notes

Assassination and Another Caesar
Caesar had become a Greek-style tyrant- and there was a traditional and honorable way of getting rid of tyrants. On the ides of March, 44 B.C., Caesar appeared in the Senate house, unarmed and unguarded, according to his custom, and a crowd of senators struck him down with their daggers. Caesar's murder did not restore the Republic; instead, his death produced they another crop of warlords and yet more bouts of civil war. The main contenders were Mark Antony, once a commander under Caesar and now a consul; the leading assassins, Brutus and Cassius; and Caesar's grandnephew and adopted son, the youthful Octavian Caesar. Mark Antony and Octavian were rival loyalists of Caesar, and each managed to attract some of Caesar's legions, which they used to fight a brutal war against each other in Italy. Then, however, they joined forces against Caesar's assassins; formed another triumvirate together with a lesser warlord, Marcus Lepidus; eliminated opponents in a new reign of terror in Rome; and defeated Cassius and Brutus in battle in Greece.

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Within the empire, the Roman version of Greco-Roman civilization prevailed in the Western territories, and the Greek version was dominant in the East. Roman literature and art, philosophy and law, architecture and engineering were often inspired by Greek models, but Roman achievements in these fields eventually equaled or surpassed those of the Greeks and became just as much an inspiration and model for future Western development.

West- native languages of conquered European barbarian peoples began to be replaced by Latin
East- Egyptian hieroglyphic writing fell out of use.

LO1(rule of emperors)
Soon after Octavian's triumph at Actium, the Senate conferred on him a new title, Augustus, the name under which he has gone down in history. Now he was the supreme ruler.

Augustus
-Confirmed as commander by arrangement with the Senate in 27 B.C.
-In return of being confirmed as commander, he permitted the Senate to supervise Italy and the city of Rome, as well as provinces where no soldiers were stationed
-He had proscribed and put to death many opponents in the Senate and replaced them with his friends and allies.
-He still summoned the assemblies from time to time
-He followed the dictator's even more arrogant-seeming example of accepting religious worship of himself.
-He also acquired the title "Father of the Fatherland"
-He passed laws of adultery by women and against both men and women who failed to marry
-he showed respect for local institutions and encouraged provincial leaders to fulfill their responsibilities
-He married a woman named Livia, but never managed to have children
-He brought the system of government appointments under his personal control.
-He reorganized the army to ensure the loyalty of the rank-and-file soldiers
-Augustus and his successors broke with the Roman tradition of citizen-soldiers to create the world's first professional standing army.

Augustus was convinced that if Rome's new peace and stability were to last, the changes he had made in its government system must continue after his death. Having no son's of his own, Augustus finally settled on Tiberius, Livia's son from her first marriage, as the next princeps. Tiberius was already experienced in government and trusted by the army, for Augustus had made sure that men of his family got their share of leading magistracies and high military commands. Augustus adopted Tiberius as his own son, so as to give him the necessary hereditary standing.

In this way, the Augustan settlement brought two hundred years of relative stability and prosperity that have gone down in history as the Pax Romana, the era of the Roman Peace