The Times History of the World

The most dramatic change, however, was in burial practices, and it is this that has given the urnfield period its name. Inhumation had been the usual practice in earlier centuries, but from 1300 BC there was a move towards cremation and the burial of ashes in large communal cemeteries known as urnfields. Although there were differences from region to region, and even within cemeteries, there was a considerable decrease in the quantity of grave goods buried with the dead. Some burials, such as the so-called King’s Grave at Seddin, were particularly rich, and presumably belonged to local chieftains, but most were simple. A change of practice like this may in part have reflected a change in attitudes to death, but it probably also reflected changes in social organization. Large cemeteries containing graves with little social differentiation suggest the emergence of large communities and more developed social structures.

Another feature that points to social change during this period is the large number of fortified sites. These were centuries in which there was fighting between rival communities, and the archaeological evidence points to a growing warrior culture.

THE CELTIC WORLD

The 8th century BC saw the re-establishment of contact with the centres of civilization in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond as well as with the new Greek and Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean and the emerging Etruscans in Italy. At the same time the techniques of iron-working were widely adopted. This development had little impact on the Atlantic coasts of Europe, which were still characterized by small-scale trade between communities with little interest in Mediterranean luxury goods. But to the east the Rhône valley provided a trade-route from the Mediterranean, especially after the foundation of the Greek colony of Massilia (Marseilles). It was this that led to the development of a “prestige goods economy” in Burgundy, seen in the rich finds from Mont Lassois and Vix, which acted as staging posts between the Mediterranean and central Europe, as well as farther east at the hill fort at the Heuneburg on the upper Danube. Contact with the steppe communities on the eastern flank of the Celtic world also continued, and by this route goods from the Far East could reach central Europe. This is well illustrated by the discovery in a burial mound beside the Heuneburg site of textiles embroidered with Chinese silk.

Among the chief exports to the Mediterranean from this period onwards was slaves, which raised the status of warriors who were able to trade prisoners of war for prestige goods from Etruria and Greece. This “West Hallstatt system” collapsed when the Etruscans started to make direct contact with the area around the Marne and Moselle. The same period also saw the emergence of a distinctive decorative aristocratic style known as “Celtic” art. Spectacular finds have been made at sites such as Somme-Bionne and Basse-Yutz.

The Celts are the first peoples of northern Europe to appear in the historical record. They are mentioned by several Greek and Roman historians, and these writings give us some insight into their social organization and their religious practices—although they have to be used with caution. Later Celtic traditions are recorded in the epic literature of Ireland and Wales, but it is not clear how much they can tell us about early Celtic Europe. What is not in question is the Celtic interest—and skill—in warfare.

After 600 BC, Celtic war-bands spread out from central Europe into Italy and Greece—Rome was attacked in 390 BC, Delphi in 279 BC—and settled as far south as Galatia in Anatolia and Galicia in Spain. Other areas, such as western France and Britain, were absorbed into the Celtic world by peaceful means, with the native aristocracies adopting the new continental fashions of art and warfare. From the 3rd century BC fortified urban settlements known as “oppida” became more common, and unified Celtic states began to appear.

Celtic social organization was increasingly influenced by the growing power of Rome, and the Celts were the first peoples of northern Europe to be incorporated within the Roman empire. Already by the end of the 2nd century BC the Mediterranean part of Gaul was a Roman province. Julius Caesar’s conquests in Gaul then brought the western Celtic world under Roman control as far as the English Channel by 50 BC. Thus the most economically advanced areas of the barbarian world were rapidly integrated within the Roman world.

900 BC–AD 700

AFRICA

Written sources from this period increasingly help to reconstruct the history of north Africa, the Nilotic Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. For the rest of Africa, archaeology remains the primary source and, since research and evidence are currently meagre, for large parts of the continent the past still awaits discovery.

