Deck 6: The Creation of the Roman Empire, 44 B.C.E-284 C.E

Question 1

Explain how Augustus's lifelong powers of a tribune and his military reforms gave him supreme power in the state, despite his restoration of the forms of the republic.

Answer 1

Answer would ideally include the following. Although Augustus restored elected offices and only occasionally served in them, he had the Senate grant him the powers, though not the office, of a tribune for life. Thus, he was given the legal power to issue decrees and to compel compliance with them, and he was obeyed because his military reforms secured the loyalty of the army. He had taken the final step in transforming a citizen army into a paid professional force, setting terms of enlistment and guaranteeing soldiers' pay and benefits, which were subsidized by an inheritance tax on citizens. Although the wealthy complained, the soldiers' gratitude toward Augustus gave him supreme power in the state.

Question 2

Explain how slaves could attain their freedom and even move up the social ladder.

Answer 2

Answer would ideally include the following. Slave owners often permitted slaves who ran businesses for them to keep some of the profits. Masters also frequently paid slaves a gratuity for sexual favors, and slave-prostitutes sometimes received gifts of money from their clients. However the money was earned, slaves could save it and apply it toward purchasing their freedom and that of their families. In other cases, slaves were granted their freedom in their masters' wills. Because Rome granted citizenship to freed slaves, those who gained their freedom could become wealthy and could even join the social elite.

Question 3

Augustus is renowned as a patron of literature. How did significant works written during his reign support his political goals?

Answer 3

Answer would ideally include the following. Literary works of Augustus's time reflected his desire to reinforce peace and stability by restoring traditional morality and virtue. Virgil's Aeneid told the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, believed by Romans to be their distant ancestor. Similarly, even though Livy's history of Rome spelled out the ruthless actions of Augustus and his supporters, it nevertheless supported the princeps' goals by emphasizing that success and stability depended on traditional values of loyalty and self-sacrifice. Horace's poems were less subtle. One celebrated Augustus's victory at Actium.

Question 4

What checks were there on the power of the Roman emperors? How were the worst excesses of emperors like Nero and Caligula curbed?

Question 5

How did the Roman belief that "Nothing is less equitable than mere equality itself" influence the Romans' legal system under the principate?

Question 6

During the Roman Empire, why were families and the state both interested in maintaining a high birthrate? How did they attempt to encourage reproduction?

Question 7

Who was Paul of Tarsus, and how did his view of Jesus's teachings differ from that held by the Apostles and their followers?

Question 8

In the early Christian church, what was meant by the "apostolic succession" of bishops? How did it support the bishops' authority, such as the power to create priests or to resolve doctrinal disputes?

Question 9

Which aspects of the worship of Isis made her cult appealing to many people during the early republic?

Question 10

Which of the emperor Caracalla's actions brought the Roman Empire to the verge of bankruptcy? How did he attempt to deal with the crisis in 212 C.E.?

Question 11

Describe the hazardous living conditions that most Romans faced, and explain why this situation was a constant worry for Rome's rulers. What measures did Roman leaders take to address these problems?

Question 12

To what extent did the system of imperial rule created by Augustus break from the political traditions of the Roman republic? In your response, please also discuss the symbolic measures introduced by Augustus.

Question 13

What is Romanization? What was Rome's greatest impact on western Europe? Explain how Romanization was mutually beneficial for the Roman territories and for Rome itself. Despite heavy influence of Rome on its conquered territories, why were some regions able to maintain their own characteristics?

Question 14

What factors enabled Christianity to grow from a Jewish splinter group on the fringes of the Roman Empire to a significant religion with followers in most other regions of the Roman world? Was this a sudden or a gradual transition?

Question 15

Explain the origins of the crisis of the third century C.E. in the Roman Empire. Please discuss the military, economic, political, and demographic factors that contributed to this crisis.

Question 16

Which of the following factors contributed to the ability of Augustus to reinvent government and have a successful political system?

A) He used benevolence and a soft hand to win power.
B) He supported the army unfailingly.
C) He curated an image of himself as a regular citizen.
D) He dismantled tradition in favor of innovation.

