Page 133 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

wooden bridge over the Tiber River. Horatius was on guard at the bridge when the Etruscans made a sudden assault, causing many Roman troops to throw down their weapons and flee. Horatius urged them to make a stand at the bridge to protect Rome; when they hesitated, as a last resort he told them to destroy the bridge behind him while he held the Etruscans back. Astonished at the sight of a single defender, the confused Etruscans threw their spears at Horatius, who caught them on his shield and barred the way. By the time the Etruscans had regrouped and were about to overwhelm the lone defender, the Roman soldiers brought down the bridge. When Horatius heard the bridge crash into the river behind him, he dived fully armed into the water and swam safely to the other side through a hail of arrows. Rome had been saved by the courageous act of a Roman who knew his duty and was determined to carry it out. Courage, duty, determination—these qualities would also serve the many Romans who believed that it was their mission to rule nations and peoples.
In the first millennium B.C.E., a group of Latin- speaking people established a small community on the plain of Latium on the Italian peninsula. This community, called Rome, was one of the numerous settlements founded by Latin-speaking peoples throughout Latium and the rest of Italy. Roman history is basically the story of the Romans’ conquest of the plain of Latium, then Italy, and finally the entire Mediterranean region. Why were the Romans able to do this? The Romans made the right decisions at the right time; in other words, the Romans had political wisdom.
The Romans were also practical. Unlike the Greeks, who reserved their citizenship for small, select groups, the Romans often offered citizenship to the peoples they conquered, thus laying the groundwork for a strong, integrated empire. The Romans also did not hesitate to borrow ideas and culture from the Greeks. Roman strength lay in government, law, and engineering. The Romans knew how to govern people, establish legal structures, and construct the roads that took them to the ends of the known world. Throughout their empire, they carried their law, their political institutions, their engineering skills, and their Latin language. And even after the Romans were gone, those same gifts continued to play an important role in the continuing saga of Western civilization.
The Emergence of Rome
Q FOCUS QUESTION: What impact did geography have on the history of Rome, and what influence did the Greeks and Etruscans have on early Roman history?
Italy is a peninsula extending about 750 miles from north to south (see Map 5.1). It is not very wide, how- ever, averaging about 120 miles across. The Apennine Mountains traverse the peninsula from north to south, forming a ridge down the middle that divides west from east. Nevertheless, Italy has some fairly large fer- tile plains ideal for farming. Most important in Roman times were the Po River Valley in the north, probably the most fertile agricultural area; the plain of Latium (LAY-shee-um), on which Rome was located; and Cam- pania (kam-PAY-nee-uh or kahm-PAHN-yuh), to the south of Latium. To the east of the Italian peninsula is the Adriatic Sea, and to the west, the Tyrrhenian Sea with the nearby large islands of Corsica and Sardinia. Sicily lies just west of the toe of the boot-shaped Italian peninsula.
Geography had an impact on Roman history. Although the Apennines bisect Italy, they are less rugged than the mountain ranges of Greece and so did not divide the peninsula into many small isolated com- munities. Italy also possessed considerably more pro- ductive farmland than Greece and thus could support a large population. Rome’s location was favorable from a geographic point of view. Located eighteen miles inland on the Tiber River, Rome had access to the sea and yet was far enough inland to be safe from pirates. Built on seven hills, it was easily defended, and because it was situated where the Tiber could be readily forded, Rome became a natural crossing point for north-south traffic in western Italy. All in all, Rome had a good central location in Italy from which to expand.
Moreover, because the Italian peninsula juts into the Mediterranean, it was an important crossroads between the western and eastern parts of that sea. Once Rome had unified Italy, involvement in affairs throughout the region was natural. And after the Romans had conquered their Mediterranean empire, Italy’s central location made their task of governing that empire considerably easier.
The Greeks in Italy
We know little about the Indo-European peoples who moved into Italy during the second half of the second millennium B.C.E. By the first millennium B.C.E., other
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