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— CH. 1 · INTRODUCTION —

Roman Empire

~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
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  • The Roman Empire was one of the most expansive and enduring political structures the ancient world produced, stretching from Hadrian's Wall in drizzle-soaked northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates in Syria. At its height under Trajan, it encompassed around 5 million square kilometres of territory. Between one-sixth and one-fourth of the world's total population lived within its borders. And yet it began not as an empire at all, but as a republic, governed by annually elected magistrates and a Senate. How did a city on the Italian peninsula come to circle the entire Mediterranean Sea? And how did an institution built on the idea of shared civic rule end up lasting, in one form or another, until 1453?

  • Julius Caesar was briefly declared perpetual dictator in 44 BC before being assassinated by a faction that feared his concentration of power. That faction was driven from Rome and defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC by Mark Antony and Caesar's adopted son Octavian. Antony and Octavian divided the Roman world between them, but their partnership did not last. Octavian's forces defeated those of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and Octavian subsequently conquered the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. In 27 BC the Senate granted him the title Augustus, meaning "venerated", and made him princeps, or "foremost", with overarching military power called imperium. Although the republic stood in name, Augustus held all meaningful authority. During his forty-year rule, a new constitutional order emerged. Upon his death, Tiberius would succeed him as the new de facto monarch, establishing the logic of dynastic succession that would define the empire for centuries.

  • The two hundred years that began with Augustus's rule are traditionally called the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace. Uprisings in the provinces were infrequent and put down, in the words of one source, "mercilessly and swiftly". The Julio-Claudian dynasty lasted for four more emperors after Augustus: Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Then came the strife-torn Year of the Four Emperors in 69 AD, from which Vespasian emerged as victor. His Flavian dynasty gave way in turn to the Nerva-Antonine dynasty, which produced what later writers called the Five Good Emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian is particularly noted for consolidating frontiers and undertaking ambitious building projects. His visit to Judaea in 129 or 130 AD led him to replan Jerusalem as a Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina, overlaying the destroyed Jewish city with a Roman urban grid and placing a Temple to Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish Temple. Hadrian's measures, combined with restrictions on Jewish practices, helped spark the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-135 AD. After crushing that uprising, Roman forces expelled most Jews from Jerusalem, permitting entry only on certain days. The empire that Trajan had brought to its greatest territorial extent under Marcus Aurelius began to show the first signs of the strain that would eventually pull it apart.

  • In 212 AD, during the reign of Caracalla, Roman citizenship was extended to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. Before that moment, the legal landscape was layered and unequal. Freeborn Roman women were citizens but did not vote or hold office; they could own property, enter contracts, and engage in business, and inscriptions throughout the empire honour women who funded public works. A woman who had given birth to three children was granted symbolic honours and greater legal freedom under a provision known as the ius trium liberorum. Slaves, by contrast, were classified as property with no legal personhood. At the time of Augustus, as many as 35% of the people in Roman Italy were enslaved, making Rome one of five historical societies in which slaves constituted at least a fifth of the population. The average recorded age at death for the slaves of the city of Rome was seventeen and a half years. Outside Italy, the enslaved population averaged an estimated 10 to 20% of residents. Rome differed from Greek city-states in one notable respect: freed slaves could become citizens, and any children born after manumission held full rights. Manumission had become so frequent that in 2 BC a law known as the Lex Fufia Caninia limited the number of slaves an owner could free in his will. After Caracalla's extension of citizenship, the uniform application of Roman law replaced local codes throughout the empire, a shift with long consequences for the Western legal tradition.

  • Taxation under the empire amounted to about 5% of its gross product, with individual rates typically between 2 and 5%. Augustus established a three-tier currency system: gold coins called aurei for major purchases, silver denarii that workers earned and paid taxes with, and bronze and brass coins for everyday transactions, with the brass sestertius as the standard unit of account. One aureus equalled twenty-five denarii; one denarius equalled four sesterces. The empire had no central bank, and banking regulation was minimal. Only one serious credit shortage is known to have occurred in the early empire, in 33 AD. The mining regions of the empire were extensive: the Iberian Peninsula supplied silver, copper, lead, iron, and gold; Britain supplied iron, lead, and tin; Gaul contributed gold, silver, and iron. Copper and lead production levels were unmatched until the Industrial Revolution. At its peak around the mid-2nd century, the Roman silver stock is estimated at 10,000 tonnes, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of medieval Europe and the Caliphate around 800 AD. Lead pollution in the Greenland ice sheet quadrupled over prehistoric levels during the imperial era, a measure of the sheer scale of Roman metal production. Emperors of the Antonine and Severan dynasties later debased the silver denarius to meet military payrolls, and sudden inflation under Commodus damaged the credit market. Despite Diocletian's introduction of the gold solidus, the credit market of the empire never recovered its former robustness after the Crisis of the Third Century.

