Monday, December 2, 2013

Middle Ages

4.1-
  • Byzantine Empire- no clue on who they are.. 
  • Franks- i think they are french
  • Vikings- drunk angry pillagers
  • Muslims- islam
im probably at a 1 right now

4.2
  • i know what social classes are- like low, medium, and high
probably at a 1

4.3
  • Crusades are like holy ransacking 
probably at a .5

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Nero

Ruled between 54 - 68



Background:
  • Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor
  • Nero was born in 37 A.D., the nephew of the emperor. 
  • After his father’s death, his mother married his uncle and persuaded him to name Nero his successor.
  • Nero took the throne at 17, rebuffed his mother’s attempts to control him, and had her killed.
  • Nero was born as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, who was the great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustus.
  •  He was educated in the classical tradition by the philosopher Seneca and studied Greek, philosophy and rhetoric. 
Achievements 
  • During his reign, Nero focused much of his attention on diplomacy, trade, and enhancing the cultural life of the Empire. 
  • During his reign, the redoubtable general Corbulo conducted a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire
  • Nero annexed the Bosporan Kingdom to the Empire and began the First Roman–Jewish War.
  • Until the year 59, Nero was described as a generous and reasonable leader. 
  • He eliminated capital punishment, lowered taxes and allowed slaves to bring complaints against their masters.
  • He supported the arts and athletics above gladiator entertainment and gave aid to other cities in crisis. 
  • Although he was known for his nighttime frolicking, his actions were good-natured, if irresponsible and self-indulgent.
  •  after Agrippina’s murder, Nero descended into a hedonic lifestyle that was marked not just by lavish self-indulgence but tyranny. He spent exorbitant amounts of money on artistic pursuits and around 59 A.D., began to give public performances as a poet and lyre player,
Cause of Death: 
  • In 68, he committed suicide when the empire revolted.
Historical Significance 
  • becoming an emperor at the age of 17 years old. 
  • During his leadership, he enhanced the trade and cultural life of Romans. He also had a successful war through general Corbulo which resulted in peaceful negotiations with the Parthian Empire.
  • used the peoples money to build a pleasure house for himself- after death, the people  buried it to forget about his reign. 






Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Spartacus


BLOG?: Was Spartacus a hero or villain, and why?


WHO was Spartacus?
Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who led a slave revolt with an army numbering in the tens of thousands. 

WHAT did he do?
He defeated Roman forces over half a dozen times, marching his people up and down the Italian peninsula until he was killed in battle in April 71 B.C.

WHY did he do it?

to leave Italy-gain freedom from Romans

WHEN did it happen?
Born around 109 BC
Revolt: 73–71 BC

WHERE did it happen? 
Italy mostly

HOW did it end?
Spartacus was killed in battle in 71 BC

WAS HE A HERO OR A VILLAIN?

Hero- he brought slaves to freedom 

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Roman Culture

ROMAN CLOTHING

*Ancient Rome was very much a “face-to-face” society (actually more of an “in-your-face” society), and public display and recognition of status were an essential part of having status.



*Much of Roman clothing was designed to reveal the social status of its wearer, particularly for freeborn men. In typical Roman fashion, the more distinguished the wearer, the more his dress was distinctively marked, while the dress of the lowest classes was often not marked at all.
* Typically, Roman garments were made of wool. In the early Republic, women spun the fleece and created the clothing  the home, and doubtless many women of the less wealthy classes continued this practice throughout the history of Rome.
*The toga was the national garment of Rome, and the color of the toga was significant, marking differences in age and status:


  • toga virilis also called toga pura: unadorned toga in the off-white color of the undyed wool that was worn by adult male citizens
  • toga praetexta: off-white toga with a broad purple border shown in the right-hand drawing. The only adults allowed to wear this toga were curule magistrates (curule aedile and above).
  • toga pulla: toga made of dark-colored wool worn during periods of mourning
  • toga candida: artificially whitened toga worn by candidates for political office
  • toga picta: purple toga embroidered with gold thread worn by a victorious general during a triumphal parade and later adopted by emperors for state occasions. A variant of this costume was the toga purpura, an all-purple toga worn by the early kings and possibly adopted by some emperors
*Propriety demanded that adult male citizens wear only one item of jewelry, a personalized signet ring that was used to make an impression in sealing wax in order to authorize documents.

 ROMAN FOOD


*Rich people at beef, pork, poultry, fowl, lamb and, fish.
* Ordinary citizens grow their own fruit and vegetables.
*The poor consisted mostly of grain which was cooked into porridge or bread.

