Video Transcript: Lesson 11

Unit 07 01 Roman

Hello, welcome back to the chrysalis Leaders Institute, world history Course World History 101. My name is Rich hamstra Han, I am the instructor for this class. It's my privilege to do that. Today we're going to continue with Rome were in a section of this course trying to deal with human civilization between 500 BC and 1080. That's 1500 year period. So obviously, we have to go very quickly over things. Today, it's about the Roman Republic. At least that's where we begin. The map that you see shows the Roman Republic around the year to 200 BC. And it's significant to notice that during the time of the Republic, at this time of the Roman conquest and robbing territory, roving control, had expanded into North Africa. They basically fought against the city of Carthage, which was their main competitor in the western part of the Mediterranean. And once Carthage is defeated through a series of wars took well over 100 years. They gained control over Spain and much of southern France or Gaul. Also, during this period of time, they took control over the Greek mainland and over the Greek colonies in Asia. So they had expanded significantly, already by 200 BC. The time of the Republic, is almost romanticized in many ways, particularly by the Romans. They remember the Republic as their, their great days. And I thought it might be useful to just talk a little bit about how they were organized politically, the Roman government structure. Fundamentally, it was a representative government, although we use that notion advisedly. They were made up of different houses, different ruling bodies, the primary one is called the Senate. And the senators were only allowed to come from the patrician the very wealthy, and long standing families. Roman society is family based society. And if you are part of the skipio family, the Julian family, almost little dynasties in and of themselves, then you are allowed to become a senator. And once you became a Senator, you serve that position for life. There's also a group called the committee of 100, as well as the Council of the plebs and the plebs, were those who were not from the patrician families, they were more of the commoners. But we ought not get the impression that just because they were libertarians, they were the poor or the light. That's not at all the case. Often the common families could be more prosperous than the patrician families, they could own larger farms. They could be engaged in international trade, they could own ships. And the just as prominent in their own way, as the patricians to be applied to you had to come from the freedom class or as you couldn't be a slave during the Republic days. And that whole class is known as the plebeians. And through the committee of 100, and the Committee of the plebs, they enacted their laws, the senators actually could not enact laws. They were more of an advisor to the councils who were the elected of the two main elected officials during this period of time. The Council of plebs chose the tribunes who were their representatives, and smoke on their behalf. The Committee of 100 chose to two councils, and these were two men, always men from patrician classes for the senatorial rank, who were given authority to be the chief executive officers of Rome. They always had to, and they would serve for one year, and Rome often dated itself, spoke of itself during the council ship of so and so and so and so. And as I mentioned, the Senate while extraordinarily significant, powerful senators, there. They were not allowed really to enact the laws, but to propose them to pass them and to advise the councils in particular, which laws needed to be enforced.

The consoles and the Senate in turn also and sometimes the to Boolean committees would select the generals. And this was a very important arrangement because in order to climb to high rank, to be considered an important man in Rome, you had to have served in the military and have had some significant victories to your name, they would select the generals. And sometimes during the case, in times of emergencies, they would appoint a person who had absolute authority complete authority. And those people are called dictators, Julius Caesar, is probably the most well known dictator. Roman society during the Republic, again, was very much involved as your family and your place in the family, whether you were patrician or probably in whether you were free or slave, whether you're a citizen or not a citizen. And during the time of the Republic, the nose to citizenship expanded more and more and more. Although closely guarded, and carefully conferred. In the beginning, only people who were from the city of Rome and from the area right around Rome, were allowed to be citizens. Over time, as more and more of the Italian peninsula became under Roman control, then some of those folks also were granted citizenship. Later, during the time of Julius Caesar, the colonies of Spain as well as some parts of Gaul, that is lower France, were also given rights of citizenship, and they in turn, could then begin to serve in office. Rome, like many of those civilizations, at that time was heavily dependent on their slave labor. And to be slaver free, was a primary way in which society was divided. You could buy your freedom. And just because you were a slave, does it mean that you were always a slave, often, not uncommonly, if you served your master well, when your master died, they would