Question 17

How did Augustus preserve his power?

A) By withdrawing from public life and ruling cautiously
B) By spearheading innovation in arts, science, and medicine
C) By making enshrined Roman values look like the best option
D) By establishing a true republic to win favor with the people

Question 18

Who formed the Second Triumvirate?

A) Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Alexander the Great
B) Septimius Severus and his sons Caracalla and Geta
C) Antony, Octavian, and Agrippa
D) Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus

Question 19

How did Octavian win the Roman people's support against Antony?

A) Octavian asserted that Antony had been the mastermind behind the plot to kill Julius Caesar.
B) Octavian turned many Romans against Antony by playing on their fear of foreigners and asserting that Antony intended to make Cleopatra their ruler.
C) Octavian persuaded his sister, who was Antony's wife, to beg the Senate and people of Rome for justice against Antony and his lover, Cleopatra.
D) Octavian promised the masses in Rome abundant grain from Egypt and promised to award official positions and lands to the elite as soon as Antony and Cleopatra were defeated.

Question 20

What was the Roman political system devised by Augustus as a disguised monarchy with the "first man" as emperor?

A) The triumvirate
B) The imperium
C) The republic
D) The principate

Question 21

How did the praetorian guard, a creation of Augustus, come to exert a critical role in imperial politics?

A) Its defense of Rome proved critical in staving off foreign invasions.
B) It played a role in selecting the emperor after the death of the current one.
C) It destroyed the remaining institutions of the republic.
D) It helped communicate Augustus's image to the public through its massive public works projects.

Question 22

Which of the following helped Augustus's transformation of Roman government become permanent?

A) His reign of forty-one years was so long that by his death very few Romans had a firsthand memory of the old republic.
B) His extensive military conquests later in life allowed him to distribute the spoils of war to his army and to the citizens of Rome, thereby ensuring acceptance of his new system.
C) He abolished the hallmark institutions of the republic, including the assemblies, the consulships, the tribunes, and the Senate.
D) His heavy reliance on brute military force and his extravagant demeanor allowed him to terrify not only his political opponents but also the entire population into submission.

Question 23

What was one of the ways that Augustus fulfilled his role as Rome's patron?

A) He created the first public fire department in Western history.
B) He established free public baths for the poor.
C) He instituted free medical care for all children.
D) He developed a mail system for Rome and the Italian peninsula.

Question 24

Why did the birthrates of wealthy Romans decline by the first century?

A) Wealthy Romans increasingly spent money on luxuries and political careers instead of raising families.
B) Birth-control methods were beginning to take root in patrician circles.
C) Wealthy Romans increasingly converted to Christianity, which emphasized poverty and celibacy.
D) Too many died while fighting in the army or in the civil wars that had racked the republic.

Question 25

What was a fundamental difference between slavery in Rome and slavery in Greece?

A) Roman men could raise their children by female slaves as their legitimate children and heirs.
B) Greeks tended not to enslave other Greeks, but Romans preferred Italian-born slaves.
C) Roman slaves gained citizenship with their freedom, but Greek slaves did not.
D) Greek slaves had some legal protections against abuse, but Roman slaves did not.

Question 26

What public function did gladiatorial combats provide in the Roman Empire?

A) They provided communication between ruler and ruled, as ordinary citizens staged protests at events at which the emperor was present.
B) They provided a chance for emperors to enter the arena themselves and display their courage and bravery in front of their subjects.
C) They overturned social and political hierarchies, insofar as women and the poor were allowed to sit in the same section as the emperor and wealthy patricians.
D) They provided a chance for slaves and criminals to win their freedom.

Question 27

Why did the art of rhetoric enter into decline under the rule of Augustus?

A) Rhetorical skills no longer played a crucial role in politics, since the emperor's supremacy ruled out political debate in the public sphere.
B) Augustus altered the educational system so that rhetoric was no longer taught in schools.
C) Illiteracy rates rose drastically, as Roman expansion throughout the Mediterranean caused the number of slaves to swell.
D) Rome became so cosmopolitan and multicultural that many Roman subjects in the Augustan period could no longer understand Latin.

