As the Athenian saw the symbol of his city-state's democracy and culture in the rock-jutting Acropolis, so the Roman viewed the Forum as the symbol of imperial grandeur. Temples were to be found there, but in contrast to the Acropolis, the Forum was dominated by secular buildings-basilicas, the nearby Colosseum, and the great places of the emperors rising on the neighbouring Platine Hill. While the Acropolis was crowned with statues to Athena, the Forum gloried in triumphal arches and columns comemoratting military conquests. Rome was the capital of a world-state, extendeing from the Rhine to the Euphrates, and its citizens were proud of their imperial mission.

Although the buildings in the Forum appear fondamentally Greek in style, they are more monumental and sumptous. Here, then,are two clues to an understanding of the Romans: they borrowed profusely from the Greeks, and they modified what they took. Adoption and adaption are key words in the study of roman civilisation.

Rome was the great intermediary-the bridge over which pased the rich contributions of the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, especially Greece to from the basis of modern western civilisation. The Romans replaced the anarchy of the Hellenistic Age with law and order and embraced the intellectual and artistic legacy of the conquered Greeks. As Rome's empire expanded, this legacy was spread westward throughout Europe.

Yet Rome was more than an intermediary, for it made many importand and original contributions to ourwestern cultures. Throughout a history which led from a simple farming community in the plain of Latium to a strong state which became the master of the Mediterranean and finally of the entire known western world, the Romans met one challenge after another with practicalty and efficiency. In the shadows of its marching legions went engineers and architects, so that they, scattered throughout the lands that once were part of the Roman world, the remains of roads, walls, baths, basilicas, amphiteatres and aqueducts offer convincing evidence of the Romans' technical prowess. Most lasting and fire-reaching of all were their administrative institutions-the legal codes and governmental systems they developed and modified to meet changing needs-which have served as the framework of the western political life for many centuries.

The story of how Rome rose from an insignificant muddy village along the banks of the Tiber to the mighty ruler of the Mediterranean world will always remain one of the most fascinating stories in world history. Emerging from obscurity about the middle of the eighgt century before Christ, the Latin people who clustered about Rome and its seven hills sucedded in 509 B.C. in ousting their Etruscan over lords and establishing a republic. The history of the Roman republic can be devided into two distinct periods. During the first, from 509 to 133 B.C., two themes are dominant: the gradulal democratization of the government and the conquest of the Mediterranean.

By 287 B.C., thanks to the reluctant willingness of the patricians to compromise , the plebeians had succeeded in breaking down the privileged position of the patricians by optaining recognition of their fundamental rights as citizens and by acquiring a proglessively more important share of political power. Having achieved these gains, the rank and file of the citizens allowed the aristocratic Senate to continue excercising full control of the Republic.

The other theme in the early history of the Roman Republic was the conquest of the Mediterranean. Between the years 509 and 270 B.C. the Romans crushed all resistance to their rule in Italy. Then they clashed with Carthage, and after a herculian struggle, Carthage surrendered in 201B.C. Having conquered the West, the Romans found themselves drawned to the East, and by 133 B.C. Macedonia and Greece were ruled by Roman guverners, the Seleucid emperor in Asia had been defeated and humbled, and Rome had acquired its firs province on the asian continenet. But as the Mediterranean world succumbed to the Roman legions the Republic itself faced cilvil war and degeneration.

The second and last period in the history of the Roman Republic, from 133 to 30 B.C., began with the attempts of the Gracchi brothers to persuade the senatorial oligarchy to allow the enactment of necessary reforms, but to no avail. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Julius Caesar mark the appearance of one-man rule and the end of the Republic. Augustus, the heir of Caesar, ruled Rome wisely anhd well. On the surface the old republican institutions, such as the Senate, were preserved, but Augustus wielded the real power in the new government, which is called the early Empire, or Principate. For two hundred years, during the Pax Romana, many millions of people in Italy and the Empire's provinces enjoyed peace and prosperity.

Through the Roman achievement of a single empire and a cosmopolitan culture, the Greek legacy was preserved, synthesized, and disseminated-and the Romans were able to make important contributions of their own. The Romans excelled in political theory, governmental administration, and jurisprudence. While the Greeks were individualistic, the Romans put a higher value on conformity, and their essentiallity conservative and judicious attitude of mind compensated for their lack of creativity. Primarily synthesists rather than innovators, the Romns willingly admitted their cultural indebtedness and by doing so exhibited a magnanimity characteristic of the Roman spirit at its best.

Indo-Europeans invade Italian peninsula 2000-1000; Latins settle in lower Tiber valley (Latium)

Etruscans settle on Italy's west coast

Carthage founded in North Africa by Phoenicians c. 800

Rome founded 753

Greeks colonize soutern Italy and Sicily

Etruscans conquer Rome c. 600

Roman Republic established 509-500

Plebeians vs. patricians (509-287)-tribunes and Concilium Plebis

Laws of the Twelve Tables c. 450

Roman expansion in Itaky (338-270): Latins, Etruscans, Samnites, Greeks

Roman expansion in western Mediterranean 200-146-Punic wars: Hannibal

Roman expansion in easten Mediterranean 200-133-wars with Macedonia and the Seleucids; Macedon and Greece annexed (146);

First Roman province in Asia (133)

Reform movement of the Gracchi 133-121

Civil wars 88-30

Marius vs. Sulla (88-82):dictatorship of Sulla (82-79)

Pompei bs. Caesar (49-46): dictatorship of Julius Caesar (46-44)

Anthony vs. Octavian (32-30)

Augustus' recontruction-the Principate 30 B.C.-180 A.D.

Golden Age of literature: Cicero, Catullus, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors 14 A.D.-96 A.D.

Antonine emperors (96-180): Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius

Silver Age of literature: Juvenal, Tacitus, Seneca, Plutarch 100 A.D.

100 End of the Pax Romana 180-285-cdivil wars, economic decline, invasions

Reconstruction by Diocletian (285-305)-the Dominate

300 Constantine (306-337)-Edict of Milan (313), council of Nicaea (325), founding of Constantinopole (330)

Ulfilas (d. 383), missionary to the Goths

Theodosius divides Roman Empire 395