The Romans were once the most influential people in the world. Although they changed the way people viewed architecture and education, their government, culture, and trade system changed, yet somewhat stayed the same. From 500 BCE to 476 CE, these three topics were areas of advancement and achievement in the Roman Empire. Before 500 BCE, the Roman Empire was just that; an empire. However, when the Roman citizens got tired of dictatorship, the government drastically changed.
Marcus Aurelius’ time as an emperor, Ancient Rome was living in harmony and the empire was very rich and big and the military forces was strong and united as well as the senate. With many nations under their command, Ancient Rome was at their top of the history during his reign. After his death, the country became destabilized because his son was not a strong leader and he was corrupted. During the time of Aurelius’s son reign, corruption started to be seem more than ever. Another event that showed the decline of Ancient Rome was when the empire was split into two nations with two emperors.
The Deep Impact of Octavian For forty years Octavian, post 27 B.C. known as Augustus Caesar, held power in Rome and he was able to establish a firm foundation for emperors to come by changing laws and enabling others to act. He believed that the Roman laws had proven to be weak under the Roman Republic and they needed a strong leader. The senate approved and appointed him consul, tribune and commander in chief for life. Augustus is remarkable because unlike the other politicians that came before him once he gained power he was able to keep it.
The Conquest of Gaul Gaius Julius Caesar was born 100 B.C. in Rome to the impoverished patrician Julian Clan, and know knew controversy early age. Through this conflicts he slowly but surely throughout his lifetime worked his way up the political ladder, becoming Consul and finally Dictator Perpeteus, or Dictator for life. He is deemed as one of the most influential political and military leaders of all time, a highly intelligent man and an exceptional orator. Acquiring this absolute power however, was no easy feat, and Caesar had well equipped himself through previous expeditions of Europe and the ancient world with all the resources necessary to gain power in Ancient Rome.
Instead he was known to be one of the ablest orators and “most adroit politicians of the day”[F.B Marsh] and his military skills were most likely not rated very highly. However, during his campaigns in Gaul he earned the reputation of a man who fought alongside his men and “killed greater numbers of the enemy”[Plutarch]. The period of time he spent in Gaul has proved Caesar to be “One of the world’s greatest soldiers”[Scullard] and an exceptional commander that was admired for his leadership and ability to secure the affection of his men. Plutarch states that in less than ten years Caesar had stormed “more than 800 cities, subdued 300 nations, and fought ... with three million men”. More significantly however is the strong bond he formed with the
Holland’s book’s key point is the conflict between Sulla and Marius. These men were Roman politicians with very different backgrounds and personalities. Each was the seeking the same political goal, so they competed to the point of war. At first they manipulated the people, then they tried to find loop holes in the political system. And finally they started a civil war in which Sulla came out on top.
CLA 203 9/11/13 Homework-( Handout #1) 10. How/why did Rome change from a monarchy to a republic and what changed in the organization of the city? Rome changed from a monarchy to a republic because after many years of harsh rule by kings and of how terrible Tarquinius and his son Sextus did, the people wanted more of a role in government. The last king Lucius Tarquinius Priscus ruled as a tyrant something that was be opposed by many Romans. The organization of the city was changed from having kings to elected officials.
In 1828, the fact that Andrew Jackson was running for president came as a shock to many Americans after an era of great presidents and leaders such as Washington, Jefferson, or James Madison. A lady even cried: “Well, if Andrew Jackson can be president, anybody can”. The revolution started with an overthrow of the noble republican standards by the common people. And “Old Hickory” Jackson sparked many of new democratic ideals. As the industrial revolution progressed after the War of 1812, great changes and numerous advancements expedited the growth of the nation.
His assassination is looked upon not only as a significant event in the history of the United States, but also as completely changing the perspective of how the country, and the world, viewed, and would continue to view, Abraham Lincoln as a person and as a President (Hall, 1865). It is a fact that assassination changed the status of Abraham Lincoln into a sacred symbol of his society, changed from what he had been known as a controversial president. His assassination was only the first chapter of this transformation, as the amount of work and the attention that he received after his death on his funeral and the events that followed made him into even more of a hero than ever before. Many Americans had condemned Lincoln at the time and most of them had criticized his wartime policies and reconstruction plans. This is why it was so much more interesting to see that many people acted so differently upon his death even though they felt completely different about the man and his presidency.
While Julius Caesar was dictator, he made a lot of notable changes to the empire. “One of the initial crises with which Caesar had to deal with was a lot ofdebt in Rome, especially after the Civil War when lenders demanded that their loans be repayed and the rest of the economy collapsed.” (Gelzer 94) Since Caesar was a creative thinker he improvised a way to get the economy up by making people repay their loans at the property’s “pre-war” value. This strategy would end up working and the economy went right back up to where it was supposed to be. Caesar put into place the construction of new public buildings which reduced the unemployment level and it boosted the economy. Caesar made many other improvements as dictator by making more jobs, boosting the economy, and helping out the poor and middle classes.