Notes on Rome

Today in class, we took notes again. Our test will be on Friday and our projects are due the day we come back from school (Tuesday, 4/22/14). The notes from todays class are:

• Because the men were away at war fighting for Rome, the rich would take land from the poor.
• To continue to live on that land, they would farm the land and get paid next to nothing.
• Latifundium - the big estates that the rich managed to control - Gracchus brothers.
• Gracchus brothers wanted the rich to give back the land that they took from the poor.
• They took their idea to court.
• They won.
• A few senates beat them with a chair and threw their corps into a river.
• The idea was over turned and the rich got to keep their land.
• Punic Wars
• Fought on land and sea in three vicious rounds between 264 and 146 BC
• In the first phase, Rome was able to force Carthage out of Sicily.
• Rome won.
• Second, the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy and brought Rome to a brink defeat.
• Third, Carthage was captured after bitter fighting.
• The Senate ordered the city to be leveled, people to be sold into slavery, and the ground on which it had stood to be solemnly cursed.
• This was only an epilogue to the main struggle.
• Rome had won control of the western Mediterranean.