The reconstruction shows what part of the great Ancient Rome looked like.
The model of Ancient Rome shows the island of Tiberina, the Circus of Massimo and the Theater of Marcellus.
Thermae (that is, baths) of Caracalla, which once consisted of huge halls, including gymnastics and massage rooms, porticoes, fountains, gardens, and a library. There were pools with cool, warm and hot water.
A section of an ancient city road that has survived to this day. The road leads to the Arch of Titus.
Modern European civilization began and grew around the Mediterranean Sea. It is enough to look at a map or a globe to understand that this place is unique. The Mediterranean Sea is quite easy to navigate: its shores are very winding, there are many islands, especially in the eastern part, and they are located close to each other. And ships plied the Mediterranean Sea back in the days when the speed of sailing depended on the amount of bread and beer eaten and drunk by the rowers, and the sail was considered a fashionable novelty.
The inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast recognized each other early. Enterprising merchants and pirates (usually these were the same people) introduced the surrounding barbarians to the ingenious inventions of the Egyptians and Babylonians. These include complex rituals of veneration of mysterious gods, the technique of making metal weapons and beautiful pottery, and the amazing art of recording human speech.
Two and a half thousand years ago, the most developed people in the Mediterranean were the Greeks. They knew how to make very beautiful things, their merchants traded along the entire coast, and their warriors were considered almost invincible. From Spain to Arabia, many people spoke the Greek dialect Koine ("common"). Poems, plays and learned treatises, letters to friends and reports to kings were written on it. Among a variety of peoples, townspeople went to gymnasiums, they watched theatrical performances in Greek, held running and wrestling competitions based on Greek models, and the palaces and temples of even minor kings and gods were decorated with Greek statues.
But the Greeks did not create an empire. They did not strive to create it, just as, for example, ants do not strive to combine their cozy homes into one super anthill. The Greeks were accustomed to living in small communities - poleis. They felt like one people, but first of all they remained Athenians, Spartans, Ephesians, Phocians, etc. The newcomers could live in someone else's polis for several generations, but never became its citizens.
Rome is another matter. The Romans were excellent organizers. They fought courageously, did not get discouraged by failures, and also knew how to negotiate.
Initially, people from different tribes settled on the Roman hills, however, they quickly found a common language and became respected patricians. With later settlers - plebeians- The patricians did not want to share power for a long time, but in the end they came to an agreement with them. By the time Rome began its large-scale conquests, patricians and plebeians had already merged into a single Roman people.
Gradually, its neighbors were drawn into the composition of this people - Italians. However, the largest source of replenishment of the Roman nation were foreign slaves.
In Greece, slaves were freed only in exceptional cases; in Rome this was rather the rule. Having received freedom, the former slave became freedman- a free person, although not independent, dependent on the former owner. Power over free people, from the Roman point of view, was much more honorable than power over slaves. Later, this view was inherited by the peoples who settled on the ruins of the Roman Empire. “In my country, government officials pride themselves on being servants of the public; to be its owner would be considered a disgrace,” said the famous English politician Winston Churchill in the 20th century.
It was also profitable to free slaves: for liberation, the master could set such a ransom that he would buy several slaves with the money received. In addition, Roman senators, who were not allowed by custom to earn money through “low” occupations, bought merchant ships and shares in companies through freedmen.
As for the former slaves, their grandchildren no longer bore the mark of slave origin and were equal to the freeborn.
What's the lesson here?
Only a big people can prove themselves. Thanks to the fact that the Romans did not hiss at the newcomers and did not shout “all sorts of people are here,” the Roman people remained numerous enough for several centuries to not only subjugate huge densely populated territories, but also keep them in obedience. If the Romans had been prone to disunity, like the Greeks, there would have been no trace of the Roman Empire. This means that there would not have been such a Europe as we see today, and in general the whole history would have gone differently.
And yet, every coin has two sides.
The new citizens adopted Roman customs. But they themselves influenced the indigenous Romans, who gradually dissolved among numerous strangers. The descendants of the freed slaves no longer wanted to risk their lives defending the Roman Empire. This ultimately led to her death.
True, this happened several centuries later. By that time, the Romans had left such a bright mark on history that it was no longer possible to erase it. (476 is considered to be the end date of the existence of the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern, called Byzantium, existed for another thousand years.)
Figures and facts
- The population of Ancient Rome at the peak of its power was a million people. Europe reached the same level only after 2000 years: at the beginning of the twentieth century, only a few European cities had a million inhabitants.The Roman Empire, according to various estimates, built from 1500 to 1800 cities. For comparison: at the beginning of the twentieth century there were about 700 of them throughout the Russian Empire. Almost all the major cities of Europe were founded by the Romans: Paris, London, Budapest, Vienna, Belgrade, Sofia, Milan, Turin, Bern...