free you and then you could own property and do other things. We are not thinking of the slaves is only doing the hard labor. Certainly they did that. They did that on the farms. They served in the mines, they served on the ship, the navies, and on the ships, they slaves were involved in the hard physical labor, but also slaves were used in the household, as cooks, and servants of all kinds. And they were also particularly if they were well educated slaves. And remember, many of the slaves are actually captives from other countries. Many of the slaves were a Greek. And when Rome took over Greece, they they took many of the particularly well educated back, that almost all the doctors are either educated by Greek physicians or our Greek physicians, but they could also be slaves. Many of the teachers of the youth and scribes, people who worked to keeping track of all the various things are slaves. So slavery wasn't necessarily just physical manual labor, you also had significant responsibilities in the Masters household. There is great division during the time of the Republic, as during the whole history of Rome, between the those who had extreme wealth, and those who had a great deal, lived in utter poverty. Many in the cities were extraordinarily poor. And then there is also very much a difference between if you're a city person, or if you are a foreign person. And lastly, to be part of the Army's Roman armies and Roman navies. We shouldn't forget that Rome had a fantastic Navy that rivaled its armies. Just a word about the Roman legion, we hear a lot about those. This is the fundamental unit, the largest unit, actually a legion in which the Roman soldiers are divided. You had to be a citizen, to be a legionnaire. That is one of the things that was very important. And as I mentioned, if you were in a member of the Legion, and particularly if you were an officer in the Legion, you could rise in the ranks and then take your place in Roman society, be an important person, particularly among the committee of 100, for instance, or the Committee of the plebeians. The

The legionnaires during particularly during the early republic years are self funded So if you're a soldier is more like a militia in for many hundreds of years you worked in your farm you worked in your business, but you also own your own armor, you owned your own sword, and then you would be called up to service. not uncommonly, you would be called up to put down rebellions, either in Italy or sometimes they had large slave rebellions. We hear about Spartacus, who leads a large slave rebellion that was only one out of many and the soldiers there are, are more or less volunteers militia, who are called up. During the time of the Republic, a Roman legion consisted of about 5000. Legionnaires' 5000 fighting men, each council. But they again, we're not permanent, except for to each each of the two councils had a standing Legion that they were in charge of. So Council is also a general and others are called up like I said, when needed, often at the direction of the Senate. Later in the Republic after, after those wars with Carthage also called the Punic Wars. It became more of the case that legions are funded by extremely wealthy men. And these are like private armies, one could think of as private armies. And over the course of time what happens, you know, you're funded by your pet drawn by the one who takes care of you. Your loyalty is more towards the person who funds you than it is to our role. And we have examples of the generals who would who would take their own armies, the ones that they funded, and, you know, march them and conquer places and then begin to sort of control those places on their own behalf. The story of Caesar, Julius Caesar in Gaul is a is a very good example of that. Others who had their own armies included the famous Mark Antony, as well as Octavian, later to become Caesar Augustus. Some of the legionnaires are professionals and they serve lifelong in the Legion and they expect if they survive, once they reach retirement after a good long period of service that they would receive from the state or from their wealthy patron, they would receive a significant pension, as well as perhaps a land or city. A number of cities are funded and founded as homes for veterans. Consider Philippi, for instance, in Greece, we read about that and the about Paul is a Roman colony planted there as a place for veterans, and I think perhaps that's a lot. That's what Anika is as well. Along with Legionnaires along with the professional citizens who are legionnaires. And often just as large in size, just as many people are the auxiliaries and these are, again, men who might be in it might be a horse, they might be those who fight on the flanks, the legionnaires tended to take the center of the battle line that auxiliaries on the outside, they might be the backup troops. But they also might be the those who take care of the camp, and those who take care of the meals and maxes, make the armor, etc, etc. And if you are auxilary, you are generally not a citizen. And often they are from other countries. Again, conquered people who would come the goal is to move from being in the auxilary to become a legionnaire. And what if you could do that then you could gain your citizenship. And that was a very coveted position. The Knights those who were the horse always funded themselves I think and they they usually were pretty small units and fought on the flanks of the army.

