Introductory American History Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT IN 395 A.D.]

SIZE OF THE ROMAN WORLD. We may realize how large the world of the Romans was by observing on a modern map that within its limits lay modern England, France, Spain, Portugal, the southern part of Austria-Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, the Turkish Empire both in Europe and Asia, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. For a time they also ruled north of the Danube, and the Rumanians boast that they are descended from Roman colonists. The peoples in southern Russia were influenced by the Greeks and by the Romans, although the Romans did not try to bring them under their rule.

No modern empire has included so many important countries. If we compare this vast territory with, the scattered colonies of the Greeks, we shall understand how useful it was that the Romans adopted much of the Greek civilization, for they could carry it to places that the Greeks never reached.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF THE ANCIENT GAULS AT CARNAC, IN BRITTANY, FRANCE]

QUESTIONS.

1. After the Romans had conquered the lands about the Mediterranean, into what other countries did they march?

2. Who once lived where the French now live? Tell how the Gauls lived.

3. How did the manner of living of the Germans differ from that of the Gauls? Were the Britons similar to the Germans or to the Gauls?

4. What names do we get from the names of the German G.o.ds?

5. Who was Julius Caesar? Why did he go among the Gauls? What was the result of his wars with the Gauls? Tell the story of Vercingetorix.

6. After the conquest of the Gauls, into what countries did Caesar go?

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROMAN COIN WITH THE HEAD OF JULIUS CAESAR]

7. What was the fate of the Roman army in Germany in the time of Augustus?

8. In which of these countries did the peoples become much like the Romans?

9. Why have Americans a special interest in the Roman conquest of Gaul and Britain?

EXERCISES.

1. Caesar and Alexander were two of the greatest generals who ever lived. How many years after Alexander died did Caesar begin his wars in Gaul? What difference was there between what these two generals did? Whose work is the more important for us?

2. Plan a large map of the Graeco-Roman world, pasting on each country a picture of some interesting Greek or Roman ruin. This will take a long time, but many pictures may be found in advertising folders of steamship lines and tourist agencies.

REVIEW.

(Chapters IV, V, VI, and VII).

How the Graeco-Roman world was built up: 1. The Greeks drive back the Persians.

2. The Greeks settle in many places on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

3. Alexander conquers the countries about the eastern Mediterranean.

4. The Romans conquer the Greeks in Italy, but learn their ways of living.

5. The Romans conquer the Carthaginians and seize their colonies.

6. The Romans conquer all the lands around the Mediterranean.

7. The Romans conquer Gaul and Britain.

Important dates in this work of building a Graeco-Roman world: Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. Work of Alexander ended, 323 B.C. Romans become masters of Italy, 275 B.C. Romans conquer Hannibal, 202 B.C. Caesar's conquest of Gaul complete, 49 B.C.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROMAN FARMER'S CALENDAR]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CIVILIZATION OF THE ROMAN WORLD.

STRIFE AT ROME. While the Romans were conquering the ancient world they had begun to quarrel among themselves. Certain men resolved that Rome should not be managed any longer by the n.o.ble senators for their own benefit or for the benefit of rich contractors and merchants. They wished to have the idle crowds of men who packed the shows and circuses settled as free farmers on the unused lands of Italy.

Among these new leaders were two brothers, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, sons of one of Rome's n.o.blest families. The other n.o.bles looked upon them with hatred and killed them, first Tiberius and afterward Caius. These murders did not end the trouble. The leaders on both sides armed their followers, and b.l.o.o.d.y battles were fought in the streets. Generals led their armies to Rome, although, according to the laws, to bring an army into Italy south of the Rubicon River was to make war on the republic and be guilty of treason. Once in the city these generals put to death hundreds of their enemies.

CAESAR RULES ROME. The strife in the city had ceased for a time when Pompey, a famous general, who had once shared power with Caesar as a "triumvir," joined the senators in planning his ruin. Caesar led his army into Italy to the borders of the Rubicon. Exclaiming, "The die is cast,'" he crossed the sacred boundary and marched straight to Rome. Pompey and his party fled, and civil war divided the Roman world into those who followed Caesar and those who followed Pompey, Caesar was everywhere victorious, in Italy, Africa, Spain, and the East. He brought back order into the government of the city and of the provinces, but in the year 44 B.C. he was murdered in the senate-house by several senators, one of whom, Marcus Brutus, had been his friend.