14 aqueducts ranging from 15 to 80 kilometers long supplied water to the population of Ancient Rome. From them, water flowed to fountains, swimming pools, public baths and toilets, and even to individual houses of wealthy citizens. It was a real plumbing. In Europe, similar structures appeared more than 1000 years later.
The total length of the roads of the Roman Empire was, according to various estimates, from 250 to 300 thousand kilometers - this is seven and a half equators of the Earth! Of these, only 14 thousand kilometers ran through Italy itself, and the rest - in the provinces. Apart from dirt roads, 90 thousand kilometers were real highways - with hard surfaces, tunnels and bridges.
The famous Roman sewer - Cloaca Maxima - was built in the 7th-6th centuries BC and existed for 1000 years. Its dimensions were so large that workers could move by boat through the underground sewer channels.
Details for the curious
Roads of the Roman Empire
The powerful Roman Empire, huge in area (there are 36 states on its territory today) could not exist without roads. The ancient Romans were famous for their ability to build first-class roads, and they made them to last for centuries. It’s hard to believe, but part of the road network they built 2000 years ago in Europe was used for its intended purpose until the beginning of the twentieth century!The Roman road is a complex engineering structure. First, they dug a trench 1 m deep and drove oak piles into the bottom (especially if the soil was damp). The edges of the trench were reinforced with stone slabs and inside it a “layer cake” was created from large stone, smaller stone, sand, stone again, lime, and tile powder. The actual road surface - stone slabs - was placed on top of such a road cushion. Don't forget: everything was done by hand!
Along the edges of Roman roads there were stone mileposts. There were even road signs - tall stone columns indicating the distance to the nearest settlement and to Rome. And in Rome itself, the zero kilometer with a memorial sign was laid. There was a postal system on all highways. The speed of delivery of urgent messages was 150 km per day! Chernobyl was planted along the roads so that travelers could put its leaves in their sandals if their feet were sore.
For the Romans, nothing was impossible. They built roads on mountain passes and in the desert. In Northern Germany, ancient builders managed to lay cobblestone roads three meters wide even through swamps. To this day, tens of kilometers of Roman roads have been preserved there, along which a truck can drive without risk. And during the empire, these were military roads that could withstand heavy military equipment - siege weapons.
Romans(self-name - romani(lat. romani) and, less commonly used, Quirites(lat. Quirites); Also Roman people- lat. Populus Romanus) are a people who originated on the territory of the Apennine Peninsula, in the region of Latium, within the city of Rome. As a result of conquests, active colonization and the policy of assimilation of conquered peoples, the Romans became the main population of the European part of the Roman Empire. The Roman population of the province of Italy became the basis for the formation of the modern Italian nation.
A significant part of Roman citizens lived outside the Apennine Peninsula and adjacent islands: by 28 BC. e. there were about 100 colonies and municipalities outside modern Italy.
The science that studies Roman language and culture is called Romance Studies.
Number and settlement[ | ]
According to the census, the number of Roman citizens from 70-69 BC to 28 BC increased from 900 thousand to 4 million, and by 14 AD to 4.9 million. Such an increase of 4.5 times cannot be explained by natural growth, therefore, according to some scientists, women and children began to be included in the census, but the most common point of view is that in that era Roman citizenship was granted to all Italics. It is worth noting that the increase in the number of Roman citizens according to qualifications does not contradict the data on the depopulation of the ancient Romans, since the increase in the number of Roman citizens, in addition to natural growth, occurred due to the granting of citizenship to new groups of the population. For example, during the reform of Gracchus, a large number of poor people were included in the qualifications. Laws of 90 and 89 BC granted Roman citizenship to all Italics, but the process of actually obtaining citizenship for them was delayed. In 49 BC, Caesar granted Roman citizenship to the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul, and under Augustus the policy of granting Roman citizenship to the Romanized provinces (southern Spain, Sicily, Narbonese Gaul) continued.
The distribution of Roman citizens across the territory of the state is not known exactly, but Beloch gives the following calculation for Italy already for the year 14 AD: with a total population of 6-7 million, there were 2 million slaves and approximately 250 thousand foreign citizens. B. Ts. Urlanis writes about a significant number of Roman citizens living outside Italy: by 28 BC there were about 100 colonies and municipalities outside the territory of modern Italy. Peter Brant estimates the number of Roman citizens in the provinces to be around 375 thousand by 28 BC. Other estimates put the number of Roman citizens in the province around 300 thousand in 28-8 BC. There is also no exact data on the number of Roman citizens in Rome itself, but according to Beloch, in Rome there were 1,790 mansions of the Roman nobility with an average number of inhabitants of 50 people and 46,600 insula with an average number of inhabitants of 15 people.