And they were they were generally from a very wealthy class. Later in time, the medieval knights saw themselves as a continuation of these Roman knights, as well as the legionnaires and the auxiliaries. A Legion would travel with its camp followers and often this would be the families of the legionnaires Who would come with them? Because if you were you were a legionnaire. And you know, you're from Italy, but maybe you were, your Legion goes to Syria, to the Middle East, or maybe it goes to Germany, or maybe it goes to Spain, or maybe it goes to North Africa, you could be gone for many, many years, many years, 10 years or more. And then you brought your family with you. And so the camps when they would move in a Roman camp and move, it would include much more than just a soldiers. It was like moving to a small city or town along the way. To think of a Legion as having 10,000 people involved in it, that would probably be a smaller movement. And as I mentioned, a number of the cities and towns that we find throughout areas that Rome controlled, are actually old Roman army camps, including a place like London, and some other places. Most of the time after Legion would come in and Rome would gain political power. They allow the areas to conquer themselves to govern themselves, as long as they pay taxes to Rome, and as long as they gave lip service to Roman authority, and followed Roman ways. The Romans were quite content to let locals rules themselves, they would often demand that troops, there would be a conscript and troops would would have to come from those conquered lands. But for the most part, they left them alone. And they often would appoint local leaders, they would call them kings or governors or one thing or another. But the local leaders, their loyalty, of course, had first of all to be to Rome more than even to the people who may govern, and they were responsible to keep order on behalf of Rome. We know about one of those people to Rome put in place. When we read the story of the birth of Jesus in the New Testament, we hear about Herod the Great, and Herod is King of the Jews. But in truth he rules on behalf of Rome. He's put there by the Roman government, which is one reason that the Jewish people always resented him powerfully. The here's some pictures. This is called the Gloria or the sword. Standard feature of every Roman soldier they would have a short stabbing sword they did not have the long swords that you see later on, but these short ones, and they would go under their shields so the shield would go in one arm and the short stabbing sword would be used in between shields and get at the get at the person you're fighting that way. Greaves would be worn over the over the knees and the bottom, bottom of of your legs because that was a very vulnerable area to other soldiers swiping that shoe with their seat spears and swords as well as you see protective footwear here. You see two spear points, every Legionnaire would carry to Pilar, two spears with him. Different kinds of helmets were used as well as breastplates. This is a picture of an auxilary actually am from a quite a bit later date than the Roman Republic, five or 600 years into the future. But it does give an indication of the large kit that a soldier would have to carry. And sometimes the baggage trains the auxiliaries and others would carry this but often the shows the The legionnaires were required to carry their own their own gear to do see that it's quite massive, very important. You always see how the neck is protected with the helmets because the neck is extraordinarily vulnerable area and wounds to the neck were considered the the worst.

