Roman Civilization and Its Greatest History

Myths and Legends

Romulus and Remus were the founders of the city of Rome in Roman mythology. In Roman mythology they were twins. Their mother was the priestess Rhea Silvia, and their father was Mars, the god of war. The two brothers later quarreled over who should get the support of the local god to name the new city, and a battle even broke out, resulting in Romulus killing Remus. Romulus later founded the Roman Senate. By robbing nearby Sabine women he increased the population of the newly built city, thereby uniting the Romans and Sabines as a people. Romulus became the greatest conqueror of ancient Rome, bringing a large number of areas and their inhabitants under Roman control. After the death of Romulus he was elevated to the status of Quelinus, the God who symbolized the Romans. Most people think of Romulus and Remus as mythical figures, derived from the name Rome, which may have originally meant 'river.' But some scholars argue that Romulus is indeed a historical figure.

Religion

Rome is a polytheistic religion, a religious belief formed by the integration of indo-European peoples into the Italian peninsula in the 20th century B.C. Nature worship is mixed with ancestor worship, without temples or priests. There is little anthropomorphism in the images of gods and myths. The Romans mainly because of farming, so the gods and crops related. For example, Cupid was originally the spirit of the grape, Mars was originally the spirit of the grain (later to become the god of war), Diana was originally the spirit of the trees, and so on.In ancient times, the central structure of the Roman public religion was based on the three gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. In that time, gods had been worshipped under many different names, which pointed to different attributes. Jupiter was the great God of Indo-European origin, was the god of the heavens and the heavens, and the ruler of supreme power. Mars was the god of war, and he was prayed to protect property from external attack, both within the Roman empire and within private family property.Quirinus was also the God of war in Roman mythology.

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The Greeks began to appear in Italy between 770 and 774 BC, and the Hellenization of the Roman religion led to the assimilation of the Roman gods in order to achieve conformity with the Greek gods. Although the Roman gods retained their original names and sacred sites, they acquired characters, images, and myths similar to those of the Greek gods.

Language/Writing

Latin was widely used in ancient Rome and was the official language of ancient Rome. But in the east, Greek was also spoken by educated people.Dating back at least to the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus, the written language used was called 'classical Latin.' The Romans used a variety of writing instruments. Ordinary writing can be done on wax or wood chips. A document, such as an important matter, such as a legal contract, is usually written in pen and ink on papyrus. Their books were also written in pen and ink on papyrus and sometimes on parchment.

Art/Architecture

Compared to the art of ancient Greece, which was used to serve philosophy, the art of ancient Rome was more used to serve politics in a chaotic strategic environment that forced Rome to value war and politics. For ancient Rome, then, which valued war and politics so much, art was not to be enjoyed but to be used as a political service by its rulers. But how can art serve politics? Through art, a country can publicize its strength and military achievements. A strong empire, how can it prove its strength to others? The rulers found that art was a good thing, that art was visual, and that visual perception could very intuitively show others the strength of our 'greater Rome'. Besides, the Ancient Romans used art to intimidate their subjects, but why should they? Because most of the areas that the Romans occupied were multi-ethnic and difficult to manage. There's Egyptian culture, there's Middle Eastern culture, there's Greek culture and so on. In order for this multicultural empire to be better managed, it has to be culturally unified, and one effective way to do that is to build common totems.For example, the temples, markets, and public buildings of the ancient Roman provinces were similar. Finally, ancient Rome also used art to appease the people. For example, the totem on Trajan's victory column only engraved the logistics and geographical features of the war, so as to beautify the war and weaken people's imagination of the terror of war.

The Greeks had much influence on Rome, they gave the Romans artistic and cultural models through their sculpture, architecture, and literature. The building technology of Romans came from the Etruscan Civilization. Etruscan architecture influenced the style of Rome architecture. Rome architectural style inherited the architectural achievements of ancient Greece and innovated extensively in architectural form, technique, and art. It pushes it forward greatly.There are many types and styles of architecture in Rome for different uses, for example: the Roman temple, Colosseumand and the Baths. In addition there are some features of the Roman architecture such as archways, archways, domes. There are also stone pillars of Roman architecture, stacked on top of each other through drum-shaped blocks. Some of the pillars are carved from a single piece of stone. There are some columns, which are connected by bricks.

Rules/Leaders/Government

Rome became a republic country in 509 B.C.Early Rome was divided into aristocrats and commoners. The aristocrats were rich and powerful landowners and thus became the ruling class of Rome. The less affluent landowners, artisans, merchants, and small farmers belonged to a larger group in a Roman society known as the commoners. Both classes belonged to Roman citizens and so both had the right to vote, but only the nobles could be elected government officials. The Consuls and Praetors were the chief executive officers of the Roman Republic. Every year in Rome, the people vote to elect a replacement consul to take charge of domestic affairs, leading the Roman army to participate in the war, usually once a year and cannot serve twice in a row, and the two consuls have the same power. The civil law that the praetors are responsible for is the law governing Roman citizens.

