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Latifundia
A ''latifundium'' (Latin: ''latus'', "spacious", and ''fundus'', "farm", "estate") was originally the term used by ancient Romans for great landed estates specialising in agriculture destined for sale: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic of Magna Graecia and Sicily, Egypt, Northwest Africa and Hispania Baetica. The ''latifundia'' were the closest approximation to industrialised agriculture in antiquity, and their economics depended upon slavery. In the modern colonial period, the word was borrowed in Portuguese ''latifúndios'' and Spanish ''latifundios'' or simply ''fundos'' for similar extensive land grants, known as '' fazendas'' (in Portuguese) or ''haciendas'' (in Spanish), in their empires. Ancient Rome The basis of the ''latifundia'' notably in Magna Graecia (the south of Italy including Sicilia) and Hispania, was the ''ager publicus'' (state-owned land) that was confiscated from conquered people beginning in the 3rd century BC. As much as a third of ...
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Sicilia (Roman Province)
Sicilia (; ; ) was the first province acquired by the Roman Republic, encompassing the island of Sicily. The western part of the island was brought under Roman control in 241 BC at the conclusion of the First Punic War with Carthage. A praetor was regularly assigned to the island from . The Kingdom of Syracuse under Hieron II remained an independent ally of Rome until its defeat in 212 BC during the Second Punic War. Thereafter the province included the whole of the island of Sicily, the island of Malta, and the smaller island groups (the Egadi islands, the Lipari islands, Ustica, and Pantelleria). During the Roman Republic, the island was the main source of grain for the city of Rome. Extraction was heavy, provoking armed uprisings known as the First and Second Servile Wars in the second century BC. In the first century, the Roman governor, Verres, was famously prosecuted for his corruption by Cicero. In the civil wars which brought the Roman Republic to an end, Sic ...
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Slavery In Ancient Rome
Slavery in ancient Rome played an important role in society and the economy. Unskilled or low-skill slaves labored in the fields, mines, and mills with few opportunities for advancement and little chance of freedom. Skilled and educated slaves—including artisans, chefs, domestic staff and personal attendants, #Gladiators, entertainers, and prostitutes, entertainers, business managers, accountants and bankers, educators at all levels, secretaries and librarians, civil servants, and physicians—occupied a more privileged tier of servitude and could hope to obtain freedom through one of several well-defined paths with protections under the law. The possibility of #Manumission, manumission and subsequent citizenship was a distinguishing feature of Rome's system of slavery, resulting in a significant and influential number of freedpersons in Roman society. At all levels of employment, free working people, former slaves, and the enslaved mostly did the same kinds of jobs. Elite Ro ...
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Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The Western Roman Empire, western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the Byzantine Empire, eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By 100 BC, the city of Rome had expanded its rule from the Italian peninsula to most of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and beyond. However, it was severely destabilised by List of Roman civil wars and revolts, civil wars and political conflicts, which culminated in the Wars of Augustus, victory of Octavian over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the subsequent conquest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. In 27 BC, the Roman Senate granted Octavian overarching military power () and the new title of ''Augustus (title), Augustus'' ...
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Hispania
Hispania was the Ancient Rome, Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two Roman province, provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Hispania Tarraconensis. Subsequently, the western part of Tarraconensis was split off, initially as Hispania Nova, which was later renamed "Callaecia" (or Gallaecia, whence modern Galicia (Spain), Galicia). From Diocletian's Tetrarchy (AD 293) onwards, the south of the remainder of Tarraconensis was again split off as Hispania Carthaginensis, Carthaginensis, and all of the mainland Hispanic provinces, along with the Hispania Balearica, Balearic Islands and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana, were later grouped into a Roman diocese, civil diocese headed by a ''vicarius''. The name Hispania was also used in the period of Visigothic Kingdom, ...
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Ancient Roman
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), the Roman Republic (50927 BC), and the Roman Empire (27 BC476 AD) until the fall of the western empire. Ancient Rome began as an Italic peoples, Italic settlement, traditionally dated to 753 BC, beside the River Tiber in the Italian peninsula. The settlement grew into the city and polity of Rome, and came to control its neighbours through a combination of treaties and military strength. It eventually controlled the Italian Peninsula, assimilating the Greece, Greek culture of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and the Etruscans, Etruscan culture, and then became the dominant power in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe. At its hei ...
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Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (; 163 – 133 BC) was a Roman politician best known for his agrarian reform law entailing the transfer of land from the Roman state and wealthy landowners to poorer citizens. He had also served in the Roman army, fighting in Africa during the Third Punic War and in Spain during the Numantine War. His political future was imperilled during his quaestorship when he was forced to negotiate a humiliating treaty with the Numantines after they had surrounded the army he was part of in Spain. Seeking to rebuild that future and reacting to a supposed decline in the Roman population which he blamed on rich families buying up Italian land, he carried a land reform bill against strong opposition by another tribune during his term as tribune of the plebs in 133 BC. To pass and protect his reforms, Tiberius unprecedentedly had the tribune who opposed his programme deposed from office, usurped the senate's prerogatives over foreign policy, and ...
