Through these pages you can reach many different aspects of Ancient Rome. We have included as many of the salient features of >1000 years of ancient Roman history as possible and a good number of curiosities.
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TimeLine of Ancient Rome
skip through time, emperors and leaders, events, art and monuments which have marked the rise and fall of Ancient Rome.
A day at the Races in Ancient Rome’s Circus Maximus
Why not go to see the gladiators of ancient rome. Free tickets and food! (Well, they were free
2000 years ago!)
Maps of ancient rome: have a look at ancient Rome, the city and geography of the empire both in new and antique formats.
Christian Persecutions. Read all about it! They got nasty.
Yum yum: Food in Ancient Rome.
The history of Ancient Rome lasted a full thousand years from its founding myths of Aeneas and Romulus & Remus all the way through its periods of greatness and infamy with men such as Caesar, Augustus and Nero.
Even today buildings such as the Pantheon and the Colosseum continue to rank amongst the greatest architectural achievements.
The cruelty of the Colosseum is perhaps the epitome of how different the Romans of Ancient Rome could be from us. Although not all Romans were in agreement with the gratuitous slaughter of men and animals we can’t but be surprised at how a great civilization might turn death and slaughter into a mass spectacle. The population of ancient Rome, smartly dressed and seated according to social class, looked on to the arena from above and cheered.
In fact it was quite the norm to pay your respects and believe in a number of gods: In the household you had your house and family spirits called the Lares, whilst in public you could follow the public gods such as Jupiter and Co. What few people know is that theauthorities of ancient rome had little against anyone practicing whatever religion (or religions) they pleased. So long as it was done in private and didn’t go against public decency, such as the cult of Dionysus did, or go against the state itself, such as Christianity did.
A love for the luxuries of the Orient, barbarian pressure, a lack of new territorial conquests and a faltering supply of slaves brought inevitable economic hardships. Ancient Rome succumbed to cardiac arrest in the year 473AD under the weight of repeated barbarian invasions and a flagging economy.
Ancient Rome had become its own worst enemy and the invading barbarians minted coinage with the words “Invicta Roma” -Rome unconquered- as if they were there to save it from itself and bring back its ancient valour. That inheritance was also claimed by many others, such as Charlemagne, Karl der Grosser, founder of the “Holy Roman Empire”.
The Holy Roman Empire had little to do with ancient Rome but it did perpetuate its inheritance of Christian belief and certain notions of law & government (I’m not sure about popular freedom though). The inspiration of the ideal and “eternal city” of Rome led by great men such as Caesar became a holy empire led by a Kaiser.
Even the concepts of royalty which grew up in the thirteenth century and the singular doctrines of “divine right” have their roots in the
And then we should not forget the other great inheritance of ancient Rome, often forgotten but so fundamental to the West: “New Rome“. When the empire was falling under the weight of its own size and venerable age it was split in halfso that it might be governed more easily. Emperor Constantine founded a new capital for the eastern half which he called Constantinople also known as “New Rome” and now better known as Istanbul.
In spite of the fall of the Roman empire of the West and the internal struggles of the Middle Ages, the Roman empire of the East, headed by New Rome, fought on and survived into the Renaissance. It fell in 1453 after the greed of the Venetians, the might of the Turks and modern cannon technology managed to breach its hitherto impregnable walls. Emperor Constantine’s foresight in any case lasted long enough to provide that bulwark of defense against the East which allowed the West of today to rise from the ashes like a phoenix.
And what of Ancient Rome? For a while the buildings were subjected to pillaging of materials or simply abandoned. A few temples were transformed into churches