There are also some special officials in Rome, such as monitoring the treasury. Rome also has the Senate, which is a group of about 300 nobles, and the senator is elected by the consul. The appointed person will serve as the senator for life. If the senator dies, the consul will choose a new senator. .At first, the Senate only provided advice to government officials, but their suggestions were very important. Therefore, in addition to the Senate, there were several people's assemblies in the Roman Republic, the most important of which was the centennial assembly. Chief officials, such as consuls and sheriffs, were elected by the centuries-old assembly and passed laws because it was organised by a wealth-based class, so that the wealthiest citizens were still in the majority. The Council of Plebs was just the Plebeian Assembly, and it came into being as a result of the conflict in Rome between the two social orders. Separation of powers (royal power, aristocracy, citizen) was the basic political system of the Ancient Roman Republic, and it was also regarded by later generations as one of the most classical political systems in ancient Times. This combination of the three basic characteristics of the monarchy, parliament, and the Republic of the three systems of government provides a guarantee for its hegemony. But it also has hidden contradictions, such as the contradiction between slaves and slave-owners, the contradiction between the conqueror and the conquered, the contradiction between conservatives and reformers, the contradiction between the Old-school and the knight as the territory expanded. And the most basic contradiction between the commoners and the aristocracy was accompanied by the Republic from the beginning to the end, which also made it bound to embark on the road of reform in the future.

The Roman legal system is still used as a reference and is one of Rome's gifts to later generations. The first law used in Rome was the Twelve Tables. This law was adopted at 450 B.C. This law was a product of a simple agricultural society and proved to be insufficient to meet the needs of later Rome. It contains various legal provisions, but also shows the tendency to safeguard the interests of nobles and wealthy civilians, and reflects the spirit of the rule of law of the ancient Romans and the essential characteristics of slavery countries. Twelve Tables was the beginning of Roman law. They developed a more complete civil law system from Twelve Tables, but it should only be used for Roman citizens. So with the expansion of Rome, there have been legal issues involving Romans and non-Romans.The Romans found that although some civil law rules could be used in certain circumstances, special rules were usually required. So these rules led to the creation of the legal system of the Law of Nations.

Division of Labour

The emperor was the highest citizen in the Roman Empire and was appreciated by all the citizens of the Roman Empire. In addition to being the emperor, the emperor was also the commander and chief of the army, the high priest and the source of Roman law. The Roman emperor was hereditary.

After the emperor in the social structure is senator. The Roman Senate consisted of about 500-900 senators. Senators are almost always rich; Only men and nobles were allowed to become senators. The senators advised the emperor, supervised him, and made sure that he always followed tradition and custom. They were a very important group of people in the Roman Empire, preparing legislation, dealing with finance, managing foreign relations, and supervising The Roman religion.

There were also soldiers and Roman armies who protected Rome from enemy invasions, and because of a well-organized army, Rome was able to conquer many regions, including almost all of Europe. To be a soldier in Rome, you have to be in good health, you have to be in good physical condition, and you probably have to have references from former veterans. Most of the young rich join the army to start their political careers, while others join to get a decent job and salary.

The working class in Rome, there were large numbers of people who were farmers. fishman or weavers.Many Of the Romans belonged to this class and most of the Roman working class had low wages and lived in small, narrow apartments. Some of the Roman working class would be very successful and then become rich, but very few people actually became rich.

Many civilizations practiced slavery, and Rome was no exception. Slaves were at the bottom of the Roman social class, more than half of all the working class were slaves. Slaves were involved in almost every aspect of Roman life. They have been part of Roman culture since early Roman times. Slaves would do things that other people refused to do, like miners, farms, etc., depending on who owned them. While most slaves were treated as companions, some were abused or made difficult by their employers. Those who want will eventually be able to buy their freedom after completing a certain amount of work, whereas most Slaves would never be freed.

Science/Technology

Ancient Roman science was developed on the basis of summing up the accumulated experience and attracting the scientific achievements of various Mediterranean nationalities. It made great achievements in agriculture, astronomy, geography, medicine and engineering technology. Compared with the ancient Greeks, the Romans had two distinct features in their scientific research.

The Romans were the first documented proof of the Pythagorean theorem, which found that if the waist of an isosceles right triangle was 1, then the string came from an inordinate square root of 2. This puzzled them and led to the 'first crisis' in the history of mathematics, which later led to the discovery of irrational Numbers. They conceived the world's first holistic model of the universe from the point of view of Numbers, believing that ten, circle, sphere, and mean velocity were the most perfect. They also found that strings with different lengths of the same tension, when the length ratio is an integer ratio, produce harmonics, a major contribution to physics.

Reference

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3. Schulman, M. (n.d.). Religion in the Roman Empire. Historycentral History's Home on the Web. Retrieved October 5, from https://www.historycentral.com/dates/Rome/Religion.html
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