Transcript File - Mr. Butts World History

Chapter Five
Ancient Rome and the Rise
of Christianity
509 B.C. - 476 A.D.
Section Three
The Roman
Achievement
In the field of
literature, the Romans
owed a great debt to
the Greeks.
In his epic poem The Aeneid,
Virgil tried to show that
Rome’s past was as heroic as
that of Greece.
This is Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus and
Octavia, by Jean-Joseph Taillasson, 1787.
Virgil linked his epic to Homer’s work by telling
how Aeneas escaped from Troy to found Rome.
In Greco-Roman
mythology, Aeneas was
a Trojan hero, the son of
the prince Anchises and
the goddess Venus.
This is Aeneas Flees Burning Troy,
by Federico Barocci, 1598.
In The Aeneid, Aeneus escapes Troy and helps
to found Rome.
According to The Aeneid, the
survivors from the fallen city
of Troy banded together
under Aeneas, underwent a
series of adventures around
the Mediterranean Sea,
including a stop at newly
founded Carthage under the
rule of Queen Dido, and
eventually reached the Italian
coast.
This is a map of Aeneas’s journey to Italy.
Virgil wrote The Aeneid soon
after Augustus came to
power.
He hoped it would arouse
patriotism and help unite
Rome after years of civil wars.
This is a bust of Augustus created during the period of his
reign, from 27 B.C. until his death in 14 A.D.
The Romans excelled in
engineering. Engineering
is the application of
science and mathematics
to develop useful
structures and machines.
This is a Roman street in Pompeii.
Roman engineers
built roads, bridges,
and harbors
throughout the
empire.
This map shows Italian
and Sicilian roads in the
time of ancient Rome.
The Alcántara
Bridge is a Roman
stone arch bridge
built over the Tagus
River at Alcántara,
Spain between 104
and 106 A.D. by an
order of the Roman
emperor Trajan. It
bears the
inscription “I have
built a bridge which
will last forever” on
the archway over
the central pier.
Roman bridges were so solidly built that some
of them are still in use.
This is Fabricius’
Bridge. It is the
oldest Roman bridge
in Rome, Italy. It
exists in its original
state. Built in 62
B.C., it spans half of
the Tiber River.
Roman engineers
also built many
aqueducts; bridgelike structures that
carried water from
the hills into Roman
cities.
The upper tier of the Pont du Gard in southern France enclosed an aqueduct that carried water to
Nimes in Roman times. Its lower tier was expanded in the 1740s to carry a road across the river.
These are the
arches of an
elevated
section of the
Roman
provincial
aqueduct of
Segovia, in
modern
Spain.
The wealthy had water piped in, and almost every
city boasted public baths.
This is a panoramic view of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. This bath complex covered
approximately 62 acres. The bath building was 750 feet long, 380 feet wide and 125 feet
tall. It could accommodate an estimated 1,600 bathers.
In baths people gathered not only to wash
themselves, but also to hear the latest news and
exchange gossip.
This mosaic
bath sign from
Sabratha, Libya,
shows bathing
sandals, three
strigils (scraping
tools), and the
slogan:
SALVOM
LAVISSE, “A bath
is good for you.”
This is the Thermae Maiores,
Aquincum, in Budapest, Hungary.
The Romans
generally left
scientific
research to the
Greeks, who
were by that
time citizens of
its empire.
In Alexandria, Egypt, Hellenistic
scientists exchanged ideas freely.
This is “The
Great Library
of Alexandria,”
a Nineteenth
century
rendering of
the Library of
Alexandria, by
O. Von
Corven.
The Ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt was
one of the largest libraries of the ancient world.
It was part of a
larger research
institution
called the
Musaeum of
Alexandria,
where many of
the most
famous thinkers
of the ancient
world studied.
This is the
Bibliotheca
Alexandrina,
located on the
shore of the
Mediterranean Sea
in the Egyptian city
of Alexandria. It
commemorates the
Library of
Alexandria that was
lost in antiquity.
It was in
Alexandria that
the Roman
astronomer and
mathematician
Ptolemy proposed
his theory that the
Earth was the
center of the
universe.
Ptolemy lived from
about 100 to 170
A.D. His view of
the solar system
was not challenged
until the
Seventeenth
century. The
theories of
Copernicus and
Kepler corrected
Ptolemy’s error.
Ptolemy argued that the Earth is a stationary sphere at the
center of a vastly larger celestial sphere that revolves at a
perfectly uniform rate around Earth, carrying with it the
stars, planets, Sun, and Moon - and thereby causing their
daily risings and settings.
Ptolemy was a better map-maker.
Christopher
Columbus used
Ptolemy’s map of
the world on his
voyage of
discovery to the
New World in
1492.
This is a Fifteenth century
copy of Ptolemy’s world map.
and now…
another final exam
question…
The most important long-term contributions of
the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations are
primarily found in the area of
a)
government and law.
b)
military technology.
c)
religious doctrine.
d)
economic policy.
The most important long-term contributions of
the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations are
primarily found in the area of
a)
government and law.
b)
military technology.
c)
religious doctrine.
d)
economic policy.