Rome, for which it was in prospect to combine the Ancient World in one great empire with the united culture, at first revealed in no way the signs of its future sublimity. Despite the fact that Apennine peninsula was relative to tightly populated in the prehistoric times, the place of future Rome and the adjacent territory prior to the beginning of 1 thousand B.C. were empty. People could not here live and be occupied by agriculture because of the volcanic activity and the powerful layers of the pumice, which covered the earth.
Although Rome region was uninhabited, the remaining part of the peninsula was not empty. On hills and valleys of Italy settled the [vtorgshiesya] from the north tribes. Along the Apennine ridge, which is pulled from the north to the south, settled [italiyskie] tribes - umber, Sabinas and [samnity]. Plains to the south from the river the tiber (region Of [latsiy]) were populated by [latinami]. Appeared here other tribes - as, for example, [ligury] and [venety] on the north of peninsula, [messapy] and [sikuly] in the south.
The culture of higher level they brought into Italy two strange peoples in the period to 700 B.C. in South Italy and Sicily their colonies established Greeks, because of what this region began to be called “great Greece”. To the north from the tiber was arranged the region of Etruscans, who spoke in the very unique language, which is plotted not in what classifications. The possessions of Etruscans with their maximum propagation reached the valley of the river Of [pad] (on) on the north and The [puteolanskogo] (Neapolitan) molded edge in the south. The information about their origin is contradictory; possibly, the Etruscans of profit into Italy from Asia Minor, but some scientists assume that they are the indigenous population of these earth. In the antiquity they supported close commercial, production and cultural relationships with Greece and Near East.
Roman history is divided into three fundamental periods - tsarist (middle ViII B.C. - 510 B.C.), republic (510-30 B.C.) and emperor (30 B.C. - 476 A.D.).
Early Roman history.
Tsarist period. From the middle OF II thousand B.C. in the lower flow of the tiber in northern [Latsii] (average Italy) settled by [latino]-[sikulskimi] the tribes, the branch of [italikov], which arrived to the Apennine peninsula from Danube regions at the beginning OF II thousand B.C. Of [latiny] they were based on the hills palatine Vieille, the Sabinas engaged adjacent hills. As a result [sinoykizma] (association) of several Latin and Sabin settlements in the middle ViII century B.C. (tradition it dates this event 754-753 B.C.) on Capitol Hill was built fortress - Rome general for all. Legend assigns this act To [romulu], tsarevich from Alba- Long city. Initially Roman urban community (people) consisted of three gears (tribes) - [ramnov], [titsiev] and [lutserov], which were being divided into thirty curia (unions of man- soldiers), and those - to one hundred kinds (gentes). Roman kind was paternal with the right of mutual inheritance; it could accept into its composition of strangers, had its religious cult, overall place of settlement and burial; its terms bore one ancestral name, which went back to the mythical or real ancestor, and they were obligated to render each other aid. Kind consisted of the large (three generations) paternal families (familia). The Earth was found in the property of kind - by scaffolding and pastures relations used together, and plowed land was divided between the families. Governed Rome [komitsii] (people meetings of man- soldiers), senate (council of the heads of families) and tsar. Participants in [komitsiy] were gathered on the curia ([kuriatnye] [komitsii]). Tsar combined the functions of military leader, priest and judge; he was selected [komitsiyami] according to the recommendation of the senate.
The members of Roman kinds were [kviritami] - full-fledged citizens (patricians). Special category composed clients - people, dependent on separate [kviritov] and which are found under their patronage. Possibly, clients became become poor [kvirity], forced to search for protection in their relations or in the members of other kinds.
From the legendary list of seven tsars first reliable was [Numa] Of [pompiliy], by the second - [Ank] Of [martsiy], after which the throne passed to the Etruscan dynasty ([Tarkviniy] ancient, [Serviy] thulium, [Tarkviniy] proud). With them Romans subjugated a number of adjacent Latin cities and moved their inhabitants into Rome; occurred voluntary immigration. Initially migrants were included in gears and curia; later access was there closed. As a result was formed the group of second-class citizens - by plebeians (plebes); they entered neither into the senate nor in [komitsii] (i.e. they were deprived of voting rights) and they could not serve in the troops; state allowed only small allotment to them, but they did not have a right to obtaining of the part “public field” (fund for the earth, seized by Romans in neighbors).
