How did the roman empire change over time?

Answer 1

The conquest of most of the Mediterranean between the 2rd century BC and 63 BC, during the period of the Roman Republic, was due to Rome winning a number of separate and unconnected wars which were fought for different reasons. It was not due to a grand design of conquest and imperial expansion. The first conquest which was deliberate was that of Gaul, which Julius Caesar set out to conquer in his Gallic Wars (58-50 BC). As a result of this the Republic was poorly equipped to deal with having an empire.

There were unsatisfactory administrative arrangements. The generated wealth was concentrated in the hands of the rich and newly enriched people. There was flaunting of wealth and corruption. The governors of the provinces (conquered territories) acted as if their provinces were their personal fiefs. Military commanders used military violence or the threat of it to obtain what they wanted. As a result the Republic was torn by a series of civil wars. The Republic fell under the weight ofunplanned imperial expansion.

Following the demise of the Republic, Augustus created rule by emperors. He added territories to the empire. Some client states of Rome were annexed. Some areas were annexed because they came under attack by invaders or because there were rebellions. The Alpine area was conquered to add a defensive buffer north of Italy. Augustus completed the conquest of Spain by defeating the Cantabrians in the northeast of the peninsula. Roman expansion into Spain was not due to a grand design of conquest either. It was due to wars against Rome by peoples who lived in areas of Spain who resisted the expansion in Roman activities and settlement in the peninsula. Under Augustus there was the conquest of southern and central Germany. This was a deliberate conquest. However, it backfired. Three legions were routed and Augustus withdrew back to the old frontiers.

The emperor Claudius annexed northern Morocco which was already a Roman client state. He also organised the invasion of England and conquered the south. The conquest of the north was commissioned by Vespasian. Trajan conquered Dacia (in modern Romania) because the Dacian king kept attacking the empire. Trajan also fought a war against the Persian Empire and took Mesopotamia Iraq) from them. However, his successor, Hadrian, gave it back to them because he pursued a policy of peace and because he thought that Rome could not hold on to this area.

Answer 2

The ancient Roman Empire began as a small city state on the Tiber River in 753 BC BCE. Rome cast off its Etruscan rulers and began to expand throughout the Italian peninsula.

After the 1st Punic War against Carthage, the result of the peace treaty gave Rome territories that were once controlled by Carthage.

At the end of this war, Rome could be called an empire. The empire expanded through conquests and by the end of the first century AD CE stretched from Britain in the north to Portugal in the west.

To the south it controlled much of North Africa and south to the southern border of Egypt. In the east it bordered the Euphrates river and had in Europe control of what is now France and the lowlands.

The northeast borders were defined by the Rhine and Danube rivers.

The above areas were the approximate geographic limits of its empire, subject to changes from time to time.

On a political basis, the small republican style State led into a more aristocratic control of Rome's government. The Roman Senate's powers greatly expanded as the empire grew.

By the time of Julius Caesar and following the civil war between Octavian and Antony, there were only remnants of what a republic style of government looked like.

The victory of Octavian over Mark Antony, left Octavian, for the most part, the supreme ruler of the empire. Later given the title of Augustus by the Senate, Augustus began the long line of rule by an emperor. Certain structures of the old republic remained only insofar as they fit into the ruling schemes of the emperors.

Answer 3

Many factors influenced development and change in Roman culture. A big part of it was down to the passage of time. Roman history lasted for 1,200 years and during that span of time there was a lot of social and political change. Like other ancient societies, Rome developed from an archaic society to a more complex one and this involved cultural changes. Another factor was imperial expansion. As the Roman Empire gradually grew, Rome interacted with more and more foreign peoples and was influenced by their cultures. Rome was very keen to establish good relations with the foreign peoples who came under their influence and open to foreign cultural and, especially, religious influence. This played a part in roman cultural change. Rome also changed from being a city-state of only regional significance to having a vast empire. Roman culture became less about the city of Rome and more about the Roman world the Romans created in their empire, through Rome's influence on its conquered peoples and by thousands of Romans migrating to new Roman settlements around the empire. .Roman culture also changed with the change of its political system. It changed from a republican culture during the period of the Roman Republic to a culture in which the Propaganda of the emperors for their own rule and imperial cults become important during the period of rule by emperors.

The Greeks played an important part in Roman cultural change. The Greek were very influential in the eastern and central Mediterranean. The Romans adopted some Greek divinities (Castor and Pollux, Apollo, Asclepius and Cybele) in their early days. The Romans also absorbed Greek mythology and later they linked their divinities to those of the Greeks. After the capture of the Geek city of Tarentum in southern Italy, Greek educators moved to Rome. They reshaped Roman education. The education of the elites followed Greek models and pupils studied in both Latin and Greek. There was also the development of Latin literature. It started with a Greek writer translating Greek plays into Latin and the early Latin poets wrote plays modelled on those of the Greeks. Over time, Roman elite men became interested in Greek rhetoric and the two main schools of Greek philosophy (stoicism and Epicureanism). The advent of rule by emperors also was the adoption of sculpture in the Hellenistic style of the Greeks.

In the period of the Later Roman Empire the spread of Christianity brought about radical cultural changes.