Southwest Europe

Carthage now controls southern Italy and all islands of the Western Mediterranean except Sicily.

The Greeks, similar to the Phoenicians, are expert sailors who have set up trade posts throughout the Mediterranean.

These two rivals fight their wars on the island of Sicily, which lies at Carthage's doorstep.

Both the Greeks and Phoenicians, from their earliest days, had been attracted to the large island, establishing a large number of colonies and trading posts along its coasts.

Small battles had been fought between these settlements for centuries.

Phalaris, despot of Agrigentum in Greek Sicily, supplies the city with water, adorns it with fine buildings, and strengthens it with walls.

The Greek city of Sybaris in southern Italy, its wealth and power the envy of the Hellenic world, mints its own coinage; its innovations include perhaps the world's first primitive yet effective street-lighting system and the concept of intellectual property.

The people of the Roman Kingdom and its successor, the Roman Republic in central Italy, begin a series of wars with the Etruscans to the north.

The first games of the Ludi Romani are staged at the location of the Circus Maximus (Latin for greatest circus), a hippodrome and mass entertainment venue situated in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, first utilized for public games and entertainment by Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the legendary fifth king and first Etruscan ruler of Rome.

Following a great flood, the damp lowlands of Rome are drained by the construction of the Cloaca Maxima (great sewers) to create a site for the Forum Romanum.

This public work, ordered by Priscus, is largely achieved through the use of Etruscan engineers and large amounts of semi-forced labor from the poorer classes of Roman citizens.

As his last great act, Priscus begins the construction of a temple in honor of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, partially funded by plunder seized from the Latins and Sabines.

Many of the Roman symbols both of war and of civil office date from his reign, and he is the first to have celebrated a Roman triumph, after the Etruscan fashion, wearing a robe of purple and gold, and borne on a chariot drawn by four horses.

His thirty-eight-year reign supposedly ends with his assassination in 579 BCE at the behest of the natural sons of his adoptive father, the late King Ancus Marius.

Thanks to the intelligent foresight of the widowed queen Tanaquil however, the assassins are not chosen, but rather Tarquinius' son-in-law Servius Tullius is elected as his successor.

Servius Tullius is the first king to come to power without the consultation of the plebeians.

After military campaigns against Veii and the Etruscans, he improves the administrative and political organization of Rome.

He undertakes building projects and expands the city to include the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline hills.

Favoring the goddess, Fortuna, he builds several temples to her as well as to Diana.

He also builds a palace for himself on the Esquiline.

There is very little information on the history of Sybaris after the mid-sixth century until shortly before its fall.

It appears that near the end of the sixth century the government, which had previously been in the hands of an oligarchy, was overthrown by a democratic party headed by a demagogue named Telys who drove a considerable number of the leading citizens into exile.

Subsequently Telys seems to have become the despot or tyrant of the city.

The exiled citizens have taken refuge at Crotona but, not content with their victory, Telys and his partisans demand that the Crotoniats hand over the fugitives.

They refuse to do so and as a result the Sybarites declare war and march upon Crotona with an army said to have amounted to three hundred thousand men.

They are met by the Crotoniats at the river Traeis; the defending army does not amount to more than a third of their numbers.

Nevertheless, the Crotoniats win resoundingly and slaughter most of the Sybarites.

They continue their pursuit to Sybaris' gates, gain control of the city, and determine to raze it to the ground so it can never be inhabited again.

In order to do this, they divert the course of the river Crathis, so that it inundates the site of the city and buries the ruins under its silt deposits.

The surviving inhabitants take refuge at Laüs and Scidrus, on the shores of the Tyrrhenian sea.

This catastrophe occurs in 510 BCE, and seems to have been viewed by many of the Greeks as divine vengeance upon the Sybarites for their pride, arrogance, and excessive prosperity.

More specifically, it is seen as punishment for the contempt they had shown for the great Olympic Games, which they are said to have attempted to supplant by attracting the principal artists and athletes to their own public games.

It is certain that Sybaris was never rebuilt.

Today the site is bare and the exact position of the ancient city cannot be determined.

