ebook img

The Roman Empire: From Augustus to the Fall of Rome PDF

276 Pages·47.864 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview The Roman Empire: From Augustus to the Fall of Rome

Topic Subtopic Discover a true story of power as a renowned professor surveys the rise and fall of the Roman Empire from 31 BC to the end of antiquity. History Ancient History T The Roman Empire “Pure intellectual stimulation that can be popped into h e the [audio or video player] anytime.” R —Harvard Magazine o m From Augustus to the Fall of Rome a n “Passionate, erudite, living legend lecturers. Academia’s E best lecturers are being captured on tape.” m Course Guidebook —The Los Angeles Times p i r e “A serious force in American education.” Professor Gregory S. Aldrete —The Wall Street Journal University of Wisconsin–Green Bay Gregory S. Aldrete is the Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanistic Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. He received his PhD in Ancient History from the University of Michigan. Professor Aldrete has been honored with a number of teaching awards and fellowships, and he has written and edited several books, including Daily Life in the Roman City and Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome. Among his other Great Courses are History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective and The Rise of Rome. THE GREAT COURSES® Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfields Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, VA 20151-2299 USA G Phone: 1-800-832-2412 u www.thegreatcourses.com id e Professor Photo: © Jeff Mauritzen - inPhotograph.com. b o o Course No. 3344 © 2019 The Teaching Company. PB3344A k Published by THE GREAT COURSES Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfields Boulevard | Suite 500 | Chantilly, Virginia | 20151‑2299 [phone] 1.800.832.2412 | [fax] 703.378.3819 | [web] www.thegreatcourses.com Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2019 Printed in the United States of America This book is in copyright. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of The Teaching Company. Gregory S. Aldrete, PhD Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanistic Studies University of Wisconsin–Green Bay Gregory S. Aldrete is the Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanistic Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. He received his BA from Princeton University and his PhD in Ancient History from the University of Michigan. His interdisciplinary scholarship spans the fields of history, archaeology, art history, military history, and philology. Professor Aldrete has written and edited several books, including Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome; Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome; Daily Life in the Roman City: Rome, Pompeii, and Ostia; The Long Shadow of Antiquity: What Have the Greeks and Romans Done for Us? (with Alicia Aldrete); and Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor: Unraveling the Linothorax Mystery (with Scott Bartell and Alicia Aldrete). PROFESSOR BIOGRAPHY i Professor Aldrete has won many awards for his teaching, including two national ones: He was named the Wisconsin Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and he received an Award for Excellence in Teaching at the College Level from the Society for Classical Studies. At the state level, he was selected from among all professors in the University of Wisconsin System to receive a System Regents Teaching Excellence Award, and his campus granted him its highest teaching award, the Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching from the university’s Founders Association. Professor Aldrete has been honored with a number of fellowships, including two yearlong humanities fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Solmsen Fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities in Madison, Wisconsin. Additionally, he was a fellow of two NEH seminars held at the American Academy in Rome and was a participant in an NEH institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Aldrete was the Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America, for which he gave a series of public lectures across the United States. Professor Aldrete’s innovative Linothorax Project, in which he and his students reconstructed and tested ancient linen body armor, has garnered considerable media attention; it has been featured in documentaries on the Discovery Channel, the Smithsonian Channel, and the National Geographic Channel as well as on television programs in Canada and across Europe. His research has also been the subject of articles in U.S. News and World Report, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Der Spiegel magazine, and Military History and of internet news stories in more than two dozen countries. Professor Aldrete’s other Great Courses are History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective; The Decisive Battles of World History; History’s Great Military Blunders and the Lessons They Teach; and The Rise of Rome. ■ ii THE ROmAn EmPIRE: FROm AuGuSTuS TO THE FAll OF ROmE TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Professor Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i Course Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 LECTURE GUIDES 1 Dawn of the Roman Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 Augustus, the First Emperor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3 Tiberius and Caligula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 4 Claudius and Nero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 5 The Flavian Emperors and Roman Bath Culture . . . . . . . 