Rome Rome Rome Rome Rome Rome Rome Rome

Who Settled in Rome
Etruseans

• came from the north central part of the peninsula
• metal workers, artists, architects

Two Foundation Myths

• Virgils Aeneid (Where Aeneas escapes from Troy, sound familiar?!)
• The story of Remus and Romolus

Greeks

• they had many colonies around the Mediterranean Sea

Romans borrows ideas from them such as

• religious beliefs
• alphabet
• much of their art
• military techniques/weaponry

Latins

• the first to settle
• descendants of the Indo-Europeans
• settled on the banks of the Tiber river
• situated so trading ships - but not war fleets - could navigate as far as Rome, but no further
• a commercial port, but not susceptible to attack
• and... built on seven hills (esp. Palatine)

...They drained a swamp...

• many streams flowed into the Tiber
• there was a marshy area called the Forum,  between Palatine and Capitoline Hills
• Tarquin the Proud’s grandfather built the Cloaca Maxima (largest ancient drain), which channeled water into the Tiber

urban legend says Washington DC was built on a swamp - but only about 2% was actually swampland - however, Constitution Avenue is located on what used to be called Tiber Creek

The final king

• Lucius Tarquinias Superbus
• the seventh and final king of Rome
• known as Tarquin the Proud (sometimes referred to as Tarquin the Arrogant)
• a true tyrant, in the old and modern sense of the word

So what did he do?

• Tarquin seized power like an old school tyrant (see if you can follow this horrible story...)
• ...Tarquin’s grandfather (the fifth king) dies… his widow names Servius Tullias king, since she liked him more than her own sons… S.T.’s daughters marry two brothers (one is Tarquin)… one of the daughters (Tullia) kills her husband and her own sister… this leaves her free to marry Tarquin
• but wait, there’s more...
• Tullia persuades Tarquin to seize the throne from her father… he sits on the throne and declares himself king… S.T. objects, and Tarquin throws him down the steps and into the street, then has him assassinated… Tullia hails Tarquin as the new king, but he sends her home for safety… on her way home she sees the body of her father in the street, seizes the reins, and drives her chariot over his corpse...Tarquin refuses to bury his body, and assassinates senators who object
• years later, Tarquin’s son Sextus and his friends are drinking when Sextus tries to force himself on a matron, Lucretia… she refuses, and he threatens to kill her and says he will say he found her in the arms of a slave… she gives in to the blackmail, then confesses the ordeal to her family, and commits suicide… Tarquin tried to sweep it all under the rug, but the people rose up against the son, the father, and had the whole family expelled from Rome
• Rule of kings is replaced by rule of two consuls (“gotta be better than one”)
• consuls are elected officials
• term of office: one year
• always aristocrats (patricians)
• patricians traced their descent from a famous ancestor, or pater (“father”)
• duties: dealing justice, making law, commanding the army
• one consul could veto the other (reducing the power of the individual)

• fifth century BCE - patrician dominance of the government was challenged by the plebs (“people”)
• plebs were 98% of the population
• how did the patricians dominate?
• plebs had to serve in the army,

      but could not hold office

• plebs were threatened with debt slavery
• plebs had no legal rights

• plebs were victims of discriminatory decisions in judicial trials
• Rome had no actual laws, just unwritten customs
• patricians could interpret these to their own advantage

So, plebs refused to serve in the military until…

• laws were written out (The Law of the Twelve Tables)
• these laws (on tablets) were posted in public (in 450 BCE)

tribunes (“tribal leaders”) were elected  

SPQR - Senatus Populusque Romanum

• designates any decree or decision made by “the Roman Senate and People”

brand new republic, ready to run

• democracy (the people’s assembly and the tribunes
• aristocracy (the Senate - approx. 300 members)
• plus monarchy (the consuls)

not a tyranny (eww… too scary… a mistake the Romans did not care to repeat)

• originally, the US modeled their new government on the model used by the ancient Romans
• is it exactly the same?  not quite…
• but both have three branches of government
• executive
• legislative
• judicial
• and both have a legal code

MARYLAND HAS 8