A Look Back at the Roman Empire

by Redburn in History, April 16, 2009

Sometimes I wish I could go back in the time and see all the wonderful things they have done in that time as well as how the world could be so evil just to see that today’s earth is not that bad at all.

The Roman empire started a long time ago. In school I only learned a few basic things about it. I did not learn the most important things.

According to the movie King Arthur 2004: The real story about Arthur you would have to serve the Roman empire for free for as much as 15 years. This means you would be taken away from your home at age 12 and then you would be a soldier and your life would be risked for as much as 15 years. That’s a long time and few survived that long if they were not in a very high rank soldier class. The lowest class would always be the first sacrificed in war, peace, disease, hunger…

Julius Ceaser was probably the man with the highest rank in the whole empire while the empire lasted.

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The Romans were the first ones to make life possible far away from the rivers. Thanks to the aqueduct they were able to deliver water even to the most distant land. They did that with slaves and forced labor that were very badly paid.

When they conquered a new land, the men would be killed in a game in the Colosseum and then women would be raped in mass in that very same place. Children would be raised as slaves so since they did not know how life is when you are free, they would not fight back so much like an adult would. This added with the Roman culture absorbed in his mind would make his slave integration even easier.

The Roman class was divided in just three main classes: Slaves, Metecs and Citizens according to what I learned in my school. The slave had no rights, only duties, the Metecs had both duties and rights, and the citizen had no duties, just rights. A totally unfair system.

This was the first civilization with a senate. The ruler would not rule alone and the opinion of the most important people in the senate would matter a lot.

Generals had their own lands and their own military at the expense of having to pay taxes on it. It was easy to pay those taxes because people would have to work for free on those lands.

The Roman empire was also the first to build stone large bridges that can still hold trucks on it today. For their time they were the most advanced civilization of all and also one of the most feared too. I never learned how the Roman empire started and why it finished.

If you know that could you please leave your knowledge as a comment?