The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [31]
These engineering feats differed from those in other ancient civilizations. In Mesopotamia, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and Meso-America, royalty and religion reserved the massive building projects. In Rome, the massive construction was for the people. The Coliseum, aqueducts, Trajan’s Forum, fountains, roads, and the wonderful baths were constructed for the citizens of Rome. There were glorious temples to the gods, but the majority of Roman construction was to benefit the people and not kings, queens, priests, or the gods—at least not at first.
Rome established the law as a key component of Western life, a concept still deeply rooted in Western thought. The idea of codified law came to Europe from Rome. Perhaps no other concept transferred from Rome to the West was as important as the way Romans thought about law and its central position in society. Around 451 BC the decemvirs, a board of ten lawmakers, set out the first written laws of Rome, which were then debated, amended, and passed by an assembly of all the people. The laws were written down on Twelve Tables and set in the Forum for all to read. The Roman Forum was a gathering place for the populace where matters of state were debated. The decisions of the Roman Republic were made in public, for all to hear. Open debate, freedom of speech, open government, and voting for who would run Rome were the hallmarks of the Republic of Rome.
The need for written laws was to ease the strife between the patricians, and plebeians. Patricians were the old landholding families; thus, “fathers” of Rome—patrician means father—while the plebeians were the non-fathers, or everyone who was not a patrician, usually the non-landholding masses including slaves. For years these written laws quelled the problems between the antagonistic groups. With the added institution of the Tribune, or person protecting the plebs from injustice, the system markedly improved. Only a plebe could hold the office of Tribune. Through the scheme of reducing laws to writing and plebe protection through the Tribune, Rome achieved societal peace for hundreds of years while waging relentless war on their frontiers.
Rome grew slowly and by conquest.[32] Its first major rival outside of Italy was the city-state of Carthage, located on the coast of North Africa. Carthage was in the way of Roman expansion because it controlled the island of Sicily, the southern coast of Spain, and a large portion of the northern coast of Africa. War was inevitable, and it came in the form of three wars, all of which Carthage lost. The three Punic Wars determined who would rule the Mediterranean.
The Punic Wars
Carthage was founded by a group of seafarers from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians (Punic is a form of the word Phoenician). The Phoenicians were expert sailors, and legend has it that they sailed around the continent of Africa. They founded many cities to secure their trading routes since they were traders and good executives above all else. The colonies and cities they founded were footholds in the local areas, expanding their ability to trade with local inhabitants. Carthage became a great city because of its excellent harbor, access to the interior of Africa where gold, ivory, pottery, and many other valuable goods were located, and its site near the center of the Mediterranean. As it accumulated power, Carthage founded colonies in Spain, Sicily, and key locations around the western Mediterranean which were eventually in the path of Roman expansion. The first Punic War began over Sicily. This developed into a naval war,[33] but Carthage and its splendid navy managed to lose it. As the war started Carthage was winning, since its navy was superior to Rome’s. Then the Romans got an idea. Their strength was their ideal land army, so