The origins of the Roman ethnos[ | ]
It is known that several different nationalities lived on the territory of Italy - the Italic tribes, Etruscans, Ligurians, Greeks and Gallic tribes in the north. On the territory of Latium, south of the Tiber River, lived one of the large Italic tribes - the Latins; to the north of the Tiber were the cities of the Etruscans, and to the east a number of other Italic tribes - the Sabines, Umbrians, Aequi, Volscians and others. The first who thoroughly tried to study the issue of the roots of the Roman people can be considered B. G. Niebuhr, although his theory has a very specific character - for example, he considers the Pelasgians to be Etruscans, he considers the Latins to be Albanians, etc. However, he does not reject the possibility of the Trojans origin of the Romans, although he does not consider it possible to prove this.
The theory of the “Trojan origin” of the Romans originates in the legend that Aeneas in the 12th century BC. e. , after the defeat of Troy as a result of the Trojan War, arrived on the shores of Latium with the remnants of his people and, uniting with a local tribe, created a new people - the Latins, named after their king, whose daughter Aeneas married, and also founded the city of Lavinium, named in honor of his wife. The Romans considered Aeneas the unconditional progenitor of their people, which was reflected in all their beliefs. This legend was reproduced in the folk-historical work of Titus Livy “History from the Foundation of the City” and was then set forth by Virgil in the national Roman poem “Aeneid”. Tacitus speaks about the Trojan origin of the Romans, calling Troy “a monument of our origin.” Subsequently, after the Roman capture of Troas, the Roman Senate exempted the inhabitants of Ilium from taxes, considering them "relatives of the Roman people."
Formation of the Roman ethnos[ | ]
The emergence of the Roman people dates back to the 8th-5th centuries BC. e. Stratigraphic excavations at the Forum and Via Sacred, as well as at the Palatine, have provided rough confirmation of the traditional date for the founding of Rome (753 BC). Archaeological material also makes it possible to resolve the question of whether the city developed from a single center, as legend claims. Most archaeologists in our time are inclined to the point of view that recognizes the emergence of Rome as the result of a long and complex process of fusion (sinoicism) of individual isolated communities - settlements on the Roman hills.
According to legend, from the family of kings founded in Latium by Aeneas, comes the “founder of Rome” and the Roman people proper - Romulus. Ancient Roman historians “calculated” the moment of his founding of Rome with great accuracy: they date it to April 21, 753 BC. e. Of course, this date is completely artificial and can only be accepted very conditionally. However, the day of April 21 - the oldest pastoral holiday of Parilia - is important in the sense that it confirms the priority of cattle breeding over agriculture in relation to the pre-urban, “pre-Roman” population of the Tiber Valley.
According to the same legend, the population of Rome was formed from slaves and fugitives from Central Italy. The same circumstance prompted King Romulus to start a war and capture the women of the neighboring Sabine tribe, since a tiny number of newly-made residents had wives, and the war would strengthen and unite the population.
The brothers were faced with a choice: either to disband the runaway slaves who had gathered in large numbers around them and thereby lose all their power, or to found a new settlement with them. And that the inhabitants of Alba did not want to mingle with runaway slaves, nor to grant them citizenship rights, is clearly evident from the abduction of women: Romulus’s people dared not out of impudent mischief, but only out of necessity, for no one would marry them with good will. walked. It was not for nothing that they treated their wives taken by force with such extraordinary respect.
- Plutarch. Comparative biographies. - M.: Nauka, 1994. “Romulus”, 23, 24
The expansion of the borders of the Roman state is characterized by one feature: the Romans, capturing the defeated city of Latium, resettled half of its inhabitants to their city, and part of the indigenous Romans to the newly captured one. In this way, the mixing and assimilation of the inhabitants of neighboring towns with the Romans took place. Tacitus also mentions this. A similar fate befell Fidena, Veii, Alba Longa and other cities. Kryukov and Niebuhr in their works give a theory of the mixed ethnic character of the original Romans, both classes, so that the patricians are Latins with a slight admixture of Sabines, and the plebs are Latins with a strong admixture of Etruscans. If we summarize the entire “royal period” of Roman history, when the emergence of the Roman ethnos took place, we can say that as a result of assimilation, the Roman people were formed from three main components - the Latins, the Etruscans and tribes related to the Latins and living east of the Tiber, the main of which were Sabines - as Mommsen writes about it. According to legend, the ancient population of Rome was divided into three tribes - Ramny(Latin), Titia(Sabina) and Lucers(Etruscans).