Demographic increase provoked territorial expansion; strengthening as a result constant wars of the authority of tsar as leader the troops caused the opposition of the senate, which to a considerable degree controlled [komitsii]. Tsars attempted to weaken ancestral organization, basis of the might of the heads of [patritsianskikh] families, and to lean on the plebeians, after including them in the political and military organization (this it made it possible to also strengthen army). In the middle VI century B.C. Of [serviy] thulium introduced the new administrative division of Rome and neighbourhood: it founded instead of three ancestral tribes twenty one territorial, after mixing thus patricians with the plebeians. [Serviy] divided all man population of Rome (and of patricians, and of plebeians) into six discharges according to the property sign; each discharge was obligated to advance the specific number of armed forces - hundred ([tsenturiy]). From now on people meeting for resolution of main political questions was assembled no longer on the curia, but on [tsenturiyam] ([tsenturiatnye] [komitsii]); in conducting of [kuriatnykh] [komitsiy] remained in essence the religious matters.
An increase in the authority of tsars in VI century B.C. was expressed in the disappearance of the principle of their electivity and the adoption by them of new tsarist [atributiki], borrowed in Etruscans (gold crown, sceptre, throne, special clothing, servant- lictors). [Rannerimskaya] monarchy attempted to arise above the society and its traditional institutes; absolutist tendencies especially were strengthened with [Tarkvinii] proud. However, for ancestral aristocracy it was possible into 510 B.C. to banish [Tarkviniya] and to establish republic system.
Republic Rome.
Fight of plebeians and patricians (495-287 B.C.). The overthrow of monarchy did not lead to the cardinal changes in the political system of Rome. The place of lifelong tsar occupied two of those selected [tsenturiatnymi] [komitsiyami] for one year of the number of patricians of praetor (“in front going”); from the middle V v. they began to call them consuls (“being conferred”). They called and led the sessions of the senate and people the meeting, they controlled carrying out of accepted by these organs solutions, distributed citizens on [tsenturiyam], they followed the collection of taxes, judicial authority was achieved, during the war they commanded the troops. Competent were only their joint solutions. When the time expires authorities they reported before the senate and could be subjected to the legal prosecution. The assistants to consuls in the judicial matters were questors, to which more lately passed the management by treasury. The people meeting, which asserted laws, declared war, concluded peace, selected all officials (magistracies), remained the highest public organ. The role of the senate at the same time grew: not one law came into force without its approval; it controlled the activity of magistracies, solved foreign policy problems, was achieved supervision above the finances and the religious life; the decisions of the senate ([senatus]-[konsulty]) became laws.
The basic content of the history of [rannerespublikanskogo] Rome was the fight of plebeians for the equality of rights with the patricians, who as the valuable citizens monopolized the right to sit in the senate, to occupy the highest magistracies and to obtain (“to occupy”) the earth from “public field”; plebeians required also the cancellation of debt servitude and limitation of debt percentage. An increase in the military role of the plebeians (at the beginning by the V century B.C. they they already composed major portion of the Roman army) allowed them to render effective pressure on the [patritsianskiy] senate. In 494 after the sequential failure of the senate to B.C. satisfy their requirements they were removed from Rome to the sacred mountain (first secession), and for patricians it was necessary to make concessions: was founded new magistracy - people tribunes, who were being selected exclusively from the plebeians (initially two) and possessed the sacred inviolability; they had the right to interfere in the activity of remaining magistracies ([intertsessiya]), to impose ban on any solutions of them (veto) and to assign them on the judicial responsibility. In 486 B.C. consul [Spuriy] of Cassia he proposed to give half of the seized in [gernikov] earth and part of the plundered by patricians “public field” to plebeians and to union Latin communities; the senators did not allow the adoption of this law; Cassia it was accused of high treason and executed. In 473 B.C. people tribune [Gneya]s [Genutsiya] they killed on the eve of the law court assigned it above both consuls. In 471 for plebeians it was B.C. possible to attain the adoption of law about the election of people tribunes by [tributnymi] [komitsiyami] (meetings of plebeians on the gears): thus patricians were deprived of the possibility to influence the selections through their freedmen. In 457 B.C. number of people tribunes it grew to ten. In 456 B.C. people tribune Lucius [Itsiliy] conducted law about the assignment to plebeians and to the migrants of the right of building and cultivation of the earth on The [aventinskom] hill. In 452 B.C. plebeians they forced the senate to create commission of ten members ([detsemvirov]) with the consular authority for the writing of laws, first of all for the fixation (i.e. limitation) of the authorities of [patritsianskikh] magistracies; the