Category Beginnings & Early Civilizations

Jesus of Nazareth, his life and death, for Romans alive about A.D. 30 was of no significance whatsoever. In the context of Roman history, Jesus was just another rebellious troublemaker. After the revolt of Spartacus thousands of slaves had been…

By 9 B.C. it seemed that Augustus’ ambition to extend Roman territory to the Elbe had almost been achieved, but the Romans overestimated the extent to which they had successfully assimilated their new province. Encouraged by revolts in the Empire,…

Octavian delivers the state from that was plunged into depression. A few weeks after January 1 in the year 29 B.C. the doors of the temple of Janus in Rome were closed. This traditional act symbolized that the Roman state was at…

The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. initiated thirteen years of bloodshed, during which the people who had plotted his death were hunted down and those who remained in positions of power disputed that power among themselves. Finally, the…

The happy judgment of the historian Polybius on the strength of the Roman constitution, because of its mixture of popular, oligarchic and monarchical elements, might certainly appear as an optimistic theorization after the revolt of Spartacus. The Roman state had…

As Rome’s armies marched victorious across the known world and her fleets patrolled the Mediterranean, hundreds and thousands of slaves were shipped back to Italy as cheap and expendable labour for the vast estates of the rich. Many worked in…

Slaves could be imported to Italy when and where they were needed. The demand for labour was immediate and there was a much faster and more predictable solution to such a demand, than encouraging population growth or attracting the movement…

Hannibal alone, would have dared embark on such a venture. Two powers confronted each other to dispute mastery of the Mediterranean — Rome and Carthage. The Carthaginians were interested in colonial expansion as an extension of their trading interests, but…

The Great Wall of China did not always keep the invader out, but it did help to establish the geographical identity of the Chinese empire. The exact delineation of the boundaries of the empire gave its administration a positive geographical…