ROMAN RELIGION



*religion had played a great role in it's society and was involved in almost every aspect of the life of the Roman citizen. 
*Big feasts were held in honor of certain gods and would include spectacals like chariot races and gladiatoral fights.
*Religious practices are best remembered with grand temples,great festivals and christian persecution to the final acceptance of christianity within the Roman empire over the traditional pagan religious.

*
The Roman religious practices can be divided into three phases which span from the founding of the city to the fall of the empire.


  • The First Phase (753 BC to 500 BC) - The first phase of Roman religion dated from the founding of the city to the early republic. This phase occurred before the Roman civilization had really adopted the Greek ways and so the religious practices of this time consisted of only three gods and these gods were known as the Archaic Triad.
  • The Second Phase (500 BC to 313 AD) - Before the end of the 6th century BC Greek influence had begun to affect Roman religion and this resulted in the transformation from the Archaic Triad to the more Greek influenced Captioline triad.
  • The Third Phase (313 AD to 476 AD) - By the early empire ,in the first century AD, the traditional form of Roman religion was beginning to show signs of breaking up. Causes for this breakup could be attributed to the swarms of new religious beliefs that were sweeping through the Roman empire and the fact that most of these theologies promised peace after death to the destitute and uneducated majority of the Roman populace. The most notable of these new religions was Christianity ,which had found it's roots in the rebellious Roman territory of Judea.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The History of Rome

What is a republic, and when, how, and why did Rome turn into one?


A republic is a form of government in which all affairs of are of public matter, thus nothing is hidden from the people. Public offices are appointed or elected openly, and officials do not receive titles or offices through private appointment, or anything else.Also, public code of law or constitution defines the governmental power and the rights of citizens, and posted publicly for all to see. 

Rome became a republic durring 509 BC when Superbus's son, sextus, raped Lucretia, who then committed suicide because of this act. This event sparked anger in Collatinus, Brutus, and Valerius, who brought Lucretias dead body for all to see in the city and confronted Superbus and his son about what he, The son, had done. Avenging Lucretia's death, they killed Sextus and Superbus fled. then Brutus and Collatinus became the rulers, by election, and thus it became a republic, changing Rome's history forever. 

Monday, October 28, 2013

In The Beginning

Rome was founded in 753 BC, and the origin of Rome begins with legend about when Romulus and Remus came to be. Rome was founded when Romulus created a city and aloud anyone to live there and all these misfit people came (all dudes) and then her was like, "yo, where my ladies at!" and he realized  that his city would die without them so he had his army host a party with the Sabines, then stole the women and forced them to bare children. A few years went by and the Sabine men came back to avenge their women, but by then the women were already married and had children with these people, so they called a truce and became a united power.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Rome PRE-TEST


Learning Targets / Rubrics
3.1 - Differentiate Roman Republic from Roman Empire
3.2 - Explain past and present impacts of Roman culture
3.3 - Analyze factors in collapse of Western Roman Empire

MY personal learning goal is to learn what kind of cultural arts they did. 
  1. When, where and how was Rome founded? 753 BC, by people
  2. How was the government of the Roman Republic organized? democracy 
  3. When and how did the Republic turn into an Empire?after Caesar was killed Augusts came in an made it an empire
  4. How was the government of the Empire organized?after each death a new person came to office
  5. When, where, why, and how did the Romans expand?
  6. What are Rome's greatest architectural and technological developments?
  7. What was important in Roman culture?
  8. Who were important Roman leaders?
  9. What caused the collapse of the Roman Empire?
  10. How did Rome alter history?
  11. How does Rome affect us today?
  12. What lessons can be learned from Roman history?

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Greco-Persian wars

In 499 BC, a great war erupted between the Greek city-states and the Persian empire, ruled by Darius. Ionian greek city-states revolted against Persian rule, and Athens supported them. this caused King Darius to invade Greece in 490 BC,  after putting down the earlier Ionian revolt. First, the Greeks defeated the Persians at Marathon. After that, Greek forces, led by the Spartans and King Leonidas defended the pass at Thermopylae against the onslaught brought by KIng Xerxes. They battled a much larger persian army, thus ended up being wiped out. Then, the Persian sacked and burned Athens, and went on to fight the Greeks at the strait of Salamis. the Athenian navy tricked the persians to fight in the narrow strait and ended up slaughtering them. finally they travel to Plataea where the ended the war by defeating the Persians.