This is the picture of a couple of guys. This is actually a place in England that I had opportunity to be at. They were reenacting a little bit of a battle between a Roman soldier and a barbarian. You do get the notion of a typical Roman shield it's quite large, quite heavy and as They said they would, they would lock the shields together and forum, nearly an impenetrable wall. Social life during the Republic, it was very much as I mentioned, the class society, the wealthy families and control. There were some small businesses with free citizens. And it's a slave based society, although they could have various social positions. The Republic is plagued in particular by slave rebellions. And it was one of the great fears as well as foreign invaders. They were always worried about slaves rebelling. This is an reconstruction of a wealthy Roman home during the time of about this period of time. And Roman, the Roman homes all have this center area called the peristyle. It's the gathering point for the family that's generally where the fountain or the water supply would come in. The Romans, of course, had are famous for their plumbing in their homes. brightly decorated, beautiful, this, this is the courtyard area where most of life happens. And this is an example of a Roman dining room. The Romans reclined, for the most part, particularly early on, they would reclined during their meals lie on these pillows and food would be served on the tables. And so you would you would not sit at table, you would lie at table. There's a little reflection of that, in the gospels, when we read about Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper, reclining at their tables that actually is a very Roman way of eating. By the end of the Republic, and the Republic is going to come to an end relatively abruptly, although there were lots of civil wars that led to it. The armies are, for the most part in the hands of the very wealthy men, Pompeii Crassus, Julius Caesar, all have their own armies. Pompeii is the one who goes east and conquers the area of Syria and comes into Jerusalem. And that's at about 60 BC. Crassus is in Spain, and he is considered the most wealthy man in Rome. There were the Roman society, the end of the Roman Republic is just plagued by civil wars, led by these wealthy man who are all jockeying for power within Roman society. Then there comes a three others right at the end of the Republic Lepidus, Mark Antony and Octavian. We know Mark Antony and Octavian the best Mark Antony and Octavian come out over Lepidus and basically divide the Roman world in half. Mark Antony takes control of the East, and Octavia and takes control of the West, that that only lasts a short while and then Mark Antony and Octavian begin to fight each other. The East is loves Mark Anthony, Herod the Great Love Mark Antony, among others. And we know the famous story of Cleopatra. So Mark Antony finds refuge in Egypt, in the court of Cleopatra, she's one of those Greek the last of the, of the Ptolemies. And they together plot to overthrow Augustus or Octavian. That plot fails. And Mark entity is given up to activity and loses the battles to Octavian and Cleopatra takes her own life with snake venom. What's significant about that is that then Octavian takes control of Egypt, personally,

the Roman Empire, that's the next phase. So there is Romans divided into the time of kings. And then the Republic was last about 500 years, and then the Roman Empire which lasts just about 500 years as well. So if the beginning date is just debated, but sometime around, let's say 31 BC, Until 476 ad is the time of the Western Roman Empire. The story begins with Julius Caesar. He's considered a dictator of Rome. He's called back from Gaul and he brings his army. But contrary to Roman law, he crosses the Rubicon. It's a river and takes his soldiers into the near Rome, and takes control of Rome as a dictator. And he is opposed, of course by Brutus and Cassius and others, and is assassinated. After he was assassinated, that's when Mark Antony and Octavian and Lepidus tried to divide up what's left over. Julius Caesar names is I think it's a great nephew. He names his great nephew as his heir and that nephew's name is Octavian. We know Octavian, much better by the name of Caesar Augustus. And again in the New Testament in the story in Luke, Luke chapter two during the days of Caesar Augustus when he was Emperor, our Jesus is born. caveum becomes emperor in the beginning stages in the year 31 BC, and that's why the empire of Rome is data to that date. There's still a Senate, and there's still a house until the ends and the light. But more and more and really quite rapidly by the year 27 Gustus has complete control. The power of the Senate and the power of the 2 billion house is greatly diminished. And one man is in charge of Rome. He holds all the elected offices and but holds him for life. And this, of course, is a major change in Roman society. And it becomes a time of the Empire. The Senate still has authority to appoint empire to appointing governors in the Imperial provinces, and many of the provinces are run by the Senate, senatorial provinces. But South, our old, the promise area is owned exclusively by the Emperor. And that is particularly the important about Egypt. Augustus personally owns Egypt, and everything that comes from Egypt. And Egypt, is where the grain in particular that said, the city of Rome and Roman cities, cities, that's where Egypt is the breadbasket of Rome. So just think about the emperor controls the food supply. And all the profits of the food supply are directly his, the Emperor becomes fabulously wealthy. In this way. It was always the crown jewel in the Emperor's crown, that he personally owned Egypt, a matter of fact, at one time and not too many years in the future from Augustus. One of the Emperor's when we call calendula xul name is Gaius probably as suffered from mental illness of some kind. Actually, Caligula decided that he wanted to move the capital of the Roman world to Alexandria, in Egypt. He's assassinated before that gets accomplished, but he was going to move abandon Rome, he's sick of it. He was gonna leave Rome, and go to his own place in Egypt. During the time of the empire, Rome expanded significantly. As I mentioned, the legions are under the control of the Emperor and the Senate.