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Hacienda
A ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or '' finca''), similar to a Roman '' latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), mines or factories, with many ''haciendas'' combining these activities. The word is derived from Spanish ''hacer'' (to make, from Latin ''facere'') and ''haciendo'' (making), referring to productive business enterprises. The term ''hacienda'' is imprecise, but usually refers to landed estates of significant size, while smaller holdings were termed ''estancias'' or ''ranchos''. All colonial ''haciendas'' were owned almost exclusively by Spaniards and criollos, or rarely by mixed-race individuals. In Argentina, the term ''estancia'' is used for large estates that in Mexico would be termed ''haciendas''. In recent decades, the term has been used in the United States for an architectural style associated with the traditional estate manor ...
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Ager Publicus
The ''ager publicus'' (; ) is the Latin name for the state land of ancient Rome. It was usually acquired via the means of expropriation from enemies of Rome. History In the earliest periods of Roman expansion in central Italy, the ''ager publicus'' was used for Roman and (after 338 BC) Latin colonies. Later tradition held that as far back as the 5th century BC, the patrician and plebeian classes disputed the rights of the rich to exploit the land, and in 367 BC two Plebeian Tribunes, Gaius Licinius Solo and Lucius Sextius Sextinus Lateranus promulgated a law which limited the amount of the ''ager publicus'' to be held by any individual to 500 iugera, roughly . In the half century following the Battle of Telamon ( BC), the Romans fully absorbed Cisalpine Gaul, adding huge swathes of land to the ''ager publicus'', land which was more often than not given to new Latin colonies or to small freeholders. In the south of Italy, huge tracts of newly re-incorporated lands remain ...
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Ergastulum
An ergastulum (plural: ergastula) was a Roman workhouse building used as a type of factory with slaves held in chains or to punish slaves. The ergastulum was usually built as a deep, roofed pit below ground level, large enough to allow the slaves to work within it, and containing narrow spaces in which they slept. Ergastula were common structures on all slave-using farms (latifundia). The etymology is disputed between two possible Greek roots: ''ergasterios'' "workshop" and ''ergastylos'' "pillar to which slaves are tethered." Augustus instituted inspections of ''ergastula'' because travelers were being illegally seized and held in them. The ergastulum was made illegal during the reign of Hadrian as part of a series of reforms to improve conditions for slaves. Columella in his ''De re rustica'' states that an underground ergastulum should be as healthful as possible and lit by windows with narrow bars, which are far enough from the ground that it is not possible to reach them by h ...
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Roman Patrician
The patricians (from ) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom and the early Roman Republic, Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders (494 BC to 287 BC). By the time of the late Republic and Roman Empire, Empire, membership in the patriciate was of only nominal significance. The social structure of ancient Rome revolved around the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians. The status of patricians gave them more political power than the plebeians, but the relationship between the groups eventually caused the Conflict of the Orders. This time period resulted in changing of the social structure of ancient Rome. After the Western Roman Empire, Western Empire fell, the term "patrician" continued as a high Byzantine aristocracy and bureaucracy, honorary title in the Eastern Empire. In many Italian city-states, medieval Italian republics, especially in Republic of V ...
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Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus () was a Ancient Rome, Roman patrician (ancient Rome), patrician, Roman Senate, statesman, and Roman army, military leader of the early Roman Republic who became a famous model of Virtus (virtue), Roman virtue—particularly civic virtue—by the time of the late Republic. Modern historians question some particulars of the story of Cincinnatus that was recounted in Livy'''s History of Rome (Livy), History of Rome'' and elsewhere, but it is usually accepted that Cincinnatus was a historical figure who served as suffect consul in 460BC and as Roman dictator, dictator in 458BC and (possibly) again in 439BC. The most famous story related to Cincinnatus occurs after his retirement from public service to a simple life of farming. As Roman forces struggled to defeat the Aequi, Cincinnatus was summoned from his plough to assume complete control over the state. After achieving a swift victory in sixteen days, Cincinnatus relinquished power and its privileges, ...
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Roman Senate
The Roman Senate () was the highest and constituting assembly of ancient Rome and its aristocracy. With different powers throughout its existence it lasted from the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in 753 BC) as the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, to the Senate of the Roman Republic and Senate of the Roman Empire and eventually the Byzantine Senate of the Eastern Roman Empire, existing well into the post-classical era and Middle Ages. During the days of the Roman Kingdom, the Senate was generally little more than an advisory council to the king. However, as Rome was an electoral monarchy, the Senate also elected new Roman kings. The last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was overthrown following a coup d'état led by Lucius Junius Brutus, who founded the Roman Republic. During the early Republic, the Senate was politically weak, while the various executive Roman magistrates who appointed the senators for life (or until expulsion by Roma ...
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