Roman Art from the Louvre Educators' Resource Guide

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Ancient Roman Society
History of Ancient Rome
Since Roman times, the founding of Rome by Romulus has been dated by
scholars to the third year after the sixth Olympiad (753 B.C.). Initially ruled
by the kings of Latium, a coastal region of ancient Italy, the city grew under
the reign of the Etruscans, and in 509 B.C., the republic was established.
The republic was largely under the control of the aristocratic families that
dominated the senate, but gradually power came to be shared with representatives
of the plebeians.
Over a period of four centuries, the Roman legions, the military force that
served the Roman Republic, conquered Italy, Spain, and North Africa. By
the beginning of the first century B.C., generals had led the Roman army
to both Greece and the territory that is now Turkey. Rome soon became
steeped in Greek culture. Between 58 and 31 B.C., Caesar and Octavian,
the future Augustus, brought Gaul (present-day France) and Egypt into
the empire. The empire was already vast when Augustus established the
principate, a regime under which the emperor commandeered the senate’s
authority and claimed the powers of the representatives of the plebeians.
This de facto monarchy—although never explicitly recognized as such—
failed to establish a stable system of succession.
The civil wars that occurred during the succeeding dynasties demonstrated
the need for rulers to have military expertise. Although originally all of Roman
stock, emperors gradually started to come from various places in the growing
empire, then from the western provinces, and eventually from northern
Africa and the Near East. The barbarian threat that began to loom large in
the third century A.D. led to the selection of soldier-emperors, often of modest
origins, whose reigns were brief. Beginning in the fourth century A.D., power
was divided between the Eastern Empire, with its capital in Constantinople,
and the Western Empire, of which Rome was no longer the capital.
Multinational, multiethnic, and multicultural, the empire was open to the
broadest range of beliefs. Originally just one faith among many, Christianity
became dominant after 313 A.D. In 476 A.D., the Germanic leader
Odoacer captured Rome and put an end to the Western Empire.
Government—The Emperor and the Senate
The leader of the Roman Empire was the emperor. Over time, the emperor’s
authority increased, and eventually his power became absolute. However,
during the first years of the empire, Augustus, afraid of appearing to be a
monarch, pretended to refuse sole rule by declining certain titles, including
that of emperor. Instead, he proclaimed himself simply the first senator,