And these legions it's almost always conquests military conquest. Sometimes there's diplomatic arrangements made but most of the time, it's military. They solidify their grip on really all the Mediterranean. They expand north, up to the Baltic and they the North Sea. They cross the English Channel and take control of just about all of Britain. They go east into Germany on up until the Rhine River is completely under Roman control, at least for a while, although battles on the Rhine are always very difficult. Roman legions had their greatest defeats, at least for a while. They're on the Rhine. And they also push into central Europe so that the Balkan area countries north of Greece, are directly under Roman control. So the legions are fighting battle after battle after battle over local groups and their organization, their military tactics, their overwhelming firepower, and their engineering accomplishments. They're able to build bridges where there were no bridges before and things like that. Gave them great advantages. But they're not always at war. Some many times, they're not battling, and there's a big trouble. What do you do with these large number of soldiers? And the auxiliaries? And all the families? How do you keep these people busy? What do you have them do if they're not fighting battles, or preparing to fight battles or guarding the borders? It doesn't take an entire legion to guard a border. Well, they employ their legions and the auxiliaries in particular, as their construction crews. And as one thinks about Rome, the aqueducts, the buildings, the roads, almost all are built by the Roman armies. The water systems there is of course, use of slave labor as well. But slaves also accompany accompany the Legions as they went around. And as mentioned, it was very, very enticing for tantra people in particular, to become mercenaries to become auxiliaries because this would be a path to Roman citizenship. We just say a word about Roman culture. The Romans are technicians. They excel in mathematics, engineering. They understand how the arch works. They understand how the roads work, they understand how to make an aqueduct so that the water will flow and maybe over only an eighth inch of a slope over a mile, and yet the water will still flow it. It's amazing. And if one today goes to those places, and they're there numerous places, I stood on a Roman aqueduct in Israel for matter, as a matter of fact, you just marvel at their technical ability, but there are also adaptors and builders. If they saw something they liked. They saw construction in Egypt, for instance, that they that they admired greatly and adapted that to other places. I think I mentioned in the last session, that Roman concrete is special, it lasts longer than any other mortar or mud base that other civilizations had used, because they had mixed it with this volcanic ash. They designed the art arch. So that is extraordinarily important and from the arch comes later the dome ceilings. They were technical in their use of law, and were extremely gifted and and held in high value. The rhetoric petitions, the people Cicero was considered one of the greatest of Romans, although not a soldier, not a politician, but a lawyer who spoke with such eloquence and such persuasiveness. Also beautiful artists, almost all the artists copied off of the Hellenistic Greek models. But they the frescoes that are still seen today, the statues that are still that survived, testify to Roman skill. In terms of literature and writing, the Romans wrote many histories, lots of mythologies.

