Italy is the central one of the three great peninsulas which project from the south of Europe into the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded on the north by the chain of the Alps, which form a natural barrier, and it is surrounded on other sides b...
The history of Rome is that of a city which originally had only a few miles of territory, and gradually extended its dominions at first over Italy and then over the civilized world. The city lay in the central part of the peninsula, on the le...
5. REIGN OF LUCIUS TARQUINIUS PRISCUS, or the ELDER TARQUIN, B.C. 616-578. - The fifth king of Rome was an Etruscan by birth, but a Greek by descent. His father Demaratus was a wealthy citizen of Corinth, who settled in the Etruscan city of T...
The history of Rome for the next 150 years consists internally of the struggles between the Patricians and Plebeians, and externally of the wars with the Etruscans, Volscians, Æquians, and other tribes in the immediate neighborhood of R...
From the Agrarian Law of Sp. Cassius to the appointment of the Decemvirs was a period of more than thirty years. During the whole of this time the struggle between the Patricians and the Plebeians was increasing. The latter constantly demande...
The efforts of the leaders of the Plebeians were now directed to two subjects, the removal of the prohibition of intermarriage between the two orders, and the opening of the Consulship to their own order. They attained the first object four y...
The Gauls or Celts were in ancient times spread over the greater part of Western Europe. They inhabited Gaul and the British isles, and had in the time of the Tarquins crossed the Alps and taken possession of Northern Italy. But they now spre...
United at home, the Romans were now prepared to carry on their foreign wars with more vigor; and their conquests of the Samnites and Latins made them the virtual masters of Italy. But the years which immediately followed the Licinian laws wer...
Ten years elapsed from the conclusion of the third Samnite war to the arrival of Pyrrhus in Italy. During this time the Etruscans and Gauls renewed the war in the north, but were defeated with great slaughter near the Lake Vadimo. This decisi...
Rome, now mistress of Italy, entered upon a long and arduous straggle with Carthage, which ruled without a rival the western waters of the Mediterranean. This great and powerful city was founded by the Phœnicians of Tyre in B.C. 814, acc...
Twenty-three years elapsed between the First and Second Punic Wars. The power of Carthage, though crippled, was not destroyed; and Hamilcar returned home, burning with hatred against Rome, and determined to renew the war upon a favorable oppo...
The Second Punic War was not so much a contest between the powers of two great nations - between Carthage and Rome - as between the individual genius of Hannibal on one hand, and the combined energies of the Roman people on the other. The pos...
Capua was celebrated for its wealth and luxury, and the enervating effect which these produced upon the army of Hannibal became a favorite theme of rhetorical exaggeration in later ages. The futility of such declamations is sufficiently shown...
After the battle of the Metaurus, the chief interest of the war was transferred to Spain and Africa. The Roman armies were led by a youthful hero, perhaps the greatest man that Rome ever produced, with the exception of Julius Cæsar. The...
The Second Punic War made the Romans undisputed masters of the western shores of the Mediterranean. Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were Roman provinces; Spain owned the Roman supremacy; Carthage was completely humbled, and her powerful neighbo...
While the Roman legions in the East were acquiring wealth and winning easy conquests, their less fortunate comrades in the West were carrying on a severe struggle with the warlike Gauls, Ligurians, and Spaniards. The Romans had hardly conclud...
The career of foreign conquest upon which the Republic had now entered continued with little or no interruption till the establishment of the Empire. We may here pause to take a brief survey of the form of government, as well as of the milita...
The conquests of the Romans in the East had exercised a most pernicious influence upon the national character. They were originally a hardy, industrious, and religious race, distinguished by unbending integrity and love of order. They lived w...
In B.C. 179 Philip died, and was succeeded by his son Perseus, the last monarch of Macedonia. The latter years of the reign of Philip had been spent in preparations for a renewal of the war, which he foresaw to be inevitable; and when Perseus...
The generous policy of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus in B.C. 179 had secured for Spain a long period of tranquillity. But in B.C. 153, the inhabitants of Segeda having commenced rebuilding the walls of their town, which was forbidden by one of the...
The more thoughtful Romans had foreseen the dangers with which Rome was menaced by the impoverishment of her free population, and the alarming increase in the number of slaves. It is said that Lælius, the friend of the elder Scipio Afri...
The murder of C. Gracchus and his adherents left the Nobility undisputed masters of the state, till their scandalous conduct in the Jugurthan War provoked a reaction against them, and raised to power a more terrible opponent than the Gracchi ...