40 6 The Five Good Emperors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 7 Hazards of Life in Ancient Rome: The Five Fs . . . . . . . . 64 8 Roman Art and Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 9 Roman Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 10 The Ordinary Roman Speaks: Graffiti . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 11 Final Words: Burial and Tombstone Epitaphs . . . . . . . 104 12 From Commodus to Caracalla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 PROFESSOR BIOGRAPHY iii 13 The Crisis of the 3rd Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 14 Diocletian and Late 3rd-Century Reforms . . . . . . . . . 130 15 Early Christianity and the Rise of Constantine . . . . . . . 142 16 Constantine and His Successors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 17 Gladiators and Beast Hunts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 18 Chariot Racing, Spectacles, and Theater . . . . . . . . . . 174 19 The Roman Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 20 Barbarians Overwhelm the Western Empire . . . . . . . . 194 21 The Byzantine Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 22 When and Why Did the Roman Empire Fall? . . . . . . . . 216 23 Late Antiquity: A New Historical Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 24 Echoes of Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL Test Your Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Image credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 Quiz Answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 iv THE ROmAn EmPIRE: FROm AuGuSTuS TO THE FAll OF ROmE THE ROM A N EMPIR E At its height, the Roman Empire spanned the entire Mediterranean and included more than 60 million inhabitants. The empire was one of the most famous and influential states in all of world history, and the story of its spectacular rise and disastrous fall has exerted an irresistible fascination for the last 2,000 years. Roman contributions to art, architecture, law, language, religion, science, philosophy, and culture still surround and constantly affect us today. Rome’s military triumphs have inspired generations of would‑be conquerors, and the famed discipline and organization of its legions have provided models for countless later armies. COuRSE SCOPE 1 This course begins with the first emperor, Augustus, who emerged as the ultimate winner of the vicious cycle of civil wars that caused the destruction of the Roman Republic. You will discover how he created the new institution of the Roman principate, establishing the model that would be emulated by all subsequent emperors. The course then traces the dramatic history of the empire under a succession of good leaders and bad, from the depravity of mad Caligula to the stoic philosophical musings of Marcus Aurelius. You will see how the empire reaches a geographic, cultural, military, and economic high point in the 2nd century AD under the enlightened rule of the Antonine emperors but then comes to the brink of collapse during the so‑called crisis of the 3rd century due to a deadly combination of government instability, barbarian invasions, and economic crises. A series of tough‑minded reformers, such as Diocletian, stabilize the situation, and then events take an unexpected turn early in the 4th century, when Constantine becomes the first emperor to convert to Christianity. Soon, new waves of barbarians challenge Rome, and the empire splits, with the western half eventually falling in the 5th century while the eastern section manages to continue for nearly another millennium in the guise of the Byzantine Empire, centered on Constantinople. The final lectures of the course take an in‑depth look at the complex questions of when exactly the Roman Empire fell, why it fell, whether the period of late antiquity was a time of destruction and loss or innovation and new growth, and what the long‑term influences of Rome were upon the modern world. 2 THE ROmAn EmPIRE: FROm AuGuSTuS TO THE FAll OF ROmE Interspersed throughout this grand chronological narrative are a number of lectures that illuminate specific key aspects of Roman civilization, including art, architecture, bath culture, literature, the Roman army, spectacular entertainments (such as gladiator shows and chariot racing), and the many hazards of daily life in the Roman city. In addition to relating the remarkable stories of famous Roman emperors, generals, authors, and artists, several lectures are devoted to recovering the lost voices of ordinary Roman men, women, children, and slaves through a close examination of often‑ignored source materials, such as graffiti scratched or painted on walls and the inscriptions carved on Roman tombstones. This course presents a lively, engaging account of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire accompanied by insightful and in‑depth investigations of the key factors and personalities that shaped its history. ■ COuRSE SCOPE 3 DAWN OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE lECTuRE 1

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.