Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome. Carthage wanted control of the island of Cicily because it would be a good port and such. They thought they could take them! But unfortunately....Carthage lost the first Punic War to Rome.
Hannibal Barca is 28 years old general from Carthage. He comes up with a really brilliant idea to win the war, but it didn't quite win. They needed to launch a full assault on Rome and defeat them! Owning control of multiple islands, there was an expected route Rome thought they would take. He attacks Rome but not in the way they thought they would.
He assembled troops and marches them through the Pyrenees and the Alps. They came in the through the back door, coming from behind them! They didn't see it coming and they didn't have a defense ready. They also used elephants to help them try and win. It would be super hard to defeat an armored soldier and an elephant against yourself, just being a regular man on foot. They marched on the peninsula and just attacked! But they had lost so many people going through the mountains that they were able to just show up like POW. So Carthage lost again because they didn't have enough men to get to Rome itself.
Before Carthage can regroup they just attack them! The Romans just swamped the city of Carthage and just BAM! Killed every adult man they could find, or sold them into slavery. They just dominated. "They sowed their land with salt" Not only did they burn their land and capture people, but they completely destroyed them and salted their farmland so they can never even grow crops again. This is a myth, but a popular saying. And now they had Carthage's land. The point of the saying is that Rome didn't just win, they CRUSHED them. This is Rome at their most powerful.
Now back to Rome inside of itself. The rich are getting richer, those who own land and such are just getting better and improving. Rich people tend to find a way to get better they have 1/3 of the government. The aristocracy can really protect itself and it's own interests. 1/3 of the population in Rome is slaves! This is a massive amount of slavery. It never even got that bad (slavery) in the U.S. when we had slaves. Lots of the plebeians didn't live a comfortable life. Lots of people went off to fight in the Punic wars. That was what you did, your duty. If your country needs you, it was normal to do it, and you just did it! While they were gone, the women are left to take care of everything.
What happened a lot of the time, the women weren't able to keep up with the family farm all by themselves. It was a lot of responsibility. It got tougher. So the women couldn't keep up with the bills and such. So then the rich would swoop in and be like wow you're in trouble ma'm. I will buy this from you and you can get a good price and you can get some money and we'll fix the land up for you. And the rich people ended up buying a lot of land and combining these little estates. This is a latifundia. (= a massive estate type of farm)
So then the rich would have acres upon acres of land! But when the rich people kept buying they had a ton of land and would hire people to take care of it. So basically they just keep getting money without having to do any work. So now when the people come home they just have options to work on other people's farms. And then a lot of people moved to Rome itself to try and find opportunities for jobs and such. A lot of people did this. So now there's a lot of people trying to get jobs and you're trying to get a job and a lot of slaves do that job already. Lots of desperate homeless people. Way too many people competing for the sparse amount of jobs.
The government looks at this situation and is like well they're getting really poor I don't want them to revolt. We need to throw them a bone so they can just stay content for a while. So they start something like well-fare Giving people some bread and some food. They also entertained them with, gladiators, chariot racers, collesuem, circus maximus (big circle for entertainment, not real circus). The people would get free tickets and just go and be super entertained. People who had to fight, they were people like criminals, wild animals (angry), Christians were sometimes thrown in and people didn't like them and didn't have a lot of power or social position, and then if you were in the stand you just saw people murdering each other, or being murdered. YUCK!
Brothers Gracchus, were people who tried to reform the government. They came in and were like look things aren't going well, tons of people are desperate. We have an idea! Look, rich people and fortunate souls, you have more stuff than you need! Why don't you give some of it back to the lesser people, to the people who fought for us and made a huge sacrifice for us. Keep stuff for you, but give it back to the veterans Basically the rich laughed in their faces and were like NO. Give my stuff away?! NO. Basically, they beat one of them to death and threw them in the Tiber river. So obviously, that went downhill quickly..
Started a civil war cause people were like they were trying to help us. Not cool. The last straw!!
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