  • Roman roads are considered the most advanced built until the early 19th century. The largest Roman bridge was Trajan's bridge over the lower Danube, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus, which remained for more than a millennium the longest bridge ever built. Aqueducts fed water by gravity alone along masonry channels to public fountains, baths, toilets, and industrial sites; the system built to supply Constantinople drew its most distant water from over 120 kilometres away along a route of more than 336 kilometres. In the city of Rome, most people lived in multistory apartment buildings called insulae. Public baths served hygienic, social, and cultural functions: a bath complex offered communal bathing at three temperatures plus amenities that could include an exercise room, sauna, exfoliation spa, ball court, or outdoor pool. Prepared food was sold at tabernae and thermopolia, since most apartments lacked kitchens. Most Romans consumed at least 70% of their daily calories in the form of cereals and legumes. Average lifespan is estimated at the mid-twenties, and perhaps more than half of children died before reaching adulthood. Only two of Marcus Aurelius's fourteen children are known to have reached adulthood. The satirist Juvenal captured the political mood of the later city: the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, and legions, he wrote, now longed eagerly for just two things: bread and circuses.

  • The Crisis of the Third Century was a 49-year period of civil war, plague, and barbarian invasion that nearly ended the empire. The Gallic and Palmyrene empires broke away from the state, and a rapid succession of short-lived emperors ruled. Aurelian stabilised the empire militarily; Diocletian reorganised it, dividing administration among four regional tetrarchs before abdicating. Constantine the Great moved the imperial seat from Rome to Byzantium in 330 and renamed it Constantinople. The western half continued to fragment through the 5th century. Most chronologies place the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476, when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the Germanic warlord Odoacer, who declared the eastern emperor Zeno as sole ruler while governing Italy himself. The Eastern Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire by historians, persisted for nearly another thousand years until Constantinople fell in 1453. The last Roman emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, died in battle that year against Mehmed II and his Ottoman forces. Mehmed II then adopted the title of caesar in an attempt to claim a connection to the empire he had just extinguished, a claim recognised by the Patriarchate of Constantinople though not by European monarchs. Latin evolved into the Romance languages. Roman law descended into the Napoleonic Code and many modern legal systems. Rome's architectural tradition shaped Romanesque, Renaissance, and Neoclassical architecture, and the empire's adoption of Christianity resulted in the formation of medieval Christendom. The last attested reference to the Gaulish language, one of many tongues that Latin gradually displaced, dates to between 560 and 575.

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Common questions

When did the Roman Empire begin and end?

The Roman Empire began in 27 BC when the Senate granted Octavian the title of Augustus and recognised him as the first Roman emperor. The Western Roman Empire ended in 476 AD when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer, while the Eastern Roman Empire survived until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

How large was the Roman Empire at its peak?

The Roman Empire reached its largest extent under Trajan, encompassing around 5 million square kilometres. Its population of 55-60 million inhabitants, by traditional estimates, accounted for between one-sixth and one-fourth of the world's total population.

Who were the Five Good Emperors of Rome?

The Five Good Emperors were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, all members of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty. Hadrian is particularly noted for consolidating the empire's frontiers and for refounding Jerusalem as the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina around 129-130 AD.

What caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire?

The Western Roman Empire fell due to a combination of civil wars, barbarian invasions, economic disorder, and the assimilation of Germanic peoples of dubious loyalty to Rome. The conventional end date is 476 AD, when the Germanic warlord Odoacer deposed the emperor Romulus Augustulus.

What was the role of slavery in the Roman Empire?

Slavery was central to the Roman economy. At the time of Augustus, as many as 35% of people in Roman Italy were enslaved. Outside Italy the enslaved population averaged an estimated 10 to 20% of residents. Unlike Greek city-states, Rome allowed freed slaves to become citizens, with full rights extending to their future children.

What languages were spoken in the Roman Empire?

Latin and Greek were the primary languages of the empire, though the empire was deliberately multilingual and supported many local tongues including Coptic, Aramaic, Punic, Gaulish, and others. After the western empire collapsed, spoken Latin fragmented into the incipient Romance languages by the 7th century AD.

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All sources

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