Western Civ. Ch. 5

Front 1

Traditional date of founding of Rome

Back 1

753 BC

Front 2

Republic (Pg. 139)

Back 2

About 500 BC, when Rome had become a powerful city with perhaps 35,000 inhabitants the Romans put an end to kingship and established this, a state in which political power resides in the people and their representatives rather than in a monarch.

Front 3

Date Republic is declared

Back 3

509 BC

Front 4

Patricians (Pg. 140)

Back 4

At the top of the social hierarchy stood these people, a wealthy elite group who traced their ancestry back to to the royal Rome. These families claimed to have toppled the monarchy, with most of the seats in the Senate.

Front 5

Plebians (Pg. 140)

Back 5

The general body of Roman citizens. They generally occupied the lower ranks of Roman society, although some of them managed to acquire significant wealth.

Front 6

Date of Punic Wars

Back 6

246-146 BC

Front 7

Carthage (Pg. 145)

Back 7

By the third century BC, this place dominated the western Mediterranean region. From the capital city of this place located on North African coast near modern Tunis, Carthaginians held rich lands from modern Algeria to Morocco, controlled the natural resources of southern Spain, and dominated the sea lanes of the western Mediterranean. Phoenician traders had founded this place in the 8th century BC, and the city's energetic merchants carried on business with Greeks, Etruscans, Celts, and eventually Romans.

Front 8

Phoenecian=Punic (Pg. 145)

Back 8

Phoenician traders had founded Carthage in the 8th century BC, and the city's energetic merchants carried on business with Greeks, Etruscans, Celts, and eventually Romans. Rome invaded Sicily, setting off the First Punic War, so called because the word Punic comes from the Latin word for Phoenician.

Front 9

Equestrain Class (Pg. 156)

Back 9

Normally abstained from public office but were often tied to political leaders by personal obligation. They were primarily well-to-do businessmen who prospered from the financial opportunities that Rome's territorial expansion provided.

Front 10

Gracchi Brothers (Pg. 158-159)

Back 10

They were two brothers who tried to attempt reforms. Tiberius Gracchus worked to limit the amount of public land that one man could possess. Gaius Gracchus turned his attention to the problem of extortion in the provinces, and attempted to stop corrupt abuse.

Front 11

Tiberius Gracchus' reform aims (Pg. 158-159)

Back 11

hAs a tribune, he convinced the Plebeian Assembly to pass a bill limiting the amount of public land that one man could possess. Excess land from wealthy landholders was to be redistributed in small lots to poor citizens. While the land redistribution was in progress, conservative senators in 133 BC clubbed Tiberius to death. Land redistribution did not cease, but a terrible precedent of public violence had been set.

Front 12

Caesar's conquest of Gaul (Pg. 158-159)

Back 12

He began a war against the Celtic tribes of Transalpine Gaul. A military genius, Caesar chronicled his ruthless tactics and victories in his Commentaries on the Gallic War, as famous today for its vigorous Latin as for its unflinching glimpse of Roman conquest, which resulted in the death or enslavement of about one million Celts. In eight years he conquered the modern France, Beligium, and the Rhineland, turning those territories into Roman provinces. He even briefly invaded Britain. His intrusion into Celtic lands led to their eventual Romanization. The French language developed from the Latin spoken by Roman conquerers, as did the other "Romance" languages: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian.

Front 13

Caesar's Assassination (Pg. 158-159)

Back 13

On march 15, 44 BC, a group of resentful and envious senators led by the idealistic Marcus Junius Brutus stabbed Caesar to death at a Senate meeting. The assassins claimed that they wanted to restore the Republic, but they had only unleashed another civil war.

Front 14

The four contributions of the Roman Republic to Western Civilization (166-167)

Back 14

1. The institution of the Republican government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.
2. Roman Republic transmitted to the West the ideal of civic virtue, the belief that the success of a Republic depended on its citizens' possession of personal traits that contributed to the common good. These virtues included gravitas (dignity, seriousness, and duty), piety, and justice.
3. Legal System. Based originally upon the Law of the Twelve Tables, and developed gradually through judicial interpretation and eventual codification in the late imperial period, Roman law became the basis of most Western legal systems.
4. Greco-Roman Culture. This distinctive Roman version of Hellenism represented a creative synthesis of greek and Roman culture.