Lesson 14:
The Rise of Rome--Law, Language, and Legions
From WORLD HISTORY, BOOK 1: Beginning-1200 A.D.
© The Center for Learning.
Objectives
- To emphasize the impact of Roman law and language on the world and their influence up through the present time
- To stress the importance of the military in the development and expansion of the Roman Empire and to show the close relationship of soldiers' training to Roman family lifestyle
Prerequisite
Assign material covering the founding of Rome and building of the Republic and the Empire prior to this lesson. Texts need to be available during the lesson.
Notes to the Teacher
The discussion of Rome, from the founding of the city to its ultimate fall as an empire, occupies a major portion of many world history texts. When working with this material, students are often overwhelmed with facts, especially statistics and dates. The purpose of this lesson is to focus on limited areas which are most significant as achievements of the era--law, language, and legions. The latter was necessary to disseminate the first two, and, due to successful conquest, much of the legal system and roots of the languages of most of the modern world are developed from the Eternal City.
Procedure
1. Ask students what characteristics describe the Greeks (artists, democratic, well educated, inquisitive, etc.). How do Rome characteristics compare to those of the Greeks (punctual, militaristic, imperial, organized, etc.)? List both sets of traits on the board.
2. Suggest that adaptability or flexibility be listed as an important character trait for Romans. They embraced change, adjusting and adopting ideas from many other peoples. They loved and refined elements of other civilizations and brought to them their particular philosophy of practicality and usefulness. Ask students to suggest contributions made by other civilizations and adapted by the Romans. Allow ten minutes for researching notes on text material for examples (arts from Etruscans and Greeks, alphabet, military, technologies, religion from Greeks, sanitation, architecture, pottery making from the Etruscans, Christianity and other religions from the Near East, etc.).
3.Distribute Handout 28 and have students read part A and answer the questions. Review their answers.
Suggested Responses:
- Fifty percent; French, Spanish, Italian
- Clarity, order, structured phrasing and discipline required for formal language of church and government documents
- Satire; Juvenal, as decadence and depraved
- The
Aeneid, Vergil
- Tacitus, Sallust, Julius Caesar
4. Have students read part B of Handout 28 and answer the questions. Review their answers.
Suggested Responses:
- Govern all with equal justice; tolerance and rationality
- Twelve Tables; Stoicism; clarity and universality
- Magistrates called
praetors; established legal precedents
- Lawyers; equity law; precedent; sense of equity and humanitarianism of the Stoic philosophy
- Justinian Code; Code--imperial edicts, Digest--greatest decisions of lawyers, Institutes--manuals of legal principles for the schools, Novels--new laws added by Justinian; the Digest influenced law the most
5. Have students read part C of Handout 28 and answer the questions found on page 4. Review the answers.
Suggested Responses:
- Leader of a squad of about 100 men; a new military formation of 3,000 to 5,000 men divided into centuries
- Legionnaire--recruited from most Romanized provinces and from Roman citizens, farmers--served for twenty years and received regular pay and a bonus upon retirement; auxiliary soldier--from less Romanized provinces, served for twenty-five years and got Roman citizenship at retirement
- Strength of body, and character, and discipline
- Father stressed being a good soldier to his son and trained him for the obligations of citizenship, many soldiers came from farming communities, every male in early Republican period had to serve
- Sixty pound pack, helmet, shield, sword, javelin and unquestioning loyalty
- If he lost equipment during a battle, falling asleep during guard duty; honor
- Well-bathed, well-fed, and well-trained
- Built roads, camps, aqueducts, and fortifications
- It was not very good at fighting on water; added boarding bridges on boats so could fight hand to hand
- Julius Caesar
6. Help students orally summarize what Rome contributed to the world in the areas of law, language, and the military.
7. Instruct students to create a twenty-question crossword puzzle utilizing terms, names, and ideas gathered from these three readings. The puzzle can be started in class and completed as a homework assignment.
Enrichment/Extension
- Compile a list of terms and ideas which modern governments have borrowed from the Romans.
- Choose any two paragraphs from the three handout readings and trace the origin of words that are derived from Latin.
- Interview a lawyer and/or a doctor about the Roman influences of law and language on their professions.
- Research today's military by going to a recruiting office and interviewing the personnel. Compare soldiering today to what it was like in Roman times.
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