In the last millennium BC, north Africa was inhabited by the ancestors of the modern Berbers. At the coast these people came into contact with a variety of foreigners. The first were the Phoenicians, seafaring merchants who established trading settlements westwards from Tripoli and founded Carthage towards the end of the 9th century. Egypt at this time was politically weak and succumbed to a variety of foreign powers, among them the kingdom of Kush, based at Napata, whose kings ruled as the 25th Dynasty (c. 770–664). From the 3rd century BC, Rome began to assert its power in the region, successfully challenging Carthaginian supremacy in the western Mediterranean. Thereafter Roman control was extended along the north African coast and, in 30 BC, Egypt was conquered. By the time the Roman empire began to weaken in the 4th and early 5th centuries AD, Christianity was widespread in its African provinces and remained unchallenged until the Arab invasions of the 7th century brought Islam to Africa.

By the 4th century BC the Kushite kingdom had moved south to Meroë, where it flourished until the 2nd century AD. Its subsequent decline was probably owed, in part, to the rise of the Aksumite kingdom in northern Ethiopia. In the mid-4th century, Aksum adopted Christianity as its official religion. Although Christian influences must have spread southwards from Egypt into Nubia towards the end of the Meroitic period, it was not until the 6th century that Christianity was introduced into the region. In the following century, the Arab invasion of Egypt began a process of Islamization that spread slowly southwards into Nubia. The rise of Islam was also a factor in the decline of Aksum, which had ceased to exist as a political entity by about AD 700.

IRON-WORKING AND FARMING

Almost certainly it was the Phoenicians who introduced bronze- and ironworking to north Africa. In west Africa, iron was being used by the mid-first millennium BC. The development of an urban settlement at Jenne-Jeno from about 250 BC onwards, was probably facilitated by the use of iron tools, which helped agriculturalists to till the heavy clay soils of the inland Niger delta. The earliest evidence of iron use in southern west Africa is associated with the Nok culture, famous for its terracotta sculptures. The early iron-using communities of eastern and southern Africa show such a remarkable degree of homogeneity that they are viewed as a single cultural complex, which first appeared on the western side of Lake Victoria around the mid-1st millennium BC and had spread as far south as Natal by the 3rd century AD. In addition to iron technology, this complex is associated with the beginnings of crop cultivation, livestock herding and settlement. South of Tanzania it is also linked to the manufacture of pottery. In Namibia and Cape Province, which were not settled by these ironusing farmers, some groups had acquired domestic sheep as early as the first two centuries AD. At about the same time a distinctive Cape coastal pottery appears, but others continued with their ancient way of life, living in mobile groups, hunting, gathering and making stone tools.

TO 31 BC

THE EXPANSION OF ROMAN POWER

Rome, a city-state governed by aristocratic families leading an army of peasant soldiers, came to control an empire that stretched from the Atlantic to the Euphrates and from the English Channel to the Sahara. But military success brought social disorder; rivalries between warlords led to civil war; and republican institutions became an autocracy.

The city of Rome grew up on the Tiber at the lowest point the river could be bridged. Although several of Rome’s hills were settled from around 1000 BC, the earliest signs of urbanization date from the 7th century. According to tradition, Rome was ruled by a line of seven kings, and the expulsion of the last of these in 511 BC resulted in the creation of a republic ruled by two annually elected consuls or magistrates. It is probable, however, that the government of the emerging city-state was less formalized than tradition suggests and that republican systems reached their developed form only in the 4th century BC.

Consuls held office for no more than a single year and ruled with the support of the Senate, a council of former magistrates and priests. Legislation proposed by them had also to be ratified by a popular assembly. However, their main task was to protect the city, which in effect meant to lead military campaigns. Success in war brought material gains to the people of Rome and prestige to the commanders making imperialism an inevitable feature of Roman policy.

THE PUNIC WARS

By 264 BC Rome controlled the whole of the Italian peninsula and had emerged as a powerful confederacy and the principal rival to the other major power in the western Mediterranean, Carthage. The Romans were forced to develop naval skills to defeat Carthage in the First Punic War (264–241 BC), in which Rome drove the Carthaginians out of Sicily; soon after Corsica and Sardinia were seized as well. In the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), Rome was invaded from the north, when Hannibal brought his army and elephants from Spain over the Alps into Italy. Though Rome suffered devastating defeats at Lake Trasimene (217 BC) and Cannae (216 BC) it was able to draw on great reserves of Italian manpower to drive Hannibal out of Italy and defeat him at Zama in north Africa (202 BC). With Spain added to Rome’s provinces, the city now commanded the whole of the western and central Mediterranean.

