The Rise of Rome - How Italy Was Conquered

as you may know I'm a huge fan of the total worst series and Creative Assembly is actually releasing a new DLC which covers Rome's unification of Italy today I figured we'd explore how this occurred historically to give you some context but rather than strictly focus on a timeline of battles and campaigns I wanted to discuss the actual mechanisms by which the many Italian peoples were unified this is really important as all too often we wrongly view the Roman state as a homogeneous entity rather than a diverse web of interconnected communities centered around the city of Rome but to understand the context of these relationships we will first have to become acquainted with ancient Italy prior to the Roman era by exploring its diverse landscapes and its people let's first start with geography as civilizations are often a product of their environment among Italy's most defining features are its mountainous regions these include the Alps which dominate the north the Apennines which run along the spine of the peninsula and the large volcanic mountains such as Etna which dot the landscape in fact the mountain areas are so extensive that they actually make up about 40% of Italy from these heights the terrain that unfolds like a rich tapestry rolling from it speaks to its shores between the various folds in the elevation are great valleys and rolling hills that either dramatically spill into the sea or gently fade into it in the form of rich coastal flat lands the mountainous terrain also leads to the creation of many rivers and lakes as snowmelt and rainwater make their way to the lower ground by one way or another and finally we should note that the Italian peninsula and its neighboring islands have a huge amount of coastline with ready access to the wider Mediterranean what this all means is that the diverse landscape of Italy led to a diverse community of people's villages founded by early settlers would take advantage of their local terrain and over time their development would be molded by it fertile lowlands might turn them into farmers rugged Highlands might turn them into pastoralists and coastal or river access might turn them into traders the birth of these communities in such a wide range environments therefore had a great impact on their varied cultural and military activities it should also be noted that the fragmentary nature of Italy's landscape not only helped develop diversity but also maintained it to a certain extent due to the relative isolation of communities for example if we look at Italy around the time of Rome's founding we see a wide range of cultural and linguistic groups over the years migrations and colonization further added the complexity of the political environment it is from this stew of peoples that Rome would create its empire let's now get on to the main topic of the video about how they did so well early on Rome was but a collection of italic families inhabiting wattle and post dwellings spread atop the slopes along the Tiber River archaeology reveals that there were several independent Hamlet's with wooden Palisades which slowly expanded over time though some conflicts surely broke out they increasingly learned to coexist and see to their mutual defense the joining together of such villages was a common occurrence which the Greeks referred to as tannoy chasm in the case of Rome the various peoples coalesced by building bridges both figuratively and literally a central marketplace was formed communal cemeteries were adopted religious ceremonies were shared and a government was established the same process was occurring throughout Italy and Latium alone room was surrounded by dozens of other communities in various states of development these groups spoke the same language and shared similar cultural and religious practices it this did little to keep them from squabbling in the early years of the 6th and 7th centuries BC this took the form of tit for tat clan warfare rating by chieftains and their war bands was routine but still relatively small and scale the objective was often to assert claims to land or take captives in plunder at times however the intensity would rise and be enough to topple another community the historian Denis seus tells us that the first town to fall to Rome was that of king Nina just a few kilometers away according to legend Romulus killed their King in battle and celebrated the first triumph apparently the defeated town was forced to yield one-third of its land to Rome and accept a colony of 300 Romans in time Kaena would be absorbed through a similar process of Senoia chasm that had occurred between Rome's original hilltop communities next came the town of M t'aime 9 located about five kilometres away along the left bank of the Tiber these new communities were granted full Roman citizenship and its members added to the principal tribes of Rome throughout the decades room would continue to topple more and more of its immediate neighbors these vanquished would typically either be forced to relocate back to Rome or be diluted with Roman colonizers and the farmlands merged with those of the larger group many who were ethnically and linguistically close enough to the conquerors would be granted full Roman citizenship thus becoming liable for military service in this way the mass of the Roman state grew and grew and so too did its gravitational pull it's important to note however that the gravitational center of these relationships would remain at Rome itself as is evidenced by the transfer of religious cults and priests to the conquerors settlement such United communities can now pool manpower and begin to throw their weight around to an even greater extent this perpetuating the cycle of conquest for context by the time of the expulsion of the kings and the founding of the Republic in 509 BC Rome had annexed or destroyed about half of the 30 Latin communities controlled around 800 square kilometers and is estimated to have boasted a population of around 35,000 people yet we should not assume that this process was explosive as expansion was achieved at a relatively glacial pace over several hundred years with revolts and setbacks being relatively common along the way for now Rome was essentially playing bully with the kids in its own backyard as we mentioned earlier there were in fact a huge number of other people across the Italian peninsula to contend with even just in the neighborhood there were many whose strengths rivaled or exceeded that of Rome these included the eastern hill tribes of the save ions in aqueous other bolshy and the powerful northern Etruscan cities whose Confederation at one point stretched from the Po Valley to campagna warfare was endemic at the time and Rome would pick a fight with many of these enemies in fact they were not alone in these efforts as the Latin communities had actually already formed a league for mutual defense relatively early on this was initially centered around the town of Alba longa but as Rome's power grew it increasingly came to dominate the group however the city's ascendance would not go uncontested and in the four 90s the free Latin cities would band together to fight back against the nascent Roman Republic at the Battle of Lake virgilius however Rome won a decisive victory the ensuing treaty ended the war and effectively established Rome as the leader of the Latin League the Treaty stipulated that Rome and the Latin armies would join a mutual defense the spoils