The Ancient Romans

From a City to an Empire

Long ago, on seven hills beside the River Tiber in what is now Italy, a small town began to grow. According to a famous legend, it was founded by a man named Romulus, who, along with his twin brother Remus, had been raised by a wolf. That little town was called Rome, and over the centuries it would grow into one of the largest and most powerful empires the world has ever seen.

At its height, the Roman Empire stretched across three continents, from rainy Britain in the north to the deserts of Egypt and the Middle East in the south and east. Tens of millions of people, speaking dozens of languages, all lived under Roman rule. The Romans built roads, cities, bridges and walls across this enormous territory, much of which can still be seen today.

How did one city come to rule so much of the known world? And what made Roman civilisation so powerful that, even after the empire fell, its ideas, language and buildings continued to shape the world for thousands of years? In this book you will explore Rome's army, its rulers, its mighty engineering, its famous games, and the daily lives of the people who made it all possible.

The Republic and Its People

For its first few centuries, Rome was ruled by kings. But around 2,500 years ago, the Romans threw out their last king and created something new: the Roman Republic. The word "republic" comes from a Latin phrase meaning "the public thing", the idea that the state belonged to its people, not to a single ruler.

In the republic, Roman citizens elected officials to govern the city. The most powerful were two leaders called consuls, chosen each year to share power so that no single person could become too strong. Advising them was the Senate, a council of experienced and wealthy men who guided Rome's decisions, especially in war and money. The Romans were proud that their leaders were chosen, not crowned.

Roman society, however, was sharply divided. At the top were the wealthy noble families, the patricians. Below them were the common people, the plebeians, who were farmers, traders and workers. For a long time the plebeians had few rights, and over many years they struggled and won a greater say in government. Beneath everyone were the enslaved people, who had no freedom at all and did much of the hard labour throughout Roman society. The republic also produced famous figures, none more so than Julius Caesar, a brilliant general and politician whose career would change Rome forever.

The Rise of the Emperors

Julius Caesar conquered vast new lands for Rome and became hugely popular and powerful, so powerful that many senators feared he wanted to make himself a king. In the year 44 BC, a group of them assassinated him in the Senate. But killing Caesar did not save the republic. Instead, years of civil war followed.

Out of this turmoil rose Caesar's adopted heir, a young man named Octavian. After defeating his rivals, he took control of Rome and was given the honoured name Augustus, meaning "the revered one". Augustus became the first Roman emperor, and from then on, Rome was ruled by emperors rather than elected leaders. The republic was over.

Some emperors were wise and capable. Augustus brought peace and order, and under good emperors the empire enjoyed a long, prosperous period of calm sometimes called the Pax Romana, the "Roman Peace". But other emperors were cruel, foolish or mad. Nero was remembered for his cruelty and was blamed for a great fire that burned much of Rome. The emperor held enormous power, commanding the armies and the riches of the whole empire, and the character of each emperor could lift Rome to glory or plunge it into chaos.

The Mighty Roman Army

Rome's empire was won and held together above all by its army, one of the most disciplined and effective fighting forces in all of history. A trained Roman soldier was called a legionary, and he served in a large unit called a legion of several thousand men.

Roman soldiers were tough and superbly organised. They marched huge distances carrying heavy packs of weapons, food and tools, and they were trained to fight as a unit rather than as individual heroes. They protected themselves with large shields, sometimes locking them together to form a wall, and they fought with short swords and spears. Discipline was harsh, but it made the legions almost unbeatable for centuries.

The army did far more than fight. When they were not at war, soldiers built roads, bridges, forts and walls across the empire. One of the most famous is Hadrian's Wall, a long stone wall built right across northern Britain to mark and guard the empire's frontier. The army also spread Roman language, customs and ways of life into every land it conquered. Wherever the legions marched, Rome followed.

Roads, Aqueducts and Engineering

The Romans were among the greatest builders and engineers the world had ever seen, and their genius for construction was a key reason their empire worked so well. "All roads lead to Rome", people once said, and it was nearly true. The Romans built a vast network of straight, solid roads, paved with stone, stretching thousands of miles across the empire.

These roads let armies march quickly to wherever they were needed, let traders carry goods to distant markets, and let messages and news travel faster than ever before. Many were built so well that parts of them still survive today, two thousand years later.