According to Titus Livy, from 616 to 510 BC. e. Rome was ruled by a dynasty of Etruscan kings: Tarquin the Ancient, Servius Tullius, Tarquin the Proud, which was a consequence of active Etruscan expansion to the south. There was Etruscan immigration, which led to the emergence in Rome of an entire Etruscan quarter (Latin vicus Tuscus), and a significant cultural influence of the Etruscans on the Roman population. However, as Kovalev points out in his History of Rome, the Etruscan element was not so significant in comparison with the Latin-Sabine one.
Roman people during the Republic[ | ]
The Roman people received further development during the Republic. After the overthrow of tsarist power in the state, two socially designated classes, patrician families and plebeians, found themselves face to face and began an active struggle among themselves. The patricians - apparently the indigenous population of the city - had an advantage over the plebeians not so much in the property sense as in the legal sense, since the plebeians, essentially replenished by alien elements - immigrants, freedmen, etc. - were completely deprived of political rights, however, after the reforms of Servius Tullius, they formed the basis of the Roman army. Gradually, as a result of the struggle between the Senate and the plebs, the plebeians achieved equal rights with the patricians and rich plebeian families joined the Roman aristocracy, forming the nobility.
The Roman aristocracy continued the active foreign policy of the kings. Constant wars with its neighbors led Rome to subject all of Italy to them. Subjugating neighboring peoples, the Romans regulated relations with them using the right of citizenship.
The Roman Senate was reluctant to distribute citizenship and tried to preserve the existing status quo. Members of the Latin Union received citizenship after the Latin Wars, but most of the remaining Italics only after the War of the Allies, under the law of Lucius Julius Caesar 90 BC. e, and even then the Romans granted citizenship rights to all Italics, but assigned them to only 8 (or 10) new tribes, and not to all 35, which did not give them practically any socio-political influence.
After the subjugation of the Apennine Peninsula, the Romans began to actively recruit Italics into the army. The population of the city of Rome also grew due to the arriving mass of Italians. This was facilitated by the process of ruin and landlessness of the Italian peasantry. Colonies were founded throughout Italy for veterans and some of the inhabitants of Rome.
Through the citizenship system, military service, and a network of Roman colonies spread across the Apennine Peninsula, the Romans gradually assimilated the numerous tribes and nationalities living in Italy. The Latin language became dominant and gradually replaced all other languages. The Italic aristocracy gradually merged with the Roman one.
In addition, as a result of the Roman conquests outside Italy, non-Italic peoples gradually began to penetrate into the Roman people - mainly in the form of slaves and freedmen, as well as migrants to Rome from the provinces. These foreign elements are characterized by a diverse ethnic composition - Greeks, Phoenicians, Syrians, Gauls, Germans, etc. All of them gradually merged into the Roman plebs.
As a result of civil wars, many representatives of the old Roman aristocracy died. Of the known 56 patrician families, by the beginning of the 3rd century BC. e. only 18 remain. Their place is gradually being taken by people from the regions. The plebs at this time were actively constantly replenished with newcomers from the conquered regions and freedmen.
Transformation of the Roman ethnos during the Empire[ | ]
In the I-II centuries. n. e. There is a gradual dissolution of the Roman ethnos into the more numerous Italic (Italo-Roman) ethnos assimilated by it and newly formed. This process worsened even more during the Empire. Due to the fact that the Roman people were formed from Italics and received constant supply from them in the form of immigrants flocking from all over Italy and joining the plebs, the very concept of a Roman citizen implied a certain continuity - both family and cultural-ethnic.
During the empire, the situation began to change. It was no longer the senate, but the emperor who determined who would be granted citizenship, guided by personal motives. The old Roman aristocracy was disappearing. Its place was taken by a new one, formed according to the principle of wealth, and its ethnic origin in most cases was not Italian, but Eastern.
In addition, a means of assimilation of conquered non-Italic peoples was service in the Roman army, which received particular intensity after the reform carried out by Gaius Marius (reform of the Roman army 107 BC). Peregrines, having served in the auxiliary troops, and subsequently in the legions, received the right of citizenship. During the period of the empire, the legions located on the borders began to be recruited at the place of deployment, which led to the active Romanization of the nearby population.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Roman people themselves were “drowned in the mass of Italics,” Roman culture and the Latin language became dominant in the western part of the empire. The emperors distributed citizenship to the inhabitants of the empire and introduced the aristocracy from the provinces into the Senate. This process was formalized legally by the Edict of Emperor Caracalla in 212, which granted Roman citizenship to the entire free population of the empire (Edict of Caracalla). Through the citizenship system, colonies and military service by the 3rd century AD. e. non-Italic peoples living in Gaul, Spain, North-West Africa and the Balkans gradually assimilated and began to consider themselves Romans - the so-called “Romanization process”, and these territories became known as “Old Romagna”. This process only superficially affected Roman Britain, due to its remoteness from the center, and practically did not affect the eastern provinces, since their culture, mostly Hellenic, was in no way inferior to the Roman one. Thus, a people called the Gallo-Romans arose in Gaul, in Spain - the Ibero-Romans, in Italy - the Italo-Romans, in the Balkans - the Illyro-Romans, in Dacia - the Daco-Romans, in Roman Africa - the Afro-Romans, in The Raetii are Rhaeto-Romans. All of them were united by a common culture - Roman, a single language - folk Latin, belonging to the same state, common laws, and the emergence of a single religion - Christianity - further consolidated the ethnic groups.