ORIGIN OF THE t.i.tLE "EMPEROR." Caesar had not been called "emperor," though the chief power had been his. One of his t.i.tles was "imperator," or commander of the army, a word from which our word "emperor" comes. He was really the first emperor of Rome. In later times the very word Caesar became an imperial t.i.tle, not only in the Roman Empire, but also in modern Germany, for "Kaiser" is another form of the word "Caesar."

BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. Caesar's successor was his grandnephew Octavius, usually called Augustus, which was one of his t.i.tles. Augustus carried out many of Caesar's plans for improving the government in Rome and in the provinces. The people in the provinces were no longer robbed by Roman officers. Many of them became Roman citizens. After a time all children born within the empire were considered Romans, just as if they had been born in Rome.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The Roman Empire carried on the work which the republic had begun. It did some things better than the republic had done them. Within its frontiers there was peace for two or three hundred years. Many people had an opportunity to share in all the best that the Greeks and Romans had learned. Unfortunately the peoples imitated the bad as well as the good.

ROMAN ROADS. As builders the Romans taught much to those who lived after them. Their great roads leading out from Rome have never been excelled. In Gaul these roads served, centuries later, to mark out the present French system of highroads and showed many a route to the builders of railroads. They were made so solid that parts of them still remain after two thousand years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Augustus Caesar After the statue in the Vatican]

HOW THESE ROADS WERE BUILT. In planning their roads the Romans did not hesitate before obstacles like hills or deep valleys or marshy lands. They often pierced the hills with tunnels and bridged the valleys or swamps. In building a road they dug a trench about fifteen feet wide and pounded the earth at the bottom until it was hard. Upon this bottom was placed a layer of rough stones, over which were put nine inches of broken stone mixed with lime to form a sort of concrete. This was covered by a layer six inches deep of broken bricks or broken tiles, which when pounded down offered a hard, smooth surface. On the top were laid large paving stones carefully fitted so that there need be no jar when a wagon rolled over the road.

Such roads were necessary for the traders who pa.s.sed to and fro throughout the empire, but especially for troops or government messengers sent with all speed to regions where there was danger of revolt or where the frontiers were threatened by the barbarians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CROSS-SECTION OF A ROMAN ROAD]

AQUEDUCTS. Next to their roads the most remarkable Roman structures were the aqueducts which brought water to the city from rivers or springs, some of them many miles away. Had they known, as we do, how to make heavy iron pipes, their aqueducts would have been laid underground, except where they crossed deep valleys. The lead pipes which they used were not strong enough to endure the force of a great quant.i.ty of water, and so when the aqueducts reached the edge of the plain which stretches from the eastern hills to the walls of Rome, the streams of flowing water were carried in stone channels resting upon arches which sometimes reached the height of over ninety feet.

THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT. The Claudian aqueduct, which is the most magnificent ever built, is carried on such arches for about seven miles and a half. Although broken in many places, and though the water has not flowed through its lofty channels for sixteen hundred years, it is one of the grandest sights in the neighborhood of Rome. If we add together the lengths of the aqueducts, underground or carried on arches, which provided Rome with her water supply, the total is over three hundred miles. They could furnish Rome with a hundred million gallons of water a day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT Completed by the Roman Emperor Claudian in 52 A.D. The structure was nearly a hundred feet high]

PUBLIC BATHS. The Romans used great quant.i.ties of water for their public baths, which were large buildings with rooms especially made for bathing in hot or cold water and for plunges. They were also, like the Greek gymnasiums, places for exercise, conversation, and reading. Many were built as monuments by wealthy men and by emperors. A very small fee was charged for entrance, and the money was used to pay for repairs and the wages of those who managed the baths.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF THE COLOSSEUM]

TWO FAMOUS BUILDINGS. Many of the Roman temples, porticoes, and theaters were copied from Greek buildings, but the Romans used the arch more than did the Greeks, and in this the builders of later times imitated them. Among their greatest buildings were the amphitheaters, from the benches of which crowds watched gladiators fighting one another or struggling with wild beasts. The largest of these amphitheaters was the Colosseum, the ruins of which still exist. Its outer walls were one hundred and sixty feet high. In one direction it measured six hundred and seventeen feet and in another five hundred and twelve. There were seats enough for forty-five thousand persons. The lowest seats were raised fifteen feet above the arena or central s.p.a.ce where men or wild beasts fought. Through an arrangement of underground pipes the arena could be flooded so that the spectators might enjoy the excitement of a real naval battle.