Explorations undertaken by the Italian government in 1879 and 1887 failed to lead to a precise knowledge of the site.

Hieron's reign is marked by the creation of the first secret police in Greek history, but he is a liberal patron of literature and culture.

The poets Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus, and Epicharmus are active at his court, as well the philosopher Xenophanes.

He is an active participant in panhellenic athletic contests, winning several victories in the single horse race and also in the chariot race.

He won the chariot race at Delphi in 470 (a victory celebrated in Pindar's first Pythian ode) and at Olympia in 468 (this, his greatest victory, was commemorated in Bacchylides' third victory ode).

Other odes dedicated to him include Pindar's first Olympian Ode, his second and third Pythian odes, and Bacchylides' fourth and fifth victory odes.

He dies at Catana/Aetna in 467 and is buried there, but his grave will later be destroyed when the former inhabitants of Catana returned to the city.

Hiero is succeeded by his surviving brother, Thrasybulus, but the tyranny at Syracuse lasts only a year or so after his death.

Rome, in consolidating its control of southern and central Italy, plants Roman and Latin military colonies on confiscated lands.

They award complete Roman citizenship only to some cities and tribes as a way of rewarding them for rapid romanization and faithfulness to Rome.

The Romans impose limited citizenship on other cities and tribes, forcing them to conclude a perpetual alliance with Rome and to provide soldiers for Roman wars, and depriving these cities of an independent foreign policy.

In 264 BCE, Roman Italy comprises about fifty-two thousand square miles (one hundred and toirty five thousand square kilometers), populated by two hundred and ninety two thousand Roman (male) citizens, and about seven hundred thousand Roman allies.

Gladiators—professional combatants drawn from the ranks of prisoners of war, criminals, enslaved people, and volunteer freedmen—compete from 264 as public entertainment as part of memorial ceremonies in Rome.

The existence of a pool of inexpensive labor in the form of enslaved people is an important factor in the economy through varying degrees throughout Roman history.

Slaves are acquired for the Roman workforce through a variety of means, including purchase from foreign merchants and the enslavement of foreign populations through military conquest.

With Rome's heavy involvement in wars of conquest in the second and first centuries BCE, tens if not hundreds of thousands of slaves at a time are imported into the Roman economy from various European and Mediterranean acquisitions.

While there is limited use for slaves as servants, craftsmen, and personal attendants, vast numbers of slaves work in mines and on the agricultural lands of Sicily and southern Italy.

For the most part, slaves are treated harshly and oppressively during the Roman republican period.

Under Republican law, a slave is not considered a person, but property.

Owners can abuse, injure or even kill their own slaves without legal consequence.

While there are many grades and types of slaves, the lowest—and most numerous—grades, who work in the fields and mines, are subject to a life of hard physical labor.

This high concentration and oppressive treatment of the slave population has led to rebellions.

In 135 BCE and 104 BCE, the First and Second Servile Wars, respectively, had erupted in Sicily, where small bands of rebels found tens of thousands of willing followers wishing to escape the oppressive life of a Roman slave.

While these were considered serious civil disturbances by the Roman Senate, taking years and direct military intervention to quell, they were never considered a serious threat to the Republic.

The Roman heartland of Italy had never seen a slave uprising, nor had slaves ever been seen as a potential threat to the city of Rome.

This all changes with the Third Servile War.

In the Roman Republic of the first century, gladiatorial games are one of the more popular forms of entertainment.

In order to supply gladiators for the contests, several training schools, or ludi, have been established throughout Italy.

In these schools, prisoners of war and condemned criminals—who are considered slaves—are taught the skills required to fight to the death in gladiatorial games.

In 73 BCE, a group of some two hundred gladiators in the Capuan school owned by Lentulus Batiatus plot an escape.

When their plot is betrayed, a force of about seventy men seizes kitchen implements, ("choppers and spits"), fight their way free from the school, and seize several wagons of gladiatorial weapons and armor.