activity of consuls and people tribunes to the period of the work of commission was stopped. In 451-450 B.C. [detsemviry] comprised the laws, which were engraved on the copper boards and put out at the forum (laws of twelve tables): they protected private property; they asserted the severe debt right (debtor they could sell into the servitude and even execute), after establishing in this case the limit of usurious percentage (8,33% of annual); juridical status of the basic social categories of Roman society (patricians, plebeians, cartridges, clients, free was determined, slaves); the marriages of plebeians with the patricians forbade. These laws satisfied neither plebeians nor patricians; the abuses of [detsemvirov] and their attempt to prolong their authorities provoked in 449 B.C. second secession of plebeians (to the sacred mountain). For [detsemviram] it was necessary to forego the authority; consulate and [tribunat] were restored. In the same year the consuls Lucius Valerie and Mark Horace conducted law about the obligation for all citizens, including for the patricians, the solutions of [tributnykh] [komitsiy] (plebiscites), if they obtain the approval of the senate. In 447 B.C. to [tributnym] [komitsiyam] passed the right to select questors. In 445 B.C. on the initiative people tribune Guy [Kanuleya] was abolished the prohibition to the marriages of plebeians and patricians. An increase in the influence of plebeians was expressed also in the establishment of the post of military tribunes with the consular authority, which they had the right to occupy. In 444, 433-432, 426-424, 422, 420-414, 408-394, 391-390 and 388-367 B.C. military tribunes with the consular authority (from three to eight) fulfilled instead of the consuls of the responsibility of the senior officials of republic; truth prior to the beginning IV to this post were century B.C. selected exclusively patricians, and into 400 B.C. it only engaged plebeian Licinius [Kalv]. In 443 B.C. consuls they were deprived of the right to distribute citizens on [tsenturiyam], which was transmitted to new magistracies - two censors, who were being selected from the number of patricians of times in five years [tsenturiatnymi] [komitsiyami] with period for 18 months; into their conducting they gradually passed the composition of the list of the senators, control of the collection of taxes and supervision of the dispositions. In 421 B.C. the plebeians obtained the right the held post of questor, although realized him only into 409 B.C. after the ten-year bitter fight with the patricians the people tribunes Licinius [Stolon] and [Sekstiy] Of [lateran] they gained into 367 B.C. decisive victory: was established the limit of the being isolated from “public field” earth (500 [yugerov] = of 125 GA) and the debt burden is considerably facilitated; was restored the institute of consuls when one of them will compulsorily be plebeian; however, the senate attained the transfer of judicial authority from the consuls to praetors, selected from the patricians. The first consul- plebeian became Licinius [Stolon] (366 B.C.), by the first dictator- plebeian - [Martsiy] Of [rutul] (356 B.C.). With 354 B.C. plebeians obtained the possibility to influence the composition of the senate: now it [komlektovalsya] from the former highest magistracies, whose part no longer belonged to the patricians; only they possessed the right to introduce proposals and to participate in their consideration. The first censor from the plebeians was B.C. selected in 350. In 339 B.C. law Of [publiliya] fastened one of the [tsenzorskikh] places to the plebeian class. In 337 B.C. the plebeians became accessible the post of praetor. Making more active in the second-half IV century B.C. of the policy of the removal of the colonies of land-starved citizens into the different regions of Italy made it possible to partially remove the sharpness of agrarian problem. In 326 B.C. people tribune [Peteliy] conducted law about the abolition of debt servitude for the Roman citizens - from now on they answered for the debt their only property, but not their body. In 312 B.C. censors Of [appiy] Klavdiy permitted citizens, who did not have the agrarian property (merchants and craftsmen), to be assigned not only to the urban, but also to the rural gears, which strengthened their influence in [komitsiyakh]; it also attempted to include in the number of senators of some sons of freedmen. In 300 B.C. according to the law brothers [Ogulniev] the plebeians obtained the access into the priestly boards of the Pontiffs and augurs, whose composition for this was doubled. Thus, all magistracies proved to be open for the plebeians. Their fight with the patricians was completed into 287 B.C., when after their sequential secession (to The [yanikulskiy] hill) the dictator of the quints of hydrangeas conducted the law, according to which the solutions of [tributnykh] [komitsiy] obtained force of law, also, without the sanction of the senate.
The victory of plebeians led to a change in the social structure of the Roman society: after attaining political equality of rights, they ceased to be the class, different from the class of patricians; notable plebeian kinds composed together with the old [patritsianskimi] kinds new elite - nobility. This contributed to weakening internal political struggle in Rome and to consolidation of Roman society, which allowed it to mobilize all its forces for conducting the active foreign policy expansion.
Ancient Rome combined the Ancient World in one great empire.