Transformation of the Roman people into modern Romanesque peoples[ | ]
After the loss of statehood by the Romans, the Roman people continued to exist under the rule of the German kings. A characteristic ethnic feature of the Romans during this period was political and military passivity, as well as intensive activity in the religious field, which was repeatedly noted by historians. During the collapse of the Western Empire, which formally ended in 476, but in fact in 480, after the death of the last legitimate emperor Julius Nepos, the integrity of Mediterranean communications was disrupted, and the Roman provinces fell under the rule of the Germans, and each of the Romanesque regions of the former empire began develop independently on the basis of the autochthonous element, Roman culture and alien barbarian tribes.
Procopius of Caesarea designated Aetius Flavius as the “last Roman” - the last outstanding Roman commander, famous for his victories. The last national state of the Romans is considered to be the Soissons region of the comite of Syagria in Gaul, which fell to the onslaught of the Franks in 486. Such Roman enclaves existed both in Gaul and in Spain and, possibly, in Britain - for example, Ambrosius Aurelian, prototype of King Arthur.
According to rough estimates, the population of the Roman Empire at this time was 50-60 million people. Roman citizens made up approximately 10 percent of the total population and lived mainly in Italy. Non-citizens were called foreigners (peregrini) in Rome.
Two centuries later, at the beginning of the 3rd century. AD By decree of Emperor Caracalla, all free subjects of the empire received the rights of Roman citizenship, that is, from peregrines they became Romans. Thus, a Roman is not an ethnic concept, but a legal one.
At the same time, even after the spread of Roman citizenship throughout the entire territory of the empire, ancient writers often called the inhabitants of Rome itself and Italy, whose native language was Latin, Romans. Even having received Roman citizenship, the Greeks for a long time considered themselves not Romans, but Hellenes, and only in the era of the Late Empire did residents of the eastern Greek-speaking regions of the empire begin to recognize themselves as Romans (in Greek, Romans).
The official state language of the empire was Latin. In the first centuries AD, it spread widely outside Italy in the western provinces, not only as the language of the administration and the army, but also as the spoken language of the educated members of the local urban elites, and in some coastal areas also of a large part of the ordinary population.
By the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Latin had largely replaced the local spoken languages throughout its territory. Most inhabitants of the Roman West considered it their mother tongue and themselves Romans. The Roman aristocracy itself, as well as a significant part of the aristocracy of the western provinces, was bilingual, speaking fluently in both Latin and Greek. Many Roman aristocrats spoke Greek almost better than their native Latin and used to call them their two native languages. Emperor Tiberius, speaking in the Senate, always spoke Latin, but, leaving, muttered curses through his teeth at the disgustingly obsequious senators in his beloved Greek.
In the eastern Greek-speaking provinces of the Roman Empire, the Latin language did not gain any significant distribution. It was the language of the Roman army and Roman law. Greek was not only the most common spoken language, but also the second state language, which Roman administrators in the East used much more often than the first.
The Greek language had the same privileged position in the Roman East as Latin did in the West. In cities, and in many areas and villages, it replaced local spoken languages. In Asia Minor the rural population spoke Greek, in Syria and Palestine Greek and Aramaic (or Greek and Arabic), in Egypt Greek and Egyptian.
Greek aristocrats and writers were confident of their cultural superiority over all other peoples. Only for the Romans did some of them make an exception, calling them the younger brothers of the Greeks, and Latin a corrupted version of the Greek language. Some Greek philosophers believed that even the gods spoke Greek to each other. Educated Greeks, as a rule, did not know Latin or any other foreign languages and did not experience any difficulties because of this, no matter where fate took them. They could communicate with people in their circle in Greek in any major city of the Roman Empire.
The situation changes dramatically in the era of the Late Empire. In the Roman West, the zone of distribution of the Greek language sharply narrowed. Apart from the inhabitants of the ancient Greek colonies, only people belonging to a narrow layer of the highest Roman nobility can now speak Greek. Some Roman writers began to assert at this time that the Latin language was in all respects richer and higher than Greek. Some writers of Greek origin even began to write their works in Latin.
Most of the inhabitants of the western provinces of the Roman Empire, located in Europe, were Celts (Gauls) and spoke their native language, many words from which were borrowed from Latin. However, the gradual transformation of the Celts into the Romans ultimately led to the disappearance of their native language. The Celtic language and ancient Celtic culture were preserved only in modern Ireland, perhaps the only country inhabited by Celts that was never conquered by Rome.
