Western Civ 2018

Today two people had to do the test that everyone else did so the rest of us just took notes on Rome and Christianity. We started to talk about Jesus and the Apostles and how the Roman religion was changed to Christianity.  Now it's starting to sound like religion class. We specifically talked about the Apostles Paul and Peter. Paul wrote letters to Christian groups and Peter was another important figure in Christian history. We also talked about Constantine and his city called Constantinople. Some other things that were mentioned include the fall of the Roman empire and its roots to Western Civilization. We might as well talk about, I mean this class is called Western Civilization, hint hint. Any who, the reason I chose this title was because everyone was so silent it was like they weren't here but they were so. That's all I got so see u next time.

So we started off with the test which was pretty easy and then afterwards we learned about how Christianity entered into Rome and things about Jesus. The main things that wee mentioned were things about the Crucifixion. The test had questions involving the emperors and the type of government Rome had and stuff about Julius Caesar. I hope that I did good on this test (which I probably did), not sure about everyone else. So basically Rome converted from their polytheistic religion to Christianity, smart move. I'm not sure if everybody else got to the part of reading part of the day but we will see. So that is all I got for you see you all next class whenever it is and hope you all have a good weekend.

Today we came up with questions for the test tomorrow. Some of the questions involved the emperors and kings of Rome while others involved the republic. There were also some on Hannibal crossing the Alps to launch a surprise attack on Rome. That happened in the second Punic War. A lot of people forgot what latifundia was. Latifudia were the big farms that became massive estates that were owned by the rich. Today there weren't any spiders, so no more Caesar the Spiders. Also here are some more things to know for the test. There were three Punic Wars, the emperor Nero was more involved with art than he was about helping his citizens, and Octavian was eventually renamed Caesar Augustus. Augustus meant "exalted one." Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times by praetorians and the senate. Rome was built on the Palatine hill according to the myth of Romulus and Remus. It was Romulus' choice. Hopefully everyone does good tomorrow on the test.

We discussed Caesar Augustus and who became emperor after him. Some of the pros of the pax romana included expanding the empire into parts of Africa and he set up civil services. Octavian ended up dying because of natural causes and the next emperor was Tiberius. Tiberius was a great general but a reluctant emperor. Once his son died, he exiled himself from Rome. He died at the age of 77 by natural causes. One of the most insane people you will ever hear about was the next emperor. His name was Caligula. Caligula was known for cruelty and above all perversity. He was assassinated by praetorians, the senators, and the imperial court. Next was Claudius. Claudius, we think suffered from cerebral palsy, but was a good ruler. he died form poison by one of his wives. Nero was next and was really bad. He valued art over making Rome better. There you have it so goodbye.

Today we started off by Mr. Schick making the class more interesting by making a song about Rome. It was to the tune of a song I don't like but he still did very good, I couldn't do that even if I tried. We also learned about Caesar's assassination and how the Senate lured him into a room and they stabbed in 23 times. Later we found a spider and Mr. Schick stepped on him 23 times just like as if he were Caesar. Octavian was now the emperor and was later known as Augustus. He formed a triumvirate with Mark Antony a military general Lepidus a politician. Augustus made Lepidus retire and they were now rivals. Mark Antony then became partners with Cleopatra from Egypt in more than one way, personally/romantically, politically, and economically. Octavian then beat them at the Battle of Actium. He was a good maybe even better emperor than Caesar. He created an era of peace that lasted for 207 years called Pax Romana. This word meant Roman peace. Octavian lasted 40 years as empero

In western civ we learned about Julius Caesar and how he formed the type of government called a triumvirate.  This type of government involves three people running at the same time. We also learned about the Circus Maximus and the Colosseum.  This is where gladiators would fight to the death for Roman entertainment. The Romans were very interested in this. Eventually, the people of Rome didn't want Caesar to rule so he was cornered at the Rubicon River. Now the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" means when you are making an important life-altering decision. For us, our next Rubicon crossing moment will be deciding where to go to college. Will we go there because of sports or is there a certain thing exclusive to that college you like, well whatever it is we will all make good decisions. That's all folks!

Today was grandparents day and so we got to see them today which was cool. We learned about Hannibal and the Punic Wars. There are three Punic Wars. Here's a fun fact, Rome won all three so they won the Punic Wars in general. The Punic Wars was between Rome and Carthage. The first war was to gain control of Sicily for trade purposes. The second one, Hannibal went to go take over Rome but never got to Rome. The third one was when Rome went to Carthage to destroy it. They ended up   taking the remaining 5,000 people as slave and by the end of the second century BCE, Italy was flowing with them. The people who had grandparents had to leave at eleven so I don't know what happened after that but it was cool learning about the Punic Wars.

Today we talked about the origins of the type of government called the republic. It's a combination of a monarchy, democracy, and aristocracy. During this time the Romans had two consuls instead of kings. We also compared this republic to that of the United States. Both have three branches but the Roman version has two of the same while the United States has three separate ones. The three branches are executive, legislative, and judicial. The executive branch is basically the president and vice president. The legislative is the Senate and House of Representatives. The judicial branch is the Supreme Court and handles the justice system. The republic we have isn't completely different from the Romans but isn't completely the same. So that is basically what you need to know about these two things so bye.

Today we talked about Tarquin and how he got to be in power. I can't remember the story completely word for word but there was a lot of killing and driving over corpses and it was just crazy. After that the people of Rome decided NO MORE KINGS. So they got two elected officials to run at the same time called consuls. They had 1 year terms and one could veto the other if they didn't agree because both of them needed to agree. Consuls were always aristocrats or in this case since we are talking about Romans, they are called patricians. The regular common folk are called plebeians or plebs for short. The plebeians didn't like this because at that time there were more plebeians then patricians in fact Rome was 98% plebeians. At first the Romans just had customs, no laws but eventually laws were written in the form of The Law of Twelve Tables (written on stone tablets like the Ten Commandments.) There were also tribunes (tribal leaders) that were also elected. There was also a s

Today we started Mr. Schick's slide show presentation on Rome. We learned that the Latins were the first people to settle in Rome. Latins were descendants of Indo-European people. There are two myths about how Rome started. One of them was very similar to the Odyssey and how Odysseus traveled for a long time, the other involved two twins raise by a she-wolf. These twins were Romulus and Remus. In the myth when they are older the twins fight over where the city should be placed. Romulus ends up winning and that is why it's called Rome. We also learned about the seventh and final king of Rome: Lucius Tarquinas Superbus. He was a tyrant in both meanings of the word and back in the time of the Romans, they didn't have the letter u so every word with the letter u in our language was replaced with a v. We didn't discuss that but I thought I would add it in my blog. This tyrant was also known as Tarquin the Proud and Tarquin the Arrogant.

Today we got back from Easter break and Mert and Dylan did their tests. After they did that we went over them and started talking about Rome. Rome was supposedly founded by two twins named Romulus and Remus who were the children of the god Mars and a princess. Obviously this isn't true, Rome was built by many different people not two mythological twins. Rome's government was a republic which comes from the Latin word res publica which means " public affair." Republic is when people who are eligible to vote, vote for their leaders. Patricians are wealthy landowners while plebeians are common farmers. Tribunes were representatives of the plebeians.  Consuls were the officials. The senate was the aristocratic branch of government and dictators were leaders with absolute power over the government and the army. Legions were the grouping of troops in their army. The Punic Wars were wars between Rome vs. Carthage. Hannibal was a man who despised Rome and avenged Carthage'