A greater danger than Rome had experienced since the time of Hannibal now threatened the state. Vast numbers of barbarians, such as spread over the south of Europe in the later times of the Roman Empire, had collected together on the northern...
The career of Marius had hitherto been a glorious one, and it would have been fortunate for him if he had died on the day of his triumph. The remainder of his life is full of horrors, and brings out into prominent relief the worst features of...
Rome had never been exposed to greater danger than at this time. Those who had been her bravest defenders now rose against her; and she would probably have perished had the whole Italian people taken part in the war. But the insurrection was ...
One reason which induced the Senate to bring the Social War to a conclusion was the necessity of attacking Mithridates, king of Pontus, one of the ablest monarchs with whom Rome ever came into contact. The origin and history of this war will ...
The kingdom of Pontus, which derived its name from being on the coast of the Pontus Euxinus, or Black Sea, was originally a satrapy of the Persian empire, extending from the River Halys on the west to the frontiers of Colchis on the east. Eve...
Sulla landed at Brundisium in the spring of B.C. 83, in the Consulship of L. Scipio and C. Norbanus. During the preceding year he had written to the Senate, recounting the services he had rendered to the commonwealth, complaining of the ingra...
Sulla was scarcely dead before an attempt was made to overthrow the aristocratic constitution which he had established. The Consul M. Lepidus had already, as we have seen, endeavored to prevent the burial of Sulla in the Campus Martius. He no...
When Sulla returned to Italy after the First Mithridatic War, he left L. Murena, with two legions, to hold the command in Asia. Murena, who was eager for some opportunity of earning the honor of a triumph, pretending that Mithridates had not ...
Notwithstanding the restoration of the Tribunate and the alteration in the judicial power in Pompey's Consulship, the popular party had received such a severe blow during Sulla's supremacy, that the aristocracy still retained the chief politi...
Pompey, as we have already seen, reached Italy in B.C. 62. It was generally feared that he would seize the supreme power, but he soon calmed these apprehensions by disbanding his army immediately after landing at Brundusium. He did not, howev...
Cæsar set out for his province immediately after Cicero had gone into exile (B.C. 58). During the next nine years he was occupied with the subjugation of Gaul. In this time he conquered the whole of Transalpine Gaul, which had hitherto ...
Cicero returned from banishment an altered man. Though his return had been glorious, he saw that his position was entirely changed, and he was forced to yield to a power which he no longer dared to resist. He even lent his support to the Triu...
As soon as Cæsar learned at Ravenna the last resolution of the Senate, he assembled his soldiers, informed them of the wrongs he had sustained, and called upon them to support him. Finding them quite willing to support him, he crossed t...
When the bloody deed had been finished, Brutus and the other conspirators rushed into the forum, proclaiming that they had killed the Tyrant, and calling the people to join them; but they met with no response, and, finding alone averted looks...
The battle of Philippi scaled the fate of the Republic. Antony remained in the East to collect money for the soldiers. Octavian, who was in ill health, returned to Italy to give the veterans the lands which had been promised them. Antony trav...
For many centuries after the foundation of the city the Romans can hardly be said to have had any literature at all. There may have existed, at an early period, some songs or ballads, recounting, in rude strains, the exploits of the heroes of...
Augustus, being now the emperor of Rome, sought to win the affections of his people. He lived with republican simplicity in a plain house on the Palatine Hill, and educated his family with great strictness and frugality. His public conduct wa...
A feeling resembling loyalty had grown up at Rome toward the family of Augustus, and no one ventured to dispute the claim of Tiberius to the throne. Livia, however, who had attended the death-bed of the emperor, concealed his death until her ...
This venerable man was sixty-four years old when he was proclaimed emperor upon the death of Domitian. He was a native of the town of Narnia, in Umbria, and his virtues had won him a general esteem. The Prætorians, who had not been cons...
Pertinax, an aged senator of consular rank, and now Præfect of the city, was summoned by the conspirators, who came to his house late at night, after the murder of Commodus, to ascend the vacant throne. He was one of the few friends and...
Diocletian began to reign A.D. 284, and once more revived the vigor of the declining empire, which now seemed more than ever to depend for its existence upon the qualities of a single ruler. It seems, indeed, to have required an intellect of ...
The three sons of the late emperor, Constantine, Constantius, and Constans, as soon as their father was dead, put to death their two cousins, Hannibalianus and Dalmatius, with many more of their relatives; only Gallus and Julian, the children...
Roman literature, which had risen to its highest excellence under Augustus, declined rapidly under his successors, and was finally lost with the fall of the Western empire. The language was no longer pure, and neither prose nor poetry retaine...