Question 28

Why did Roman education in the Augustan period remain limited?

A) Roman elites did not value education; even many of the emperors were illiterate.
B) Roman elites valued only practical subjects like mathematics and sciences and not the humanities.
C) Most of the instruction was provided by Greek slaves.
D) There were no free public schools, so the poor received no formal education.

Question 29

Why did the poet Ovid (43 B.C.E.-17 C.E.) fall out of favor with Augustus in 8 B.C.E.?

A) He published the irreverent and bawdy Art of Love.
B) He refused to write a poem praising the first ten years of Augustus's reign.
C) He became entangled in a scandal involving Augustus's granddaughter.
D) In his work Metamorphoses, Ovid criticized Augustus's transformation of government.

Question 30

Which landmark poem by Virgil told the story of one of Rome's founders and expressed praise for Roman civilization while also indirectly alluding to problems in it?

A) Metamorphoses
B) The Odyssey
C) The Aeneid
D) The Art of Love

Question 31

Why did Augustus not create and codify in law a formal mechanism by which all future emperors could be chosen?

A) Augustus died before he could designate a successor.
B) Since the Roman Empire was not formally a monarchy, no successor could automatically inherit the previous emperor's power without the Senate's approval.
C) He feared that establishing a hereditary monarchy would incur divine wrath.
D) He did not wish to limit the powers of the institutions from the republic that were still functioning, including the assemblies and the Senate.

Question 32

What factor allowed Augustus's successor Tiberius to rule for twenty-three years?

A) His position as Augustus's oldest son
B) The army's loyalty to him
C) His many years of service as praetor, tribune, and consul
D) His decision to disband the Senate and rule with an iron fist

Question 33

Which Roman emperor was assassinated by the praetorian guard in 41 C.E. after a short but brutal reign marked by decadence and corruption?

A) Tiberius
B) Caligula
C) Nero
D) Augustus

Question 34

Claudius (r. 41-54 C.E.) set a crucial precedent when he

A) allowed foreign-born men to serve as praetors or censors.
B) banned ex-slaves from holding positions in government.
C) bribed the praetorian guard to back him as the new emperor.
D) declared that the emperor should be worshipped as a god.

Question 35

Which Roman emperor scandalized the Roman elite when he appeared in public as a musician and caused outrage when he faked treason charges against senators?

A) Nero
B) Titus
C) Vespasian
D) Caligula

Question 36

Why did Vespasian allow the imperial cult to emerge only in the provinces beyond Italy and not in Italy itself?

A) The imperial cult would have upset traditional Roman sensibilities.
B) Vespasian sought to use the imperial cult to suppress the new religion of Christianity that was spreading in the Near East.
C) The Hellenistic regions of the Roman Empire in North Africa and the Near East were more open to emperor worship than Italy or Greece.
D) He recognized that imposing an imperial cult predicated on submission to the emperor would help put down rebellions outside of Italy.

Question 37

How did the construction of the Colosseum demonstrate the Flavian dynasty's commitment to the well-being of the people?

A) It was deliberately built on the former site of Nero's extravagant private fishpond.
B) Titus paid for the Colosseum out of his own pocket instead of using public funds.
C) Titus paid free workers a decent wage to build it instead of using slave labor.
D) Titus used it to symbolize his promise to rebuild areas damaged by the fire of 64 C.E.

Question 38

Which of the following statements describes the period of the reign of the five "good emperors" (96 C.E.-180 C.E.)?

A) It represented the longest period without a civil war in over one hundred years.
B) It brought close to one hundred years of relative peace throughout the Roman empire.
C) It was the only period in which imperial cults emerged spontaneously throughout the empire.
D) It was a period of intense spiritual and philosophical exploration among the elite classes.

Question 39

Which of the following regions was conquered by Augustus by 30 C.E.?
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A) Britain
B) Egypt
C) Spain
D) Mesopotamia

Question 40

Which of the following statements is supported by this map?
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A) The Roman Empire had lost a significant amount of territory by Augustus's death.
B) Frequent and destructive battles led to the loss of territory by the Roman Empire.
C) By the time of Augustus's death, the Roman Empire had expanded significantly.
D) By 117 C.E., the Roman Empire had expanded as far north as the Baltic Sea.