Outside the empire, tribes of Germans lived north of the Rhine and Danube. They were influenced by the Latin language and ancient culture, but thanks to independence from Rome they were able to preserve their native language and their traditions and customs.
In Roman Africa, the main language for a long time was Punic, which was initially spoken by the inhabitants of the colonies founded in Africa by the Phoenicians (primarily Carthage), and then began to be used by the local tribes surrounding these colonies. During the era of the empire, the Punic language functioned for a long time in parallel with Latin and was supplanted by it (and not completely) only on the eve of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Thus, a significant part of the population of the Roman provinces was bilingual. In the West, in addition to their native language, people more or less communicated in Latin, in the East in Greek.
Almost all the languages of the Roman Empire belong to two large language families: Latin, Greek, Celtic (Gallic) and Germanic, then widespread in Europe and Asia Minor, belong to the Indo-European family, and Aramaic, Arabic, Egyptian and Punic, widespread in the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa to Semitic-Hamitic (Afroasiatic).
The empire's population was a rich amalgam of peoples, languages, cultures and traditions. A long stay under Roman rule ultimately led to the assimilation and disappearance of non-ancient cultures, to the transformation of everyone into Greeks or Romans. Those who sought to preserve their traditions, religion and culture, such as the Jews and Egyptians, became outcasts in the minds of the central government and the wider population. They were tolerated, but not loved.
23.0. The Italian peninsula, before its complete conquest by the Romans, was inhabited by peoples of various origins. The most significant of them were the Greek colonists in the south, the Latins in the center and the Etruscans who lived north of the Tiber. The Etruscans may have come from Asia. Towards the end of republican rule (beginning of the 1st century BC) they were famous for their augur books (libri augurales) or interpretations of oracles and especially for haruspices - the study of the entrails of a sacrificed animal. None of these texts have survived to this day. Archaeological sources cannot give us a satisfactory idea of the beliefs of the Etruscans.
23.1. The Indo-European people of the Latins, concentrated first in the central region, called Ancient Latium, founded the city (urbs) of Rome on April 21, 753 BC. In the VI century. BC. The territorial expansion of the Romans begins at the expense of other Latins and neighboring tribes. In Rome there are seven more or less mythical kings, of which the first four were Latins, and the other three were Etruscans. Tarquinius the Proud, the last of these, was apparently expelled by the population of Rome, where republican rule was established. The Republic continues its expansionist policy in the Mediterranean region, as a result of which the role of commanders who seek to concentrate all state functions in their hands is increasing. In 45 BC. the most talented of them, Julius Caesar, proclaims himself dictator and emperor for life, but on March 15, 44, he dies under the daggers of a group of Republican senators. His nephew Octavian, who took the honorary title of Augustus, would become emperor in 27, but the republican institutions would formally be preserved. After his death in 14 AD, at the age of seventy-six, Augustus was canonized as a god. The Roman Empire, which in the 2nd century. AD occupies the entire Mediterranean basin, Asia Minor, Western, Central and South-Eastern Europe, in 395 it will be divided into Western and Eastern or Byzantine (after the name of the capital Constantinople founded in 330 by Constantine I on the site of the ancient city of Byzantium): the first of them will be conquered by the Germans in 476, and the second by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
23.2. The basis of the most ancient layer of Roman religion is the divine pantheon and mythology, which were strongly influenced by Greek beliefs. On the other hand, the abundance of autochthonous deities and archaic, sometimes mysterious rituals make it possible to guess the true Indo-European heritage of the Romans, interpreted in the spirit of “historicization” - the term of Georges Dumezil, who notes, in particular, that the description of the war between the Romans and the Sabines in the book of Titus Livy (64 or 59 BC - 17 AD) corresponds to purely mythological episodes among other Indo-European peoples. The same J. Dumézil noted the presence of an Indo-European three-member ideology in the Roman triad: Jupiter (supreme power), Mars (military function), Quirinus (function of breadwinner and protector). The ancient priestly class includes the king (rexsacrorum), whose religious function will continue in the era of the Republic, the flamines of the three gods or senior flamines (flamins of Jupiter, flamines of Mars, flamines of Quirinus) and the supreme pontiff or head of all priests - this post, starting with Caesar, will become an integral part of the imperial title.
The Roman religion is often compared to Judaism and Confucianism. Like the first, it places great emphasis on a specific historical event; like the second, it professes religious respect for tradition and the need for social duty, expressed by the concept of “piety.”