love poetry. But for the most part, they copied Greek forms, particularly in the theater, and in their national epics, when things are Virgil's Aeneid Well, I think the exception is a literary form of satire, which in my understanding is brought to high high art by Roman writers, particularly the Satyricon by Petronius, as well as juveniles satires. With regard to their religion, their the Pantheon, their many gods were adopted from their neighbors, the Etruscans, the Greeks, and later on the Egyptians, they're mostly very tolerant of whatever religion you wanted to practice, they didn't really care what God you worship to is your main god, as, as long as you are loyal to Rome, and the Emperor, that is the number one thing demanded. Anyone who lived in the Roman world, if you cause disorder, if you cause rebellion, if you cause chaos, if you cause trouble. The Romans were not stand for that. Religion, in most regards, was there to provide order. And the Romans have valued control over virtually everything else, anything that threatened that. And they saw many of the religions of the East religions where people would become a static, or they would talk about strange practices, or there would be a great deal of blood or wine involved in the practice of the religions, you know, things that would lead people to get out of control too much emotion in the religion, and even too much fervor. The Romans found this threatening, they also did not want people to band together after a period of time during the, during the Empire, it was not allowed to have groups of I think more than 10 or 20, who would gather together. So you could not have an association that was larger than that, not legally, at least Romans saw that as a threat. And they stamped as threats out mercilessly. As mentioned, it's a slave based culture in many ways, much of the work is done by slaves. But there is a large, urban poor, throughout the Roman world, well known in Rome, the city of Rome in particular. And it was often the case of the wealthy. And later it fell to the Emperors in particular, to keep those folks entertained with the games. And we hear about the gladiatorial games, which were really just one of many different forms of games that were held. contests of all kinds spectacles of all kinds, the wealthy would put these on and keep the poor, satisfied that way, they also would distribute food, particularly bread, cheap bread, again, from the Emperor, and in this way, it was a way to buy their loyalty. And this free distribution of bread is called the dole. So to be on the dole, is to receive that sort of welfare from the Emperor. This is a map of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent. Well, actually not as crazy as that. But in 2010 210, they had brought her tubes all the way up to Northern England. This is where Hadrian's Wall would be built. It's not built at this time, but 100 years or so later. They control all of Gaul. Here on the Rhine, they've established their borders, firm control over Italy, Northern Africa, Egypt, as well as Syria and Asia Minor, Greece. So the Roman world basically controls the Roman society controls all of the Mediterranean. And they thought of that as all the civilized world. When Caesar Augustus, the first emperor, after his rule, and he, that lasted quite a while, a number of decades, he was talked about as the Pax Romana, the Roman piece, and what that refers to, is that through the power of Rome,

particularly the Mediterranean becomes a safer place. There was an intensive travel that could go on. I mentioned Mark Antony and people in the East loving Mark Anthony, one of the reasons they love Mark Anthony, was because he helped to eliminate piracy, which was plaguing trade and plaguing travel throughout the Aegean and the Mediterranean and he took his Davies and helped to stamp out piracy. There was you could travel throughout the Roman world, on Roman Roman roads, you could speak Latin or Greek and be understood virtually everywhere, within the Roman world, especially in Greek. You could appeal to your Roman citizenship. And we hear the New Testament of Paul, at one point, saying, he's, you know, here from Syria, but he says, I'm a Roman citizen, and I have certain rights, and indeed those rights had to be respected. The power of Rome to create a stable world is really, really impressive. Pax Romana is, what follows are just some pictures of Roman Rome in particular, this is the Via Sacra, the sacred way that leads to the forum. And this is a the ruins of the Roman Forum. You know, one of the ironies is that for 1500 years, people knew that there were these ruins here, but they had no idea what they were, and no idea what they were used for. You see the Colosseum here in the back. For many generations, the Colosseum was used as the city dump, it just was filled with trash, because they didn't know what it was for, during the, during the Middle Ages. That whole legacy of how brilliant Rome was, was lost for 1000 years. Most of the forum and the the buildings that are now ruins the form, were either legislative buildings like to have the Senate, or else they are various temples, to the, to the various Roman gods there are other. This is an example I think of one of the temples. There are a few monumental arches. And when Napoleon had the arches, tiles built in Paris, he's modeling after these arches that are in Rome. When a general or an emperor would want to commemorate a lifetime of achievements, particularly military ones, he would have Monumental Arch erected, and this is, this is one of a couple that are in the forum and exist in today's Rome. This is an example of the one that Titus, who was a general and then became emperor after his father, the spacian. Titus was the general who eventually ended the war with the Jews in 70 AD, the Jews revolt against Roman authority and the station. General Vespasian begins the battles but this patient has called back to Rome to become the emperor. His son, Titus takes over to the Legion and after 70 In a few years, destroys Jerusalem and even takes wages seeds against Masada, and other places in Israel. You'll see on Tituss arch commemorates the taking the Jews into captivity. Here's the menorah taken from the temple, and other Jewish symbols. Titus was very pleased that he subdued the Judeans the Jews because they were always causing trouble in Rome. Again, remember, Romans loved order, a loved control, and anytime that's threatened, they respond with violence. The games are very important. This is the Colosseum in Rome built much later, a few 100 years after the Empire gets going. The notion that the you know Paul or some of their first generations of Christians die in the Colosseum is not historically accurate. The Colosseum is built years later. But it that remains a impressive building testament to how important the games were, and spectacle was to Rome and live. This is the outside of the Pantheon built by Agrippa.