Question 41

One stabilizing factor in the reigns of the Golden Age emperors was that the first four emperors

A) had no surviving sons and were therefore able to use adoption to find the best possible successor.
B) engaged in shrewd public relations by stamping their images on coins, establishing their imperial cults, and inscribing their names on public buildings.
C) generously paid an enormous number of soldiers who collected taxes and maintained peace at all costs.
D) offered to all their loyal subjects the possibility and attendant rewards of citizenship, regardless of gender, nationality, or ethnicity.

Question 42

What advantage did serving in the army confer on noncitizens from the provinces?

A) It granted them citizenship upon joining and all of the rights and privileges that being a citizen entailed.
B) It granted them the opportunity to learn Latin, live by Roman customs, and receive Roman citizenship upon discharge.
C) It exempted them and their extended families from taxation.
D) It earned them an audience with the emperor, who frequently granted their extended families citizenship as well.

Question 43

In the decentralized Roman tax system, if provincial officials (decurions) failed to collect enough funds, they were

A) executed unless they had been victims of drought or other natural catastrophic events.
B) replaced by officials sent directly from Rome, who did not shrink from using Roman troops to extract the taxes.
C) expected to make up the shortfall from their own personal resources.
D) removed from office and exiled to another province.

Question 44

Why did Romanization have less effect in the eastern provinces than in the western provinces?

A) The religious beliefs of the peoples in the eastern provinces condemned those who succumbed to Roman influence.
B) The peoples of western Europe were more impressed by Roman culture than were peoples in the more advanced east and were therefore more open to adopting Roman customs.
C) Hellenistic-Near Eastern culture had long been firmly entrenched, thus making it difficult for Romanization to have much sway.
D) Unlike the peoples of the western provinces, who all spoke Latin, the multilingual east found it difficult to understand and relate to Roman law, literature, and customs.

Question 45

A farmer in Italy would be most likely to grow which of the following?
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A) Dates
B) Olives
C) Corn
D) Wheat

Question 46

What Roman writer and philosopher wrote biographies that eventually provided inspiration for some of the plays of William Shakespeare?

A) Trajan
B) Plutarch
C) Tacitus
D) Lucian

Question 47

Although Roman law was founded on the principle of equity, it nevertheless

A) sanctioned criminal punishments harsher than those of any other ancient culture.
B) did not judge all Roman citizens as equal before the law.
C) failed to affect the conduct of business and private agreements.
D) never recognized intention or permitted any deviation from the letter of the law.

Question 48

What generally determined whom wealthier Romans would marry?

A) Their marriages were arranged by their families.
B) They married those persons with whom they had fallen in love.
C) They married only within their immediate families so that their families could hold on to their wealth and property.
D) Their marriages were arranged in such a way as to encourage the favor of Jupiter.

Question 49

According to Jewish apocalypticism, the world was ruled by

A) evil powers that would one day be crushed by the Messiah, God's chosen agent, after which the righteous would be rewarded and the evil punished.
B) corrupt human beings whose crimes would one day incur God's wrath and cause the destruction of earth by fire.
C) a positive divine force who secured a blessed afterlife for believers.
D) the Messiah, who was gathering the souls of the righteous into an army that would destroy evil people throughout the world.

Question 50

Which early Christian facilitated the spread of Christianity by opening the new religion to non-Jews and by not requiring male converts to undergo circumcision?

A) Peter
B) Juvenal
C) Titus
D) Paul of Tarsus

Question 51

Why did the Roman governor Pontius Pilate execute Jesus of Nazareth in 30 C.E.?

A) He was offended by Jesus's teachings, which criticized deeply held notions of social hierarchy.
B) He feared that Jesus might incite and lead a Jewish revolt against the Romans.
C) Jesus had argued that the Roman Empire was fundamentally corrupt and that Jews should refuse to pay taxes.
D) Jesus called for an immediate revolt against the Romans.

Question 52

Although the Romans wanted to eradicate Christianity, they stopped short of

A) imprisoning its followers.
B) executing Christian women.
C) making it illegal.
D) demanding that Christians recant their beliefs and vow allegiance to the imperial cult.