23.2.1. The very founding of Rome, as has been emphasized many times, was of a religious nature. For the worship of local deities, a circle inside the city was intended, marked with stones and called pomerium (romerius). The Campus Martius, where the purifying sacrifice of a bull, wild boar and ram was performed every five years, was located outside this sacred zone, where there was a categorical ban on the exercise of military power. Deities of later origin, even the most important ones such as Juno Regina, were placed outside the pomerium, mainly on the Aventine Hill (an exception was made for the Temple of Castor, built inside the pomerium by the dictator Aulus Postumius in the 5th century). Archaic deities of Pomerium often have strange names, functions and appearance: the goddess of the spring equinox Angerona, the goddess of married women Matuta, etc.
The ancient triad Jupiter-Mars-Quirinus, supported by the Two-Faced Janus and the chthonic goddess Vesta, is replaced in the Tarquinian era by a new triad: Jupiter Optimus Maximus-Juno-Minerva. These gods, corresponding to Zeus, Hera and Athena, now have statues erected to them. The dictator Aulus Postumius establishes another triad on the Aventine Hill: Ceres (Demeter), Liber (Dionysus), Libera (Core) (see 8.3). The Romans incorporated local cults into their religion as they occupied the territory of neighboring gods. Among others, the famous lunar goddess Diana of Nemia (or Aricia), the patroness of runaway slaves, moved to the Aventine.
23.2.2. The home cult, the center of which was the family hearth, consisted of animal sacrifices, offerings of food and flowers as gifts to the ancestors - Larams and Penates, as well as the patron spirit of the house. The wedding was celebrated in a dwelling under the auspices of female deities (Tellus, Ceres). Later, Juno will become the guarantor of the family union. Twice a year the city commemorated the souls of the dead - Mana and Lemur, who returned to earth and ate food laid on their graves.
Since 399 BC The Romans increasingly made sacrifices, called lectisternia, to paired groups of gods, whose statues were exhibited in temples (Apollo-Latona, Hercules-Diana, Mercury-Neptune).
23.2.3. The Roman priests formed a college that included the rex sacrorum, the pontiffs and their head - the Supreme Pontiff, three senior flamines and twelve junior flamines. The pontifical college included six Vestals, chosen at the ages of six to ten for a thirty-year service to Vesta, during which they were required to remain virgins. If the ban was violated, they were walled up alive. A similar corporation existed in the Inca Empire. The duty of the Vestals was to maintain the sacred fire.
The College of Augurs used Etruscan (libri haruspicini, libri rituales and libri fulgurales) and Greek oracles (Sibylline books, preserved in Jewish and Christian adaptations) to establish favorable and unfavorable days. In addition, in Rome there were specific religious formations - the Fezials, the Salii, the patrons of the fields, the Arval brothers, the Luperci, who, during the Lupercalia celebrated on February 15, whipped women with goatskin belts to ensure their fertility (the word Lupa, she-wolf, was a synonym for “prostitute” and more broadly - sexual unbridledness; the mystical founder of the city Romulus and his brother Remus were suckled by a she-wolf).
23.3. As Arnaldo Momigliano rightly noted, the religious zeal of the Romans increased noticeably during the imperial era. Caesar and Augustus were canonized as gods after their deaths. Although this did not lead to the automatic deification of their successors, a precedent was created that came into practice later, when the emperor and even his relatives often began to be deified during their lifetime. Likewise, Caesar carried out the indissoluble fusion of two functions: the emperor and the religious head - the supreme pontiff. Like the cult of the ancient gods, the cult of the emperor received its own priests and its own rituals. Temples were dedicated to the emperors, either individually or associated with some revered predecessor or with the later deity Roma, the eponym of the city. In the 3rd century. emperors tend to identify themselves with the gods: Septimius Severus and his wife Julia Domna are revered as Jupiter and Juno.
23.4. The cult of the emperors is an innovation that marked the end of traditional Roman religion, its transition to the stage of decline or kitsch. Anything viable in this era can only be discussed in relation to intellectual synthesis in the spirit of Hellenism, on the one hand (see 33), and to secret cults, on the other (see 26). Trying to stop the massive spread of Christianity, pagan writers resort to Platonic exegesis of ancient myths, thereby giving them a comprehensive symbolic meaning. Celsus in the 2nd century, Porphyry in the 3rd century, Emperor Julian, the “pagan party” of Symmachus and the Platonists Macrobius and Servius at the end of the 4th century. are trying to contrast Christian totalitarianism with a pluralistic religious vision based on Platonic hermeneutics, thereby seeking to rehabilitate and ennoble all the beliefs of the past - even those that at first glance most offended reason. The Roman elite would cultivate these beliefs until the fall of the Empire, after which they would continue their underground existence in Byzantium.
23.5. Bibliography. Eliade, H 2, 161–68; R. Schilling, Roman Religion: The Early Period, in ER 13, 445–61; A. Momigliano, The Imperial Period, in ER 13, 462–71 (with extensive bibliography).
