Segment nine A: Introduction. Everything changes,

and we change right along with everything.

In this exciting lecture, Rome will continue trying to

deal with both the positive and negative consequences

of being the superpower of the Mediterranean world.

The Romans had been reasonably familiar with the

ancient Greeks they encountered in Italy. But when they

conquered Greece, it turns out, the Greeks in turn

conquered the Romans, to use Horace's phrase.

Like the Roman empire, the Roman government was a work

in progress,and not all of the progress was positive.As

the Roman nation became more wealthy and more powerful,

so did individual Romans.The tension between the wealth

and power of individual Romans and the practice of

democracy would cause great problems down the line.

In segment nine B: Romans and Hellenism, we take up the

Romans' love-hate relationship with the ancient Greeks.

After the conquest of Greece, Romans re-discovered

Hellenism,the cosmopolitan Greek lifestyle developed in

classical mainland Greece and spread throughout the

Eastern Mediterranean by Alexander the Great.

Hellenism opened up a new world of art, literature and

creature comforts far beyond what the mos maiorum

prescribed. The Romans would tend to look down their

nose at the Greeks for being soft and frivolous, and

unable to rule themselves effectively. Yet the Romans

wholeheartedly admired the Greeks'cultural achievements

and adapted many Greek customs and Greek technologies

for their own use and some they just took over outright

The result was a truly Greco-Roman civilization which

served as the foundation for, what we'll call, the Roman Empire.

In segment nine C: The Costs of Success,

Rome wrestles with the social costs of her success,

most notably, the decline of Rome's former backbone,

the small farmer class. Killed off in Rome's wars or

run off of their farms by agribusiness concerns

called latifundia, the former small farmers had nowhere

to run but the cities. This usually meant Rome.

Rome evolved politically during this time,

but only in certain ways.

Allowing the plebeians, wealthy plebeians, that is,

to hold political office and to marry patricians

was a positive change. The so-called noble class or

nobilitas ,which sprang up from the mixture of classes

brought needed fresh blood into Roman leadership.

But on the other hand, little, if anything,was done for

the urban poor, even by those politicians who pretended

to care for their interests.The urban poor had little

to look forward to and little hope of bettering their

lot in life.The same was true of Rome's Italian allies.

The Italian allies were expected to contribute men and

money to Rome's war efforts, but because they were not

citizens they got nothing in return.

Segment nine D: Rise of Militarism explains what

happened when Rome's growing empire required more

and more soldiers, only to find the small farmer class was gone. For decades, the neglected small farmer class

had been moving into the city, becoming poor and

therefore becoming ineligible for military service.