Question 53

Whom did the emperor Nero publicly blame for the fire that burned much of Rome in 64 C.E.?

A) Disloyal senators
B) The Roman mob
C) Christians
D) Angry gods

Question 54

In which of the following regions or cities would Christians have most likely faced intolerance or persecution in the late third century C.E.?
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A) Cirta
B) Carthage
C) Asia Minor
D) Gaul

Question 55

To resolve disputes over doctrine and practice in the latter first and second centuries, the early Christians

A) established the office of bishop, which carried decisive authority.
B) held periodic councils of priests who were given the authority to settle doctrinal disputes.
C) collected core Christian writings into the New Testament.
D) consulted the Christians of Jerusalem.

Question 56

A woman in the early Christian church could attain a measure of independence and authority if she

A) received an education and taught her children reading, writing, and the scriptures.
B) served the bishops in the church by handling their domestic arrangements and money.
C) followed traditional Jewish laws and rituals.
D) gave up the roles of wife and mother to pursue a celibate, spiritual life.

Question 57

What was the most popular of the philosophies espoused by upper-class Romans?

A) Epicureanism, based on the philosophy of Epicurus
B) Stoicism, which required self-discipline
C) Cynicism, as taught by Diogenes
D) Cicero's doctrine of humanitas

Question 58

What was the basic belief of Neoplatonists?

A) The empire should be modeled more closely on Plato's Republic.
B) People can reach God only by turning away from the physical world and the life of the body.
C) God can only be understood through the type of self-examination encouraged by Socrates.
D) God created the spiritual and the physical world, so both must be loved and respected.

Question 59

Debasing imperial coinage had the effect of

A) creating inflation, because merchants raised prices to make up for the coins' lower value.
B) stabilizing the economic situation, because there was more money to go around.
C) lowering prices, because people could now afford to buy more goods.
D) reassuring people that the government had sufficient money to maintain peace.

Question 60

Septimius Severus's son Caracalla murdered

A) Marcus Aurelius and set fire to Rome.
B) Caligula and assumed the role of emperor.
C) his father and sacked Rome.
D) his brother to become emperor.

Question 61

How did the emperor Caracalla attempt to solve the budget crisis?

A) He bestowed citizenship on every subject-man or woman-in the Roman Empire except slaves, thereby increasing inheritance tax receipts.
B) He attempted to expand his empire still further into the Germanic lands north of the Danube, thereby securing yet another source of war plunder.
C) He passed a law whereby Italians, for the first time, would be taxed much like other citizens of the empire.
D) He promised the soldiers land in the provinces in exchange for their acceptance of reduced pay.

Question 62

During the civil wars of the third century C.E., qualifications for becoming emperor had been reduced to

A) merely holding Roman citizenship.
B) demonstrating rhetorical abilities and winning the support of the population of the city of Rome.
C) the ability to forge alliances with neighboring powers.
D) commanding a frontier army and paying off the troops.

Question 63

The difficulties facing Rome in the third century C.E. convinced the emperor Decius of the need to appease the gods, so between 249 and 251 he

A) rebuilt forums and adjacent temples throughout the empire.
B) ordered all temples to foreign gods in Rome destroyed and had them replaced with temples to Roman gods, including the deified Augustus.
C) ordered all citizens to sacrifice to the gods for the welfare of the state and executed all Christians who refused to do so.
D) expanded and lavishly decorated and furnished the temple of Vesta and the quarters of the Vestal Virgins.

Question 64

What did the emperor Decius gain notoriety for?

A) The systematic persecution of Christians
B) Embarking on massive public works projects in the city of Rome
C) Having led a disastrous military campaign in Scotland that led to the destruction of two legions
D) Granting Roman citizenship to all men and women in imperial territory except slaves

Question 65

Based on this map, which of the following transactions would be the most likely?
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A) Greece trading grain for olive oil from Britain.
B) Gaul trading olive oil for grain from Greece.
C) Egypt trading slaves for olive oil from Greece.
D) Spain trading grain for wine from Gaul.