Crossing the Rubicon, No Going Back

Well, Julius Caesar was in Gaul conquoring a bunch of lands. Powerful people in Rome were jealous of Caesar because he had the power and the love of the people and they wanted the power. Pompey was mad, extremely jealous of Caesar so he went to the Senate and convinced them to send Julius Caesar a note. The note said, "you better get home and come alone!" So Caesar got his best soldiers and left Gaul and went to the alps. He had to cross a river called the Rubicon right before he got into Italy. He broke the law by crossing the Rubicon with his soldiers. People said, "Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon!" Then, Pompey's whole army deserted him and went to Caesar and wanted to be in Caesar's army. Senators who did no like Caesar ran away with Pompey because they were afraid. The Senators and Pompey ran away to Greece. Now Caesar is running the empire.

Julius Caesar

1. Worked hard
2. He won land for Rome
3. He was a Consul
4. Ambitious
5. Gave his money to poor people
6. He was a General
7. Smart
8. Father died when he was 16
9. All powerful ruler of Rome
10. Student
11. Writer
12. Determined
13. He took good care of his soldiers
14. He was a great speaker
15. He told people that he was descended from Venus

Unit 2 Exam

Hannibal and the Second Punic War

Once upon a time there was a young man whose name was Hannibal. When Hannibal was 9 years old his father was a great general of Carthage. Hannibal wanted to be a warrior of Carthage like his father. When he got older he became a General. Hannibal wanted to destroy Rome so he got an army together. The army had elephants, horses, and soldiers. He went to Spain to pick up some more soldiers. Then he crossed the Pyrenees Mountains with the elephants to scare Rome because they had never seen elephants. Next he forced the elephants to go on a raft to sail across a river and then he went over the Alps. Going over the Alps was very hard because it was steep, cold, and people were throwing rocks on their heads. A lot of the people and elephants and horses died. Finally they got across the Alps, but Rome was waiting for them. When they got down from the mountains, they fought. The Carthaginians lost the second Punic War. 50 years later they fought another war and in that war Carthage lost again.

The Punic Wars

Rome and Carthage wanted the Mediterranean Sea and Sicily. So they fought for 100 years. We call their wars the Punic Wars.

The Romans were used to fighting on land and the Carthaginians fought in the sea. Carthage had ships and more talent than the Romans for fighting on the water and for making the ships. The Romans waited until one of the Carthaginian ships broke down and then they took it apart and copied it. Normally, a ship would have to crash into another ship and sink it, but instead, the Romans added something more. They added a big hook so when they were at battle they could throw the heavy hook and the hook would get onto the deck and the Romans would grab the rope from the hook and pull the other ship to their ship. Then they would get onto the Carthaginian ships and fight with spears and swords. This worked for the Romans. The wars went on and on so finally the Romans sent soldiers to Carthage. A Roman consul, Regulus, was caught and put in prison. Some Carthaginian soldiers told him they would set him free if he would make peace between Rome and Carthage. If he did not make peace, then the next day he would have to go back to prison in Carthage. So he went back to Rome and told them "don't make peace" because the Romans are winning. When he told them he had to go back to Prison in Carthage the people said, "why can't we send someone else?" He said, "Shall a Roman not keep his word?" The next day he went back to Carthage and in prison.

Regulus was right. The Romans won the first Punic War.

Regulus should have listened to his children and wife and stay in Rome. If Regulus was my dad I would have told him, "you need to stay home, dad, it is not fair if you go."

Rome's First Roads

Romans built roads because they needed to travel faster and the roads they had were very hard to travel.

First, to start with, they dug a big, deep trench and then poured sand on, a nice layer of sand.

Next, they poured small stones and then they put a clay mixture like concrete on top of the little rocks. The concrete was made of volcanic ash, a white powder called lime, and water. On top of the clay mix they put bigger rocks like our patios that we have at our houses. They put pillars to show you how far away the next town was.

Romans built thousands of miles of roads all over Italy and even past Italy. Some of the roads we can still see today, but not all of them. One road is called the Appian Way and they still use it.

Romans built so many roads that people said, "All roads lead to Rome." But that is not true, not all roads lead to Rome. But the reason why they said that is the roads started there and there were so many of them.

Also something they did with their concrete was make so many other things with it like apartment buildings.

The Romans also built aqueducts to get water because there were more people coming to Rome and they needed more water. Aqueduct means "to lead water". They built sewars to bring the icky water out of Rome so that no sickness happened.

For a good video on this you can watch "Engineering and Empire: Rome" by the History Channel.