Home / Ancient Rome 1000 B.C – 476 A.D.

Ancient Rome 1000 B.C – 476 A.D.

Important dates and events in Ancient Rome, 1000 B. C. – 476 A. D.

1000 B. C. Phoenicians build Carthage and explore coast of Italy.
800-700 B. C. Six farming villages unite to become the city of Rome.
750 B. C. Cumae, first Greek colony in Italy, settled by refugees.
509 B. C. Romans drive out the last of the Etruscan kings.
353 B. C. Rome expands, conquering the towns of nearby Latium.
312 B. C. Work begins on Appian Way, first Roman road.
280-256 B. C. Rome fights a Greek army under Pyrrhus, wins control of entire Italian peninsula.
264-146 B. C. Rome and Carthage at war.
218 B. C. Carthaginian army under Hannibal crosses the Alps to invade Italy.
204 B. C. The Roman general, Scipio, invades Africa, menaces Carthage.
203 B. C. Hannibal, recalled from Italy, meets Scipio in battle of Zama and is defeated.
196 B. C. Deaths of Hannibal, Scipio.
146 B. C. After nearly three years of siege, Roman troops capture Carthage, enslave its citizens and burn the city to the ground.
133 B. C. Tiberius Gracchus elected tribune, murdered by Senate.
124 B. C. His brother Caius Gracchus elected, passes many reform laws.
121 B. C. The mob turns on Caius and forces him to commit suicide.
107-86 B. C. Struggle for power between Marius and Sulla, which ends only with the death of Marius.
73-71 B. C. Slaves, led by Spartacus, revolt; they are suppressed after two years of fighting.
60 B. C. Pompey, Julius Caesar and Crassus form the First Triumvirate to combat the power of the senate.
58-50 B. C. Caesar, commander of the legions in Gaul, subdues the barbarians; Pompey plots in Rome.
49 B. C. Caesar crosses the Rubicon with his legions; Pompey and the Senate flee; Pompey is crushed at the battle of Pharsalus.
48-46 B. C. Caesar, charmed by Cleopatra, stays in Egypt.
46 B. C. Caesar returns to Rome, begins to consolidate his power and enact reforms.
44 B. C. Caesar assassinated by Cassius, Brutus and other Senators. Civil War breaks out.
42 B. C. Octavius, Antony and Lepidus form the Second Triumvirate and destroy Cassius and Brutus at battle of Philippi.
41-31 B. C. Rivalry between Octavius and Antony develops into war.
31 B. C. Fleet of Antony and Cleopatra beaten by Octavius at the battle of Actium.
30 B. C. Antony and Cleopatra kill themselves; Octavius becomes Augustus.
29 B. C. – A.D. 14 Reign of Augustus; the Empire at peace; the arts and culture flourish.
A. D. 14 – 117 A series of emperors rule Rome.
A.D. 64 Fire devastates Rome; Nero blames it on Christians
A.D. 68 Nero, last of Caesar’s family, commits suicide to avoid assassination at the hands of his guards.
A.D. 79 Eruption of Vesuvius buries town of Pompeii under lava.
A.D. 106 Legions under Emperor Trajan push the borders of the Empire beyond the Danube River.
A.D. 117-138 Reign of Hadrian; trade flourishes; walls built on the borders to stop barbarians.
A.D. 138-180 Hadrian’s successors, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, govern the Empire.
A.D. 167 Barbarians break through the border defenses into Italy and are beaten back with difficulty.
A.D. 192-284 Chaos in the Empire; the borders are breached; revolts in the provinces; trade falls off; famine and plague in the cities.
A.D. 284-305 Diocletian restores order by making the Empire an armed camp ruled by the legions.
A.D. 324 Constantine, a Christian, becomes Emperor.
A.D. 326 Constantine begins to build a new capital for the Empire at Byzantium on the Hellespont.
A.D. 395 At the death of Theodosius, his two sons divided the Empire between them; it is never reunited.
A.D. 406 The Rhine defenses collapse before waves of barbarian invaders; Gaul is overrun.
A.D. 410 Visigoths under Alaric capture and sack the city of Rome.
A.D. 476 Emperor Romulus deposed by barbarians, bringing the Roman Empire in the West to an end; Caesar’s heirs still rule the East.

The City of Dido 264 B. C. – 129 B. C.