EXPANSION TO THE EAST

In the following 50 years, Roman commanders turned their attention eastwards, leading expeditions into Greece, but withdrawing their troops once victory was assured, in part from fear that Italy, always most vulnerable to attack from the north, would be invaded. Nonetheless, in 146 BC Macedonia was added to the empire, with the province of Asia following in 133 BC.

Among the consequences of Roman victories abroad was an influx of goods and people into Italy. Works of art were taken from Greek temples to adorn private Roman villas, while Greek literature, rhetoric and philosophy had a profound effect on the nature of Roman politics. Wars also provided cheap slaves, who were brought to Italy as agricultural labourers, threatening the livelihoods of Italian peasant farmers and leading to the rapid growth of the urban population of Rome itself.

FROM REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE

The period from 133 BC saw increasing turbulence within Rome and Italy. Rome’s continuing expansion provided opportunities for ambitious men to use their military commands to dominate Roman politics, and the institutions of the republic were powerless to regulate the competition between them. Slave revolts and the Social War with Rome’s Italian allies (91–89 BC) increased disorder within Italy. The last generation of the republic saw the system collapse in a series of civil wars which ended only in 31 BC when Octavian emerged triumphant at the battle of Actium and found himself in a position of such dominance that he was able to rebuild the government of Rome and make it capable of administering an empire.

31 BC TO AD 235

THE HEIGHT OF ROMAN POWER

Augustus, the first emperor, transformed the government of the Roman empire. He brought an end to internal conflicts and created a standing army to guard the empire’s frontiers and extend its power. As Roman culture and organization spread throughout the empire, it laid the foundations for the development of the Mediterranean world.

In 31 BC Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, was undisputed master of Rome. His popularity as adopted son of Julius Caesar and victor over Cleopatra and Mark Antony at the battle of Actium allowed him to rebuild the shattered Roman republic into a system of government capable of controlling a vast empire, reforms which were to bring Rome a new and intense surge of life and two and a half centuries of almost uninterrupted peace and prosperity.

Augustus’s reforms were far-reaching. He restored the prestige of the Senate, though not, in practice, its influence. He reorganized the army and, in 27 BC, took command of those parts of the empire where legions were stationed. From then on responsibility for the defence of the empire lay with the emperor alone. At the same time he took the religiously significant name Augustus, and stressed his relationship to the now deified Julius Caesar. Among his many priesthoods was that of Pontifex Maximus, chief priest, and from the time of Augustus onward the emperor became the focus of all Roman religious ritual.

In 19 BC Augustus was given the power to rule by decree, and although he continued to pay due respect to the Senate, whose members he needed to command the legions and to administer the provinces, his authority was now absolute. The vast wealth he had inherited and won (his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra left Egypt as his personal domain) was further increased by bequests from the rich throughout the empire. At his death his property was worth thousands of times as much as that of even the richest senator. That his heir should also inherit his position as head of the empire was inevitable.

In the event, Augustus had great difficulty in finding an heir, eventually settling on his stepson Tiberius (AD 14–37), who had been a successful military commander but took on the role of emperor with reluctance. Neither he nor his successors were able to maintain good relations with the Senate, and the failure of Nero (54–68) to prevent revolt in the provinces led to his enforced suicide and the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. After a year of civil war, Vespasian (69–79) restored order. He was succeeded by his sons, Titus (79–81) and Domitian (81–96). Though the latter was generally regarded as a cruel and probably insane tyrant, many of his imperial policies were adopted by his successors, especially Trajan (98–117), who began the practice of appearing before the Senate not in a toga but in the purple cloak and armour of a triumphant general. This was to become the uniform of the emperor for the next thousand years.

STABILITY AND STRIFE

Domitian’s assassination was followed by nearly a century of stability as emperors without sons of their own chose their successors from the Senate. Civil war returned in 193, from which Septimius Severus (193–211) emerged victorious. He ruled with his sons Caracalla (198–217) and Geta (209–12), setting a pattern that was to be followed in the following centuries. Caracalla was murdered, and after him came a series of short-lived emperors, of whom Severus Alexander (222–35) was the last who could claim a dynastic link to his predecessors.

