Did Rome allow its

conquered people

religious freedom?

70 AD: Jewish revolt in Jerusalem crushed.

Why was Rome worried about Christianity?

Blamed Christians for political troubles

Emperor Nero blamed Christians for a fire

Many Christians imprisoned or killed

Who were the martyrs?

200s: Millions of Christians in Roman Empire

Why was Christianity popular?

Military leader

306: Became Emperor

Persecuted Christians

Edict of Milan: Decreed Christianity one of the empire’s legal religions

Built churches and made Sunday a holy day of rest

380: Christianity the official religion of Rome

Catholic means “universal”

First Bishop of Rome (Pope): apostle Peter

Christianity changed from a small sect into a powerful and wealthy religion

100s AD: Empire stops expanding

How did this hurt the economy?

Overuse of land led to a decline in agriculture

Reliance on slaves prevents new ideas

Food shortages cause unrest

Fighting with nomadic peoples; Rome needs larger armies

Hired mercenaries with no loyalty to Rome

Soldiers became loyal to their commanders and to gold.

Size of the empire made it difficult to govern.

Government officials corrupt

Less Romans educated

A loss of the sense of civic duty

284: comes to power

Restored order

Placed troops at border

Kept bread prices low

Divided empire in half, keeping eastern half for himself. Why?

Late 300s: Nomadic Germanic tribes begin pushing into Rome

Were these groups “Barbarians”?

Why did these groups make this move?

476: City of Rome conquered by Germanic tribes

Gaul conquered by Clovis; Frankish kingdom established

What happened after the Western Empire collapsed?

Eastern Empire

Lasts 1,000 years longer than the Western Empire.

Capital: Byzantium (Constantinople)

Spoke Greek; thought of themselves as Romans

Ruled 527-564

Armies reconquered western lands

Rebuilt Constantinople

Built schools, hospitals, law courts

Built Hagia Sophia, a church that is today a Mosque.

Justinian Code: legal code based on Roman Law

Who was in charge of the Church?

East & West clashed over who was the final authority on religious matters

1054: The Great Schism

West: Roman Catholic Church

East: Eastern Orthodox Church

Pope has great influence over western kings and emperors

Byzantine Emperor controlled the Patriarch (leader of the Eastern Church) and the Church

Unrest after Justinian’s death

Which groups attacked the Byzantine Empire?

1350: Empire severely shrunk

1453: Turks conquered Constantinople http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/videos#the-fall-of-rome

Mosaic: picture made by up by small pieces of glass, stone, or tile

Romans adopted the epic poem from Greece

Virgil’s Aeneid about hero of the Trojan War Aeneas.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius explained the philosophy of Stoicism in Meditations

Latin evolved into the Romance Languages

Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian

Arches, vaults, domes

Roman developments made it possible to build larger, taller buildings

Developed concrete

Roman law is at the heart of many European countries & the US

Equal treatment under the law

Innocent until proven guilty

Legislative assemblies modeled on the Senate

330: Constantine moves capital from Rome to Byzantium