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
The historiography of the Romanians was not interpreted in any way. In different eras they were either attributed Roman roots, or they insisted on the enormous influence of other tribes living on the territory of modern Romania. Under Ceausescu, both claims were rejected. The politician promoted the ethnic purity of the people, questioning any genetic and cultural influence of other tribes and nationalities.
However, in the second verse of the Romanian national anthem there is an explicit reference to the origins of its people:
“It’s now or never to prove to the world,
That Roman blood still flows in these hands
And in our chest we keep the name with pride
The winner in battles, the name of Trajan."
The hymn talks about the Roman emperor Trajan, famous for his military exploits. It was under him that an army of legionnaires conquered Romanian territories, and the Thracian Dacians living on them were forced to become Roman subjects.
Dacians - the warlike ancestors of the Romanians
In the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the Dacians are mentioned as the most numerous people after the Indians. They lived in the territory of what is now Romania and the entire Balkan Peninsula. If not for territorial fragmentation, the Thracian Dacians would have become a dangerous military force of those times.But even in their disunited state they posed a serious threat. Describing the Dacian warriors, Herodotus spoke about their boundless courage. The warriors considered themselves immortal, so they died with a smile on their lips. The Dacians rejoiced at the opportunity to die in battle, because this gave them the opportunity after death to go to their god Zalmoxis.
The Dacians flourished during the reign of Burebista, a contemporary of Caesar. The tribe occupied the territory from the Northern Carpathians to the Balkan Mountains, from the Middle Danube to the Black Sea. United by a warlike king, the Dacians repeatedly intervened in the affairs of neighboring peoples. They destroyed the Celts who encroached on their territory, subjugated part of the Greek cities and even tried to influence the outcome of the war between Pompey and Caesar.
Conquest of Dacia by Roman legions
After the overthrow of Burebista, the Dacian kingdom fell into five parts, but still continued to threaten the Romans. Under the leadership of the experienced commander Decebalus, warring tribes from time to time attacked the possessions of the Roman Empire, which forced them to make peace with them. The treaty with the Dacians was extremely unfavorable for the Romans, despite the fact that, under its terms, Decebalus admitted himself defeated.
The young Emperor Trajan could not put up with this state of affairs. He decided to conquer Dacia. Having completely exhausted the military power of his opponents in exhausting battles, Trajan achieved the surrender of Decebalus. As a result, the Dacians lost most of their territories, which became Roman provinces. This was precisely the starting point in the gradual merging of locals and Romans.
Genetic connection between Romanians and Romans
For a century and a half, Roman legionnaires were sent to settle in Dacia. Only a small part of them came with their families, while the majority entered into relationships with Thracian women.
The settled legionnaires remained in Dacia even after it had lost its strategic importance for the Roman Empire, and all military nobility were recalled from there. This did not add stability to the region: soon the migration of warlike peoples began through the territory of modern Romania. At different times, Slavs, Huns, Visigoths, Avars, and Gepids passed through Dacia. Despite this, it continued to be considered a Roman province.
Origin of the Romanian language
A century and a half of colonization significantly influenced the Dacians. The Romans made Latin the official language of the conquered territories, imposing it on the local population at all levels. Trying to adapt, the Dacians modernized Latin so much that in some provinces it was unrecognizable. However, the language policy produced its results: all indigenous residents mastered Latin at one level or another.
Interestingly, the Slavs and other ethnic groups that raided the Dacians after the Romans did not have a significant influence on their language. The indigenous people continued to be predominantly Latin-speaking. Over time, Latin became so widespread that many Romanians began to consider it their native language.
Modern Romanian has not lost its Roman roots. It is included in the Balkan-Roman subgroup, and, moreover, is one of the most common in it. Having developed on the basis of the spoken Latin of the colonists and the dialect of the ancient Dacians, Romanian became the state and main spoken language of the entire country.
Romanians are direct descendants of the ancient Romans
The period of Roman rule over Dacia was not very long, but its influence on the future Romanian people turned out to be colossal. Whatever tribes would not subsequently come to the Thracian Dacians - they would fall under the residual influence of the Roman Empire and become Romanized.
This is eloquently evidenced by the name that modern Romania received. Remaining the outskirts of the Roman Empire for almost two centuries, and subsequently surviving debilitating wars and numerous attacks by different peoples, at the end of the 19th century the state became Romania (in Russian: Romania). An approximate translation of the term sounds like “country of the Romans.” It was converted from the Latin word romanus (“Roman”), which was the name given to the indigenous population who mixed with the migrant legionnaires during the reign of the Romans.
Anyone interested in history will be interested to know
- “thumbs up” and “thumbs down.”