6. The World of Rome, ca. 1000 B.C.E.–400 C.E.

Like the Persians under Cyrus, the Mauryans under Chandragupta, and the Macedonians under Alexander, the Romans conquered vast territories. With a republican government under the leadership of the Senate, a political assembly whose members were primarily wealthy landowners, the Romans conquered all of Italy, then the western Mediterranean basin, and then areas in the East that had been part of Alexander the Great’s empire. As they did, they learned about and incorporated Greek art, literature, philosophy, and religion, but the wars of conquest also led to serious problems that the Senate proved unable to handle. After a grim period of civil war that ended in 31 B.C.E., the emperor Augustus restored peace and expanded Roman power and law as far east as the Euphrates River, creating the institution that the modern world calls the “Roman Empire.” Later emperors extended Roman authority farther still, so that at its largest the Roman Empire stretched from England to Egypt and from Portugal to Persia.

Roman history is generally divided into three periods: the monarchical period, traditionally dated from 753 B.C.E. to 509 B.C.E., in which the city of Rome was ruled by kings; the republic, traditionally dated from 509 B.C.E. to 27 B.C.E., in which it was ruled by the Senate; and the empire, from 27 B.C.E. to 476 C.E., in which Roman territories were ruled by an emperor.