THE NATURE OF ROME

The emperor’s figure was central to the empire: everywhere statues and coins were constant reminders of his presence. In the former Hellenistic kingdoms the kings had been the objects of religious worship, a practice which continued with the cult of the emperors. In the western provinces, temples and altars dedicated to the emperor became focuses of Romanization.

The early 2nd century saw important cultural developments: Greek and Latin literature flourished; and the distinction between Italy and the provinces dissolved as rich men from all over the empire were admitted to the Senate, with some, such as Trajan and Hadrian (117–38), even becoming emperor. For the poor there were fewer benefits, and differences in the rights and privileges of rich and poor grew. By the time Caracalla extended Roman citizenship throughout the empire in AD 212, it gave little advantage to the newly enfranchised citizens. Later in the 2nd century, pressures grew on the frontiers. Marcus Aurelius (161–80) spent much of his reign at war with barbarian invaders, and his successors faced threats both from the north, and, after 224, from the rejuvenated Persian empire under the Sasanids.

AD 235 TO 565

FROM ROME TO BYZANTIUM

The 4th century AD saw Roman emperors still ruling an empire that stretched from Spain to Syria. In the 5th century the two halves of the empire experienced different fortunes. Roman administration in the west dissolved in the face of increasing barbarian settlement, but in the east Byzantine civilization, combining Greek and Roman practices and culture, grew and flourished.

The empire emerged from the storms of the 3rd century intact but not unchanged. Diocletian and his successors owed their position to the army, not the Senate, and the military now provided most of the provincial governors. Rome itself ceased to be the centre of empire, as the emperors based themselves in cities nearer the frontiers: Mediolanum (Milan) in Italy; and, after AD 330, Constantinople in the east. The emperors were surrounded by large courts, increasingly turning to eunuchs as their closest advisors. To maintain the army, the taxation system was reformed and military service became a hereditary obligation. But as the senators in Italy and other rich landowners were increasingly excluded from power, so they became less inclined to support the emperor, a development which was to have a profound effect on the western half of the empire.

THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY

But the greatest change to the empire was religious. In 312 Constantine defeated his rival Maxentius outside Rome, and he came to attribute his victory to the support of the Christian god. In his reign and that of his son Constantius II the churches received many favours from the emperor, and Christianity began to establish itself as the dominant religion of the empire. The last pagan emperor, Julian, died in AD 363 on campaign against the Persians before he had the opportunity to reverse the trend. Bishops such as St Ambrose in Milan (374–97) became increasingly powerful figures in the empire.

Barbarian incursions continued to erode central control of the empire. The arrival of the Huns in eastern Europe in 376 drove many Goths across the Danube, forcing them into Roman territory. Having in 378 defeated the Romans at Adrianople, in 405 they invaded Italy. In the winter of 406 German tribes then crossed the frozen river Rhine in unstoppable masses. The situation deteriorated throughout the century. The Vandals marched through Gaul and Spain before crossing to Africa where they captured Carthage, the chief city, in 439 and set up their own kingdom.

Where in the 4th century the Roman army had made use of barbarian officers, now the western emperors had little choice but to make grants of land for the invaders to settle on and to employ them in the army. With landowners unwilling to allow their tenants to fight, what had been a Roman citizen army became a barbarian mercenary one. Since the frontiers were no longer preventing barbarians from entering the western empire, and since the army was itself largely barbarian, the role of the emperor in the west was effectively redundant.

In 476 the magister militum (the chief military officer of the western empire) Odoacer, a German, deposed the emperor Romulus Augustulus, and did not replace him. With the eastern emperor making no attempt to resist this, the western empire ceased to exist. In 490 the Ostrogoths took control of Italy, and by 507 the Franks had established an extensive kingdom in Gaul (see p. 94). Yet Roman institutions survived: the Roman Senate continued to sit, and Latin remained the language of government.

THE RECONQUESTS OF JUSTINIAN

The eastern part of the empire possessed greater resources than the west, and eastern emperors could use their wealth to persuade would-be invaders to move away westwards. Although Roman culture continued to flourish in the eastern part of the empire, there were growing cultural differences between east and west: when Justinian launched his attempt to reconquer the former western empire, he was trying to impose a Greek-speaking administration on Latinspeaking territories.