of war would be split and joint colonies would be established and captured territory finally the Treaty recognized a set of Latin rights that would be shared by all members this would prove a template for much of Rome's future expansion in Italy where rather than outright destroying or displacing conquered communities they would remain largely intact but be entered into a treaty binding them to Rome and conferring them with a certain set of rights victory over the Latin League was a huge turning point that greatly added to Rome's military manpower and therefore military might in the years that followed the new league would be able to hold back and even take down its powerful neighbors in the 5th century they ventured further south and east grinding their neighbours down through many years of warfare and the establishment of new Latin and Roman colonies to control key areas for a long time efforts to push north were rebuffed by the powerful and rich Etruscan city of a just 16 kilometers away it had competed with Rome for control of the surrounding fertile land and a lucrative salt trade many battles and wars were fought which saw the frequent exchange of territory towns and outposts of the turn of the fourth century however the Etruscans were on the decline and Rome finally managed to advantage if this was not easy as it supposedly took a decade of concerted effort to beseech and take the enemy's well-defended Citadel in 396 BC the victory brought huge swathes of territory under Rome's sway plunder and captives were brought back to Rome while captured land was distributed to Roman citizens and colonists were sent to inhabit former enemy territory the Latins were not becoming the dominant power in central Italy however and 390 BC an army of about 30,000 Celtic tribesmen swept down from the north they were members of the cenotes tribe led by King Brennus resistance was offered as they approached but ultimately a climactic clash was fought by the river alia room is said to have fielded multiple legions and a large number of less well-trained and equipped support troops yet this was not enough and the Republican Army was crushed the Celts then proceeded to sack the city of Rome a nightmare that would terrify generations for centuries to come as the pillaging took place some Romans managed to hold out atop the Capitol line while citizens fled into the countryside along with the Vestal Virgins and many of Rome's Senators after several months of occupation the Celts were eventually removed by a combination of bribery disease and the arrival of a fresh army raised by the Roman general marcus furious Camillus yet victory brought little comfort as the city lay in ruins to make matters worse some members of the Latin League began to break off and Rome's traditional enemies launched opportunistic attacks surprisingly however room was able to weather the storm this was in large part due to the recent conquest of a II whose rich land provided the resources and manpower to quickly rebuild the city of Rome civilians who had scattered to the countryside now made a return and new grants of citizenship were awarded to the neighboring towns in an effort to revive the population within a generation the Romans had reestablished their dominance and would springboard from this remarkable comeback to become masters of Italy there is much much more to this story but for the purposes of this video we'll have to be brief for the remaining period of history we're covering in essence what occurred is that Rome and its allies moved down the coast to take control of the fertile lands of Campania this put them on a collision course with the fearsome night tribes of the Apennines with whom they fought a series of three massive Wars spanning nearly 50 years along the way there would be many internal and external setbacks for Rome but her legions ultimately managed to come out on top as a result they gained control of central Italy and within just a few decades expansion south against the Greeks and north against the Etruscans and gulls and other people's brought them control almost all of the Italian peninsula but again I would remind you that Rome was not merely painting the map red by planting its flag across the world as we pointed out there were a range of activities taking place to actually forge together all the constituent pieces that made up the Roman territories to summarize these methods of conquests involve three main ways the first method involved direct conquest this meant the acquisition of territory and the incorporation of its inhabitants into the Roman citizenry here we should note that populations were typically granted different statuses those communities most closely related to latium were given full Roman citizenship all the more distant communities might be granted the lower status of savita's seem so fragile or citizens without the right to vote they would all of course though be subject to military service the second method of conquest involved colonization this meant founding Roman or Latin colonies in the territory of defeated enemies at strategic locations the communities were not given Roman citizenship but instead were granted latin rights they functioned as a defensive Network for Rome but did not serve in the legions rather they served as troops in the ally formations finally the third method of conquest involved the establishment of alliances with defeated people this was perhaps the most common approach as the Allies retained much of their autonomy in exchange for supplying the Romans with equipment soldiers ships or other demands for support thus we see how Rome was able to keep a fairly hands-off approach to governance while extracting massive amounts of military manpower from its network this extraordinarily deep pool of manpower would prove to be one of the keys to Rome's conquest of the Mediterranean if this were boxing room would be able to take hit after hit from a superior enemy and just get right back up after every round to beat them in the 12th no matter how bloody their face was the real secret to beating Rome was actually to crack open its alliance Network and a private of its manpower resources this was what Hannibal appears to have been attempting to do when he said about deconstructing Rome's network of alliances following the Battle of cannae though he was not ultimately successful there are many other low points in Roman history when you can see the state breaking up along its underlying fault lines the social war in the first century BC is a prime example of this concept at work anyways I hope you've appreciated this fairly deep dive into early Roman expansion if you'd like to take a crack at this in video game form I can actually suggest that you check out creative assemblies latest you'll see for Rome - which covers the rise of the Republic I know I'm enjoying it so far in any case take care and thanks for watching you

Channel: Invicta

Views: 1,188,521

Rating: 4.9163933 out of 5

Keywords: rise of rome, history of rome, history of the rise of rome, roman history documentary, total war rome 2 the rise of rome, early roman history, the punic wars, the samnite wars, the roman army, total war rome 2, total war rome 2 dlc, total war rise of the republic siege, total war rise of the republic review, total war rise of the republic gameplay, imperator rome dev diary, imperator rome gameplay, imperator rome history

Id: opT5Ux6pM-8

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 04 2018