Once free, the escaped gladiators choose leaders from their number, selecting two Gallic slaves—Crixus and Oenomaus—and Spartacus, who is said either to be a Thracian auxiliary from the Roman legions later condemned to slavery, or a captive taken by the legions.

There is some question as to Spartacus's nationality, however, as a Thraex (plural Thraces or Threses) is a type of gladiator in Rome, so the title "Thracian" may simply refer to the style of gladiatorial combat in which he had been trained.

These escaped slaves are able to defeat a small force of troops sent after them from Capua, and equip themselves with captured military equipment as well as their gladiatorial weapons.

Sources are somewhat contradictory on the order of events immediately following the escape, but they generally agree that this band of escaped gladiators plundered the region surrounding Capua, recruited many other slaves into their ranks, and eventually retired to a more defensible position on Mount Vesuvius.

Catiline, on returning home in 66 BCE, had presented himself as a candidate for the consular elections but a delegation from Africa appealing to the Senate, indicting him for abuses, had prevented this as the incumbent consul, Lucius Volcatius Tullus, disallowed the candidacy.

The consuls-designate, Publius Autronius Paetus and Publius Cornelius Sulla, had been prevented from entering office because of ambitus, electoral corruption, under the lex Calpurnia.

Thus, the two other leading candidates, Lucius Manlius Torquatus and Lucius Aurelius Cotta, had been elected in a second election and were to enter office on January 1, 65 BCE.

Supposedly, Catiline, incensed because he was not allowed to stand for the consulship, had conspired with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and the former consuls-designate to slaughter many of the senators and the new consuls the day they assumed office.

They would then name themselves the consuls for 65 BCE and would then have sent Piso to organize the provinces in Spain.

Alternatively, Suetonius claims that Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus directed the conspiracy, but he fails to mention Catiline's involvement.

Crassus is accused of planning to become dictator instead of assuming the consulship, and of intending to name Caesar magister equitum.

Catiline in 65 BCE is finally brought to trial where he receives the support of many distinguished men, including many consulars.

Even one of the consuls for 65 BCE, Lucius Manlius Torquatus, demonstrates his support for Catiline.

Cicero also contemplates defending Catiline in court.

Catiline is acquitted, but only—as suggested to the author of Commentariolum Petitionis, possibly Cicero's brother, Quintus Cicero—by the fact that: "he left the court as poor as some of his judges had been before the trial, implying that he bribed his judges. (Commentariolum Petitionis, 3)

Pompey, whose military exploits have amassed to him great power and wealth, encounters strong opposition within the senate, led by Cato the Younger, Lucullus and—for a while—Crassus.

Crassus, as censor in 65, proposes citizenship for the Transpadane Gauls and annexation of Egypt but is blocked by Cicero and others.

Caesar, as aedile in 65, further advertises his Marian connections by organizing the restoration of Marius' battle trophies on the Capitoline Hill.

He attains great popularity—and goes deeply into debt—by financing spectacular games.

Caesar also probably cooperates with Crassus in his attempt to annex Egypt.

The two years following Augustus' return to Rome have witnessed social legislation attempting to encourage marriage, regulate penalties for adultery, and reduce extravagance.

Lex Julia (or: Lex Iulia, plural: Leges Juliae/Leges Iuliae) refers to a Roman law introduced by any member of the Julian family.

In the narrow sense (especially when used in the English plural form, Julian laws) they refer to a series of laws relating to marriage and morals, introduced by Augustus in 18-17 BCE.

These represent a specific attempt to force the nobles to marry and to have more children, and are more generally meant to encourage large families and increase the Roman population; adultery is establishing as a private and public crime (lex Julia de adulteriis).

In 17, there are resplendent celebrations of ancient ritual, known as the ludi saeculares (Secular Games), to purify the Roman people of their past sins and provide full religious inauguration of the new age.

Although the principate is not an office which can be automatically handed on, Augustus seems to be indicating his views regarding his ultimate successor when he adopts the two sons of his daughter Julia, boys aged three and one who are henceforward known as Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar.

Their father Agrippa, after participating in Augustus' celebration, returns to the East as vicegerent of the emperor.