The Romans were just as clever with water. They built long channels called aqueducts to carry fresh water from distant hills and springs into their cities, sometimes on tall rows of arches striding across valleys. This water filled public fountains, supplied homes, and fed the famous Roman public baths, where people gathered to wash, exercise, relax and chat. The Romans also gave us strong concrete, grand arches and domes, and even early forms of central heating and plumbing. Their engineering allowed huge cities to thrive, and many of their methods were used for centuries afterward.

Gladiators and the Games

The Romans loved spectacular entertainment, and the most famous of all took place in the Colosseum, a gigantic stone arena in the heart of Rome that could hold tens of thousands of spectators. Its ruins still tower over the modern city today.

In the Colosseum and arenas like it, crowds gathered to watch gladiators, trained fighters who battled one another, and sometimes wild animals, often to the death. Many gladiators were enslaved people or prisoners, forced to fight, though a few became famous celebrities admired across Rome. The games also included hunts of exotic animals brought from across the empire, and even mock battles. To the Romans, these brutal shows were thrilling public entertainment, often paid for by emperors to win the favour of the crowd.

Another hugely popular sport was chariot racing, held in a massive racetrack called the Circus Maximus. Teams of horses pulled lightweight chariots around the track at terrifying speed, while enormous crowds cheered for their favourite teams. Crashes were common and dangerous, and the best charioteers became rich and famous. Through these games, Roman rulers kept the public entertained and content, a policy summed up by the phrase "bread and circuses".

Daily Life in Rome

Behind the emperors and the legions, millions of ordinary people lived their daily lives across the Roman world. In the city of Rome itself, the rich lived in large, comfortable houses with courtyards, gardens and beautiful painted walls and mosaics. Most ordinary people, though, were crammed into tall, crowded apartment blocks, noisy and often unsafe, in a busy, bustling city.

Roman family life was led by the father, who held great authority over the household. Children from wealthy families went to school or were taught by tutors, learning reading, writing and arithmetic, while poorer children worked. Romans wore simple tunics, and important men wore the famous draped white cloak called a toga. People shopped in busy markets, gathered in the public square called the forum to do business and hear news, and relaxed at the public baths.

Religion was woven through everyday life. The Romans worshipped many gods, many of them borrowed from the Greeks but given Roman names, such as Jupiter, king of the gods, Mars, the god of war, and Venus, the goddess of love. Later in Roman history, a new religion, Christianity, began to spread through the empire and eventually became its official faith, changing the Roman world and the future of Europe.

The Fall and the Legacy

No empire lasts forever, and over time the Roman Empire grew too large and troubled to defend. It was split into two halves to make it easier to govern. The western half, including Rome itself, weakened under poor leadership, money problems and repeated attacks by peoples from beyond its borders. In the year 476 AD, the last emperor in the west was overthrown, and the Western Roman Empire came to an end. The eastern half, later known as the Byzantine Empire, survived for almost another thousand years.

Yet Rome never truly vanished, because its ideas lived on. The Latin language of the Romans grew into modern languages including Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese, and many English words come from Latin too. Roman law, with its ideas about justice, evidence and citizens' rights, shaped the legal systems of many countries today. Roman roads, arches, domes and concrete inspired builders for centuries, and we still copy Roman styles in grand public buildings.

We even count time with traces of Rome: several of our months are named after Roman gods and rulers, and the calendar we use grew from one that Julius Caesar reformed. From a small town on seven hills, the Romans built a civilisation whose influence still surrounds us, in our words, our laws, our buildings and our world.

What We Learned

We have journeyed across the vast Roman world, from a small city by the Tiber to a sprawling empire on three continents.

We saw how Rome began as a republic, governed by elected consuls and the Senate, before Augustus became its first emperor and the age of the emperors began. We marched with the disciplined legions of the Roman army and marvelled at the roads, aqueducts and engineering that held the empire together. We watched gladiators battle in the Colosseum and chariots thunder around the Circus Maximus, and we glimpsed the daily lives of rich and poor Romans alike. Finally, we saw how Rome fell, yet how its language, law, buildings and ideas live on in our world today.

Rome's empire crumbled long ago, but its legacy still shapes the way we speak, build and govern.

Want to keep exploring the ancient world? Meet the civilisation that Rome so admired in The Ancient Greeks, or marvel at the greatest buildings of the past in The Wonders of the Ancient World.