In the beginning of the 8th century BC Rome was a small town in central Italy on the banks of the river Tiber. In the year 753 BC the kingdom of Rome was founded by Romulus who made himself King and named the city after him. He and the other 6 successor Kings made Rome between 773 BC till 509 BC from a settlement on the river Tiber into a big city with impressive buildings like the royal palace and the “Vestal Virgins”. In the year 509 BC the 7th King of Rome was overthrown during a revolution. This was the end of the kingdom and the start of the republic.
During the first few years of the republic Rome was growing in power and took over many other areas in Italy. In the 4th century BC, a Gallic army defeated Rome. Gauls, marched into the city and burned it down. What was left from Roman army didn’t gave up and succeed to defeat the Gauls in the following years and to gain control over the entire Italian peninsula. In the 3rd Punic War (149-146 BC) the Romans captured and destroyed Carthage.
Carthage was a big city in what is today the country of Tunisia. The inhabitants who survived were sold as slaves and a part of Northern Africa became a Roman province. The Romans were able to defeat the king of Macedonia and turned his kingdom into a roman province. In 29 BCE Gaius Julius Caesar became the leader of Rome and all his provinces. Two year later he made himself the first emperor of Rome with title Augustus, what means “the exalted”. He restored the disorder and corruption in his realm. Roman architecture, art, literature, and religion started to flourish. The empire of Rome became bigger and bigger.
In the first century BCE Judea, in the Holy Land lost his independence by becoming the first tributary kingdom with King “Herod the Great” as the first and most important client King. Herod deid in 4 CE When Jesus was born, between 6 and 4 CE, Judea just became a province of Rome with King Herod the Great as client King. In the year 66 CE the Jewish population attacked the Romans in an unsuccessful revolt. In 70 CE the Romans punished the Jews by capturing Jerusalem. The temple was destroyed and most of the population killed or enslaved. Another 70 years later, the Jewish population revolted under the leadership of Simon bar Kokhba again, known as Bar Kochba revolt, and managed to establish the last Kingdom of Israel. In the year 135 CE, after heavy losses the Romans finally succeeded to reconquer the kingdom of Judea inclusive Jerusalem. Many Jews were killed or again sold as slaves. Others departed into the Jewish diaspora. But there was never a period without Jews living in Judea. To punish the Jews even more, the Roman emperor Hadrian who reigned over the Roman Empire from 117 CE till 138 CE renamed Judea in “Syria-Palaestina” and Jerusalem in “Aelia Capitolina.”
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