During the time with Caesar Augustus, Augustus says that he found when he began became emperor he found Rome was a city of mud and he left it a city of marble. That may be an overstatement. But it is the case that many monumental civic buildings are built during the time of Caesar Augustus including the Pantheon which is a temple dedicated to the many Roman gods This is the inside of the Pantheon. It became a Christian church. And later that are used and it is a perfectly domed structure. So one can add one can even stand in sort of the center of it and it gets a little quiet. If you speak, your voice resonates throughout the temple. This little bit of Hadrian's Wall. And this is significant because it symbolizes the Romans have attempted, they conquered. And then they found a limit an end to how much they could effectively patrol and control and often hear in other places, they constructed walls Hadrian's Wall, built during the third century, goes across England, and north of the wall, for the most part is considered barbarian territory. And south of the Wall is considered under Rome. About every few miles, there is a an entrance, you could come through the gates, there was lots of trade and people came back and forth through. But Roman soldiers would be Garrison here. They're also towns. As I mentioned, many, many of the towns of Europe originally were Roman legion places, and that includes towns along Hadrian's Wall, and included this picture. Just to show you and the next one will be more clear. They This is a part of a Roman villa. Lovely home, and you see these stones, the floors of a Roman house would be built on top of these would be a flat stones on top of these other stones. And underneath there is the open space. And you see here, a little archway, well what the job of one slave way back when was to crawl in here with hot charcoal with unmake fires. And of course clean them out when they got full. And in that way, they could heat the bottom underneath and heat the floors. So that the relevant people could walk on stone, but the stone is warm. And this is way up in one of their frontiers. This is a perhaps a better example, you can see that the pillars on which the stone is laid. And underneath the slaves would crawl and put fire under the floors. These two people are standing in a little building, you can see outline here, you can see you can tell it's not very large and included because archaeologists suspect that that little building that little area is an early Christian church, maybe from the fifth century, so the four hundreds, ad. And it's typical of what a church looked like in the Roman Roman world. They're not the huge cathedrals or huge buildings set that we might think they're often very humble, very small structures. Just go back to that. It's just a small little structure, probably an altar or something here that people would bring their sacrifices of one kind or another, places to pray. They were not large, large buildings. Now we need to go into very complex part of the story of Rome. Rome was that was Rome, extended its borders, extended its resources extended its armies, beyond what it was able to control. And actually we've seen that pattern time and time and time again, virtually every empire comes to the point where it can no longer control the areas that that it has conquered. And so it begins to retreat.