Another great building was the Circus Maximus, built to hold the crowds that watched the chariot-races, and at one time having seats for two hundred thousand persons. In their amus.e.m.e.nts the Romans became more and more vulgar, excitable, and cruel. Some equally splendid buildings were used for better things.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pantheon]

THE PANTHEON. One of these was the Pantheon, a temple which was afterward a Christian church. It still stands, and is now used as the burial-place of the Italian kings. The most remarkable part of it is the dome, which has a width of a little over one hundred and forty-two feet. No other dome in the world is so wide. The Romans were very successful in covering large s.p.a.ces with arched or vaulted ceilings. All later builders of domes and arches are their pupils.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ARCH OF t.i.tUS]

BASILICAS. The Romans had other large buildings called basilicas. These were porticoes or promenades, with the s.p.a.ce in the center covered by a great roof. They were used as places for public meetings. One of them had one hundred and eight pillars arranged in a double row around the sides and ends of this central s.p.a.ce. The name basilica is Greek and means "royal." Some of these basilicas were used as Christian churches when the Romans accepted the Christian religion. The central s.p.a.ce was then called the "nave," and the s.p.a.ces between the columns the aisles.

TRIUMPHAL ARCHES. The Romans built beautiful arches to celebrate their victories. Several of these still remain, with sentences cut into their stone tablets telling of the triumphs of their builders. Modern people have taken them as models for similar memorial arches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROMAN AQUEDUCT Still in good repair, the Pont du Gard, near Nimes, France]

ROMAN LAW. The Romans did much for the world by their laws. They showed little regard for the rights of men captured in war and were cruel in their treatment of slaves, but they considered carefully the rights of free men and women. Under the emperors the lawyers and judges worked to make the laws clearer and fairer to all. Finally the Emperor Justinian, who ruled at the time when the empire was already half ruined by the attacks of barbarian enemies, ordered the lawyer Tribonian to gather into a single code all the statutes and decrees. These laws lasted long after the empire was destroyed, and out of them grew many of the laws used in Europe to-day. They have also influenced our laws in America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAVEMENT OF A ROMAN VILLA IN ENGLAND Unearthed not many years ago at Aldborough. Such stones laid in the form of designs or pictures are called Mosaics]

QUESTIONS.

1. In the political strife at Rome what did the brothers Tiberius and Caius Gracchus try to do?

2. What did Julius Caesar do when a party of senators tried to ruin him? What was the result of his war with the other Roman leaders?

3. From what Roman word does "Emperor" come? What is the origin of the word "Kaiser"? How did Caesar die?

4. Who was Caesar's successor and the first one who organized the Roman Empire?

5. Why were the Romans such great builders of roads? How were their roads built? Do any traces of them still remain?

6. How did the Romans provide the city with a supply of pure water?

7. What was a Roman bath?

8. Were the Romans as famous as the Greeks for their buildings? Name the largest buildings in Rome. What was a basilica? Of what use were basilicas to the Christians later?

9. Do you remember the earliest form of the Roman law (Chapter V)? What did Justinian do with the laws in his day? Are these laws important to us?

EXERCISES.

1. What emperors are there now? Are they like Caesar and Augustus?

2. Find out if our roads are built as carefully as the Roman roads and if they are likely to last as long. What different kinds of roads do we have? Can any one in the room construct a small model of a Roman road?

3. Find out how water is now carried to cities. Are cities provided with great public baths like those of the Romans?

4. Ask a librarian or a lawyer to show you a copy of the revised statutes of your state. This is a code somewhat like the code of Justinian, only not so brief.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEMPLUM JOVIS CAPITOLINI (Medallion)]

CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

THE RELIGION OF THE JEWS. Among the cities captured by the Romans was Jerusalem, about which cl.u.s.ter so many stories from the Old Testament. There, hundreds of years before, lived David, the shepherd boy who, after wonderful adventures, became king of his people. There his son Solomon built a temple of dazzling splendor. Among this people had arisen great preachers,--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah,--who declared that religion did not consist in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, but in justice, in mercy, and in humility. They had a genius for religion, just as the Greeks had a genius for art, and the Romans a genius for government.

