Year 9

Unit 4 - Roman Empire

Lesson 1 – The Roman Empire - Traders and Soldiers

By the middle of the first century, most of what Rome needed was imported from various parts of its enormous Empire. Italy did not produce goods of its own. Instead, the provinces of the Empire either paid for Rome’s supplies by taxes or supplied it with goods. The map below shows you how Rome was supplied in the first century AD.

Activity 

1. Where did timber, wine, fishpaste and papyrus come from?  Did most goods come by water or by road? 

​2. Make a table with four columns. At the top of each column write the words food, building, clothing and luxuries. Read through each of the imports and decide which, if any of the four columns it goes into.

By AD100 the Roman Empire stretched almost 3000 miles, from Scotland to the Middle East. It had a population of about 50 million people from many different races, who spoke many different languages and all worshipped their own gods.

Organising the Empire
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The Romans divided their Empire into provinces. Most provinces were controlled by a governor, who made regular inspections of his province and held courts of law. He had a staff of 30-40 officials to help him. They included lawyers, clerks and tax collectors. Each province paid taxes to Rome. These had to pay for the running of the province and leave Rome with a profit. Taxes were often paid in goods such as grain. 

Good communications between Rome and the provinces were essential. They were provided by sea routes and the roads the Romans built. Such an efficient road system meant that the Roman army could travel very quickly to a trouble spot, or to put down a rebellion. When Julius Caesar was leading his Roman army to conquer Gaul, he travelled 800 miles in just eight days.

The army

​One army was organised into legions. There were about 30 in the whole Empire. Each legion was made up of 60 centuries, each with 80 men called legionaries. 

Centurions were in charge of the centuries. Each legion also had 120 cavalry. There were 150,000 legionaries in total. The soldiers in the legions served for sixteen years. They had to be Roman citizens, and most of them were volunteers. More and more, recruits came from the provinces where the legions were serving. Many were the sons of ex-soldiers who had settled there. For all these reasons, men became very proud of their legion.
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The auxiliaries were army units were made up of conquered armies and friendly tribes. The soldiers served for 25 years. They were not Roman citizens, but received citizenship at the end of their service. Many were volunteers, recruited in the province where the unit was stationed. Their armour and weapons were similar to the legionaries’, but of inferior quality. Altogether, there were about 227,000 auxiliaries in the Empire, including some cavalry.

Activity - Why was the Roman army so powerful?

3. Watch the film about the Roman legionnaire.  It contains a lot of details about various aspects about the Roman army and the life of its soldiers, but I want you to focus on one question in particular, 'why was the Roman army so successful. As you watch the film, make some notes and use these notes write the following paragraph:

Five reasons why the Roman army was so successful. 

You might need to watch the film a couple of times because it does cover a lot of information very quickly.