aristocracy was incredibly wealthy. The historian Olympiodorus wrote in the early fifth century that some aristocratic households in Rome had annual incomes of up to 4,000 pounds of gold from their estates.

Law and Authority

The Roman state was an authoritarian regime where dissent was rarely tolerated. However, a strong tradition of Roman law had emerged by the fourth century. This acted as a check on the power of even the most feared emperors, and the law was used to protect civil rights.

Late Antiquity

Late antiquity is the term used for the final period of the Roman Empire, from the fourth to the seventh centuries. It was a time of significant cultural, economic, and political change.

Reforms of Diocletian and Constantine

• Emperor Diocletian (284-305): He reorganised the empire to make it more manageable. He fortified frontiers, created smaller provinces, and separated civilian and military functions, giving more power to military commanders.
• Emperor Constantine (312-337): He consolidated Diocletian's changes and added his own major innovations:
  1. Religious Change: He made Christianity the official religion of the empire.
  2. Monetary Reform: He introduced a new pure gold coin called the solidus, which became the standard currency for centuries.
  3. A New Capital: He created a second capital at Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

These reforms led to economic growth, monetary stability, and urban prosperity, especially in the eastern part of the empire.

The Division of the Empire and the Rise of Successors

The traditional polytheistic (worshipping many gods) culture of the Roman world gradually gave way to Christianity. However, the fate of the empire differed greatly between its western and eastern halves.

• The West: The empire fragmented politically. Germanic groups from the north (Goths, Vandals, Lombards) took over the provinces and established their own 'post-Roman' kingdoms. This marked the beginning of the 'medieval' period in Europe.
• The East: The empire, now often called the Byzantine Empire, remained united and prosperous. The reign of Emperor Justinian (527-565) was a high point, during which he recaptured Africa and Italy.

The Expansion of Islam

By the early seventh century, the long-running war between Rome and Iran (under the Sasanians) had exhausted both empires. This left them vulnerable to a new power emerging from Arabia. The expansion of Islam, which began after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 CE, was a revolutionary political event. By 642 CE, in just ten years, Arab armies had conquered large parts of both the eastern Roman and Sasanian empires. This marked a new chapter in the history of the region.