DIDO

In 264 B. C., the people of Rome met in a noisy session of their assembly. The question before them was: “Peace or War?” The Roman legions had proved their strength in winning all of Italy. Now the time had come to decide whether or not to risk the troops in wars away from the peninsula. Meeting with the assembly was a representative from Messana, an independent town on Sicily, just across the narrow channel from the tip of Italy. Troops from Carthage had attacked the town and captured it. Now Messana begged for help from Rome. The Senate, knowing …

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The End of the City A. D. 192 – A. D. 476

constantine

ON ROME’S first day, Romulus took a bronze plow and drew a magic circle around seven of the hills that stood beside the River Tiber. The magic of the circle was protection against the evils outside. More important, it bound together the people who were inside, making one city where there had been six towns. Seven hundred years later, Augustus drew another magic circle, this time around all the Mediterranean world. It kept out barbarian and Asian invaders and held together millions of people, making one empire where there had been dozens of races and nations. So long as the …

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The City Where Money Ruled A.D. 54 – A.D. 192

roman

“IT is impossible to find peace and quiet in this city!” Seneca, in Nero’s Rome for a visit, was not enjoying his stay and he wrote about it in an angry letter to one of his friends in the country. “The room I have rented is right over‚ a public bath and I might as well have taken a bed in the Tower of Babel. When the athletic bathers do their exercises, I hear every grunt as they strain to lift the dumbbells and the awful wheezes as they drop them again. In the ball court, a loud-mouthed coach calls …

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The City of the World A. D. 117 – A. D. 138

hadrian

ROME was no longer just a city — it was a world. In the reign of Hadrian, the blaring trumpets that announced the comings and goings of the emperor echoed in Spain, Syria and Britain as often as in Italy. Hadrian wanted to know what was going on in all of his empire. He wanted to inspect the troops and forts that held the frontiers and to judge for himself the wisdom of the governors he had sent to rule the provinces. He wanted to visit the towns and cities, to see their ancient buildings, to plan new buildings where …

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The Emperor’s City A. D. 14 to A. D. 117

nero

GREAT power had allowed Augustus to do great good for Rome and its provinces. The same power in the hands of a man who was not good meant that he could do great harm. This the Romans learned as they watched the remarkable parade of good and evil men who came to govern Rome after Augustus. Some of them were wise, two or three were foolish, one thought he was the greatest artist in the world and another said he was a god. All were the masters of Rome, mighty princes who were called emperors. The title emperor came from …

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The City of Augustus 29 B. C. – A. D. 14

IN 29 B.C. the gates of war were closed. Rome was at peace. Senators and the people of the mob-men who had hated and fought each other through long, bitter years — stood side by side in the Forum while the great doors of the temple of Janus were slowly pushed shut. That had happened only twice before in the history of the city. The crowd in the Forum cheered the peace and they cheered Octavius, their new ruler. He was no longer the young man who had rushed to Rome after the murder of his uncle, Caesar. Seventeen years …

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The Second Triumvirate 43 B. C. – 30 B. C.

AS THE news of Caesar’s death spread through Rome, sorrow, anger and fear took hold of the city. On March 17, two days after the murder, the Senate met again. Cassius, Brutus and the other assassins took their usual places. There was no doubt that most of their fellow senators felt that they had done the right thing in ridding Rome of a tyrant, but Caesar’ s veterans were still in the city, taking their orders now from Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who had been his Master of the Horse, the commander of the cavalry. Mark Antony was still consul, he …

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The City of Caesar 80 B. C. – 44 B. C.

caesar

THE story of Rome in the years after Sulla’s death was the story of a partnership of power. It was the tale of three men who bargained for the world — a rich man, a poor man and a man who was not only a hero, but looked it. The rich man was Crassus, who had become a millionaire by setting up the only fire department in Rome. The tall buildings and narrow, crowded streets of the city made a fire a constant danger. When one house burned to the ground, the buildings on either side were likely to fall …

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The City Divided 130 B. C. – 70 B. C.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, a young statesman known for his dramatic speeches, stood before a panel of judges in a courtroom in Rome. He stared at them angrily. For fifty days he had travelled through Sicily, collecting facts about the crimes committed by Caius Verres, the man who was on trial. Now the judges had told him that there would not be time to listen to his evidence. Cicero knew that the judges had been bribed. For it was no ordinary criminal that he meant to send to prison or to death. Caius Verres was an aristocrat and a senator and …

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City of Romulus B. C. 900 – 256

ROMULUS

In the time when savage warriors roamed the plains and mountains of Italy, there stood on six low hills, just south of the river Tiber, six clusters of round huts made of twigs and leaves stuck together with mud. Each was a little town, the home of barbarian tribesmen. They herded cattle on the plain below, chased the wild pigs in the woods and tried to make things grow in their marshy fields. Although the towns were always fighting or stealing cattle and sheep from each other, they shared a market place in a clearing beside the river. They also …

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