And that is certainly the case with Rome. If you are an emperor in Rome, beginning already with Caesar Augustus he lived to a pretty long life and there's just debate about how he died something that his wife may have placed into there there are rumors to that effect at least. But it's certainly the case that many of the next Emperor's many, virtually all die by being assassinated. A few live a natural life but very few The Roman emperor was was a dangerous life during the third century, so in the two hundreds, 235, something like that, to 284, there, it's called the Imperial crisis, because there were so there was so much turnover and so many battles over who would who would be the Emperor. Warring generals in particular, there's a period of time in which there are four emperors during one year. One kills off the next two kills off the next two, I think maybe dies of natural causes, and they kill off an axe. And it becomes clear that just one person cannot rule this vast empire. So the Emperor Diocletian, in 285, divides the empire into West, and east. And with that division, he puts people in charge, he's still the Emperor, but others are the council's of West and East. And that changes Roman history significantly. From there on. There is a the son of one of the councils that he appointed in the West, is a man by the name of Constantine, and we know him as Constantine the Great. And his period of time was begins around 312 ad, briefly, under Constantine he reunites the east and west under as one empire. But then shortly, their AD AD AD moves the capital, from Rome, to Asia Minor, to a place that we call Constantinople, todays Istanbul, that becomes the capital lease. It's also known as Byzantium, which is the name it was done beforehand. And we get the Byzantine, the beginning of the Byzantine Empire. So now you have a Roman Empire that's divided into east and to west. One of the things that Constantine is well known for and remembered for is that he prefers the Christian religion, after the year 317 ad. But it's unclear how much he's personally committed to it, by any means. So here's the division into the West, Western Rome and Eastern Rome. There's some statues of Constantine, he was a larger than life figure, this is a huge, huge statue that he has, you can see how large the foot of that statue was. I want to back up a little bit, back to the time of Caesar Augustus. And the first, the first the beginning of the empire, because the Christian faith is really begins about the same time as the empire of Rome. And during that period of time, we see the rise the life of Jesus, who, of course, is Jesus of Galilee. He lives his whole life, in the northern part of Judea, which is a Roman, under Roman control, and dies in Jerusalem, which is under Roman control. He dies at the hands of Pilate, who is the governor of that area at that time, and he dies in the form of a Roman execution. He dies because he is a bother to Rome. What is exactly guilty of they don't seem to care. Pilate doesn't seem to.

But whatever it is, it's causing trouble. And as I said, the Romans just would not abide that and so they crucified, troublemakers. And along with that was this man Jesus of Nazareth? Well, out of those beginnings comes the Christian faith. And it is by all means a Jewish sect, and is that way for about 100 years or so? Not quite. In the New Testament, we hear Paul, the apostle Paul and Paul should be remembered historically in particular, as the one who moves the Christian faith from Judean based Jewish based Aramaic speaking based church, body faith into Greek, Roman world, into the Gentile world. Through Paul Christianity moves beyond his his Jewish roots and moves beyond his just Jewish setting in Judea, and moves into Syria, into Asia Minor and into Greece. And Paul himself, we understand the dies in Rome. Just say a few more things about that, and then that will conclude the class for today. Christianity, for the most part is only really popular only we all know, well known among the lower classes, slaves, and artisans. It's not embraced much by the ruling class, some wealthier women from what we can tell, particularly they host churches and host bodies that are founded by remember their Roman laws against the gathering of too many people. And so often the Christians would meet outside or meet along a river. Sometimes I met in graveyards in places like that, where they could meet together. They're under suspicion from the earliest age times as being a mystery cult, which means that they were, they were under suspicion by Roman authorities for being too enthusiastic and too strange, to fit into an orderly Roman life. They were not considered patriotic. And that is really rooted in the fact that they would not offer sacrifices to Rome, or to the Emperor. Whether or not the emperor is considered a god. That's a longer discussion. But you still made sacrifices in his honor, which would be like offering a prayer for your, for your leader. And they they would not do that only the Lord would be worshipped, only Christ would be worshipped. And the last thing I'll note is that it's much more common in the east than it is in the West. Christianity is very much for the first number of centuries, a religion that is prominent in Syria, and Asia Minor, and in parts of Greece, but it is not nearly as prominent. I'm not saying that it isn't known. But it's not nearly as prominent in places like Rome, Gaul, Spain, and the light. It should also mention that it early on becomes very prominent in Egypt. And Egypt very quickly becomes Christian for about 500 years. So that's just a little bit about the the beginnings of early Christianity and that's where I will pick it up next time. Thank you very much. God bless