THE JEWS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS. When the Jews first heard of the Romans they admired these citizens of a republic who made and unmade kings. In later years they learned that the Romans were hard masters and they feared and hated them. The Jewish kingdom was one of the last countries along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean which the Romans conquered, but like all the others it finally became a Roman province.

JESUS OF NAZARETH. A few years before the Jewish kingdom became a Roman province there was born in a village near Jerusalem a child named Jesus. After he had grown to manhood in Nazareth he gathered about him followers or disciples whom he taught to live and act as is told in the books of the New Testament.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A VIEW OF JERUSALEM Showing the Mount of Olives in the distance]

This was the beginning of the Christian religion. It was first held by a little band of Jews, but Paul, a Jew born in Tarsus, a city of Asia whose inhabitants had received the rights of Roman citizenship, believed that the message of the new religion was meant for all nations. He taught it in many cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and even went as far west as Rome. Several of the epistles or letters in the New Testament were written by Paul to churches which he had founded or where he had taught. So it happens that from Palestine came religious teachings which mult.i.tudes consider even more important than the art and literature of the Greeks or the laws and political methods of the Romans.

WHY THE CHRISTIANS WERE PERSECUTED. The Romans at first refused to permit any one in their empire to call himself a Christian. They disliked the Jews because the Jews denied that the Roman G.o.ds were real G.o.ds, a.s.serting that these G.o.ds were mere images in wood and stone. The Christians did this also, but in the eyes of the Roman rulers the worst offense of the Christians was that they appeared to form a sort of secret society and held meetings to which other persons were not admitted. The emperor had forbidden such societies.

The Romans also disliked the Christians because of their refusal to join in the public ceremonies which honored the emperor as if he were a G.o.d who had given peace and order to the world and who was able to reward the good and punish the evil. The Christians believed it to be wrong to join in the worship of an emperor, whether he were alive or dead.

CHRISTIANS PUT TO DEATH. The Romans were cruel in their manner of punishing disobedience, and many Christians suffered death in its most horrible forms. Some were burned, others were tortured, others were torn to pieces by wild animals in the great amphitheaters to satisfy the fierce Roman crowd. Nero, the worst of the Roman emperors, who, many thought, set Rome on fire in order that he might enjoy the sight of the burning city, tried to turn suspicion from himself by accusing the Christians of the crime. He punished them by tying them to poles, smearing their bodies with pitch, and burning them at night as torches.

THE CHRISTIANS ALLOWED TO WORSHIP. The new religion spread rapidly from province to province in spite of these persecutions. At first the Christians worshiped secretly, but later they ventured to build churches. Finally, three centuries after the birth of Christ, the emperors promised that the persecutions should cease and that the Christians might worship undisturbed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE]

THE ROMAN EMPIRE BECOMES CHRISTIAN ABOUT 325 A.D. Constantine was the first emperor to become Christian. He was the one who made the Greek city Byzantium the capital of the empire and for whom it was renamed Constantinople. For a time both the old Roman religion and the Christian religion were favored by the emperors, but before the fourth century closed the old religion was forbidden. In later days worshipers of the Roman G.o.ds were mostly country people, called in Latin pagani, and therefore their religion was called "paganism."

HOW THE CHURCH WAS RULED. One of the reasons why the Christians had been successful in their struggle with the Roman emperors was that they were united under wise and brave leaders. The Christians in each large city were ruled by a bishop, and the bishops of several cities were directed by an archbishop. In the western part of the empire the bishop of Rome, who was called the pope, was honored as the chief of the bishops and archbishops, and the successor of the Apostle Peter. In the eastern part the archbishops or patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria and Jerusalem honored the pope, but claimed to be equal in authority with him.

There were also two kinds of clergy, parish priests and monks. The priests were pastors of ordinary parishes, but the monks lived in groups in buildings called monasteries. Sometimes their purpose was to dwell far from the bustle and wrongs of ordinary life and give themselves to prayer and fasting; sometimes they acted as a brotherhood of teachers in barbarous communities, teaching the people better methods of farming, and carrying the arts of civilized life beyond the borders of the empire.

QUESTIONS.

1. Where did the Jews live in Ancient Times?

2. Do you remember any of the stories of David?

3. What finally became of the kingdom over which David ruled?

4. What era in the history of the world begins with the birth of Jesus Christ?

5. Why did the Romans forbid the Christians to worship? How did the Romans punish them? How long after the birth of Christ before the emperors allowed the Christians to worship undisturbed?