Section 3 – The Late Republic

What you should have learned from the reading

Roman Territory Grows• With the Romans’ creating a

successful republic, many surrounding areas attacked in order to take over the city.

• Rome’s organized army was able to successfully control most of the Italian peninsula.

• The army was broken into legions, or groups of 6,000 soldier.

• Legions were further broken into groups of 100 soldiers, called centuries.

6,000

100

Roman Economy Flourishes

• As Rome grew, farmers could no longer grow enough food to support the population.

• Merchants began to trade with surrounding lands.

• In order to pay for the needed goods, Romans made coins out of precious metals, which began to show up around the Mediterranean Sea.

The Punic Wars

• Romans began to expand their territory beyond just the Italian Peninsula.

• The Punic Wars were one of the biggest wars they fought.

• The Punic Wars were fought against Carthage, a city in North Africa. Hannibal was leader of

Carthage during the 2nd

Punic War.

Hannibal used over

80 elephants

The Punic Wars• Punic War #1 : Carthage sent

troops to Sicily, so the Romans spent 20 years kicking them out and taking over the island.

• Punic War #2 : Carthage attacked the city of Rome and nearly won. However, Hannibal lost when Rome attacked Carthage, causing Hannibal to return home.

• Punic War #3 : Rome attacked Carthage, won the war, burned the city, and took survivors home as slaves. Rome took over northern Africa too.

The Punic Wars lasted 118 years.

After the Punic Wars, Rome controlled

most of the land around the M. Sea.

Even though Romans typically changed conquered

lands to reflect Roman ideas, the actually adopted

many Greek ideas after conquering Greece.

Philoso

phy ReligionLiterature

Education

So, Things Are Great in Rome, Right?

• Wrong! The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer.

• Not only were the rich getting richer, but they were doing it by using public land for farming purposes and doing so illegally.

• As you can imagine, this upset many poor Romans.

The Gracchus Brother : Tiberius

and Gaius

Tiberius wanted to use the illegally stolen land for farms for the poor, which caused

riots. Tiberius was a casualty of those riots.

Gaius was also killed for his ideas to help

poor Romans.

More Change for Rome : Marius and Sulla

• The Roman army began to run out of soldiers.

• Gaius Marius, a consul at the time, decided to invite the poor to join the army.

• This allowed for the poor to earn money finally, which made them respect Marius a great deal!

Gaius Marius

Lucius Cornelius

Sulla

Sulla later named himself dictator after winning a civil

war against Marius.

SPARTACUSSSSSS!!!!!

• Further problems for Rome arose when a former gladiator led a revolt of slaves.

• Spartacus’ army was able to defeat a portion of the Roman army and even take over much of southern Italy.

However, when Spartacus eventually died in battle, his rebellion fell apart. The Roman government executed 6,000

slaves in hopes of keeping them from rebelling again.

Spartacus is all over the place!