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The Roman state existed in practice for XIII centuries, being the power which was impacting the history. Therefore, I decided that I would tell the history of ancient Rome in the articles below, which will not necessarily cover only the Eternal City.
I encourage you to send articles and point out any corrections or inaccuracies.
The Edict of Diocletian on Maximum Prices from 301 CE, known as Edictum Diocletiani et Collegarum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium, was intended to combat the progressive inflation in the Roman Empire by setting maximum prices on more than 1,400 products, slaves or services. The edict has survived to our times partly due to fragments of inscriptions (in Greek and Latin) on stone slabs found mainly in the eastern territories of the Empire, in 42 places.
The social inequalities prevailing in ancient Rome have always been large and only strengthened with the progressive territorial expansion of the Empire. Based on the preserved sources, we are able to collect information about how large disproportions prevailed in Roman society, and how much wealth or earnings could be obtained by citizens. I will try to present selected professional groups and their “outstanding” representatives. The property or earnings will ideally be compared with the earnings of an ordinary Roman soldier, slave prices and selected goods.
Animals played many different roles in the life of the Romans. At the outset, attention should be paid to the importance of animals in the Roman religion. Etruscan influences meant that the initially simple religious rites of the Romans became more and more complicated. They began to try to guess the intentions of the gods by reading them from natural phenomena, from the entrails of animals sacrificed, and especially from the liver, the colour and shape of which varied from one individual to another. Attempts were made to read the future from the flight and behaviour of birds (e.g. auspices). The flight of vultures or ravens and the manner in which sacrificed hens collected grain were observed.
Great architectural and engineering achievements of ancient Rome, like roads, aqueducts, the use of concrete and the invention of a dome, were preceded by centuries of the architectural development of ancient Greece. The Greek builders implemented numerous innovative solutions, which were then taken over and further developed by the Romans. Many of those were intended for the optical correction of buildings, which would look completely different without the use of these nearly invisible modifications.
September in Campania was far from what we had imagined. Together with a Polish couple, permanently living in the cool, rainy Scottish Highland, we naively expected room temperature, perfect for long hiking trips. Instead, the Campaign greeted us with over thirty degrees of heat and humidity of ninety per cent. In a word, horror.
In the second half of the third century BCE, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by three peoples divided into tribes. In the west, in the areas roughly equivalent to today’s Portugal, the Lusitannians lived. In the north were the lands of the Celtybers – a people created by the mixing of migrating Celts with the Iberians. The Celtybers created a culture distinct from both the Celts and the Iberians. The latter inhabited the south and middle of the peninsula.
In discussing the great figures of antiquity, I will start with African Elder Scipio (Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Maior), who lived in years 235-183 BCE
Reign of Domitian (81–96) is an interesting and at the same time controversial period in the history of the Roman Empire. Writers from senatorial circles described the emperor as cruel and authoritarian.
Ammianus Marcellinus is the last great historian of the dying Roman world civitatis. His “History of Rome” (Res gestae) was written at a special moment when the Roman Empire was slowly entering a time of irreversible transformations, which consequently led to the shaping of a new face of Europe.
The year 31 BCE began a new stage in the history of the Roman state. Octavian’s success, crowned in 27 BCE, created a new political system – the empire.
