Classical Antiquity: Key Events and Popular Culture

Birth of the Republic
Romans shares Italy with several other peoples
Etruscans, Sammnites, Celts in the north
Rome is a city under King Tarquin
Overthrown in a political revolution
The king and his family expelled
Lucius Junius Brutus and republican Romans beat
Etruscan cities of Veii and Tarquinii lead by King Tarquin

Over the next 230 years Roman Republic goes on to conquer most of Italy

By 400 BC Greeks had colonies at Italy’s southern tip and Sicily
Greek city of Tarentum wants help in a war with Rome
Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus (Western Greece)
Pyrrhus won two major battles in 280 and 279
Alliance between Rome and Carthage against Pyrrhus
Lost all his gains in Italy after the Battle of Beneventum

Several of his victorious battles caused him unacceptably heavy losses, from which the term Pyrrhic victory was coined.
A Pyrrhic victory - a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat.

Firm control over Italy made Rome one of the Mediterranean’s major powers
Carthage controlled western half of Sicily
Messana occupied by mercenaries
Asks Roman and Carthage for help against Syracuse
Cathage intervene, Rome not happy

First Punic War (264–241 BC)
Mostly in Sicily
Hamilcar Barca leads the Carthaginians
First time Rome has to build a fleet
Roman victory
Gained control of the islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia

Second Punic War (218–201 BC)
Hannibal Barca, Hasdrubal Barca, Mago Barca
Scipio Africanus
Battle of the Trebia (December 218 BC)
Battle of Lake Trasimene (217 BC)
Battle of Cannae (216 BC)
Archimedes dies in the Siege of Syracuse (214–212 BC)
Battle of Zama (201 BC)

Third Punic War (149–146 BC)
Siege of Carthage
Scipio Africanus the Younger, was an adoptive grandson of Scipio Africanus

Carthaginian Peace - the imposition of a very brutal "peace" achieved by completely crushing the enemy

First Macedonian War (214 to 205 BC)
Second Macedonian war (200 to 196 BC)
Third Macedonian War (172 to 168 BC)
Fourth Macedonian War (150 to 148 BC)

Spartacus directed by Stanley Kubrick
Thracian sold into slavery and trained at the gladiatorial school in Capua
70 slaves escaped the school and number grew
120,000 men, women, children in the slave army
Battle of Mount Vesuvius (rapelling down the steeper cliff face)
Crassus leads a Roman army
Pompey takes the credit putting down the inserrection
6,000 slaves were crucified along the Appian Way by Crassus

The Gallic Wars By Julius Caesar
Proconsul Julius Caesar conquers all of Gaul (modern day France and Belgium)
Invaded Britain twice: in 55 and 54 BC
First Triumvirate ends in 53 BC with death of Crassus
Asterix and Obelix cartoon

Roman law forbade a general on campaign to enter Italy at the head of an army.
In 49 BC, Caesar crossing the Rubicon with his army
This triggers the civil war that marks the end of the Roman Republic.

46 BC, as part of Caesar's triumph after the civil war, Vercingetorix was paraded through the streets of Rome

The world was old, and the people that live there knew it...
Pyramid of Giza & Great Sphinx are ~2000 years old here

Neo-Assyrian Empire
Multiple defeated powers: Egypt, Babylon, Elam, Medes
Death of King Ashurbanipal in 627 BC leads to civil war
Allied army of Medes & Babylonians sack the city
Population ~300,000

Rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire
Nebuchadnezzar II
Old Testament & Hebrew Bible
The name of Morpheus's ship in The Matrix
Persian Empire conquers Babylon in 539 BC

Greco-Persian Wars
First Persian invasion of Greece
King Darius I of Persia
Ionian Revolt in western modern day Turkey
Stunning Greek victory against the odds

Maraton run in the modern Olympics 1896
Running to Athen to proclaim victory
Running to Sparta to ask for help (Herodotus)

Greco-Persian Wars
Second Persian invasion of Greece
Xerxes I of Persia
Alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas I of Sparta
7,000 men to block the pass
Rearguard of 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians
Naval Battle of Salamis

300 Gerard Butler as King Leonidas
laconic: someone who doesn't talk a lot or uses very few words.

Philip II of Macedon
Creates the Hellenic League
Persian Empire of Darius III
King Alexander III of Macedon
Campaigns in
- Balkan / Greece
- Persia
- India
Alexander dies in Babylon returning from India
Ptolemaic Kingdom founded by Ptolemy

Alexander directed by Oliver Stone
Staring Colin Farrell, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer
City Alexandria founded 331 BC