As an empire, Rome’s expansive reach stretched far and wide across the ancient world. Its rise and fall resembled a rollercoaster ride – bumps on the way up and the way down. Hop on for the ride of a lifetime! For kids interested in ancient history, this issue chronicles a colorful landscape of people and religions in competition.
First, kids get an overview of the interplay between the Greek and Roman gods and Rome’s growing conflict with Jews. Kids interested in the beginnings of Christianity will find a wealth of information about how it started as a sect, or division, of Judaism and spread to become the world’s largest religion.
Kids who want more details about the demise of the Roman Empire will want to study the clear maps and detailed captions, which tell the story of how the Berbers from Africa, the Goths from Germany, and the Persians from the Middle East helped pull the Empire apart. Kids fascinated by historical struggles will want to read how, in the end, the empire convulsed – dividing into west and east, uniting and then dividing again, this time permanently. The issue concludes with an apt denouement about Rome’s legacies in language, science, government and law, and art.
8 Topics in this unit
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Religions in Rome
To the earliest Romans, their gods were powerful forces of nature, or spirits. These gods ...
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The Jewish People Under Roman Rule
In 63 BCE, the Roman Empire annexed Syria and Judaea, the ancient homeland of the Jewish p ...
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Christianity’s Beginnings
The Roman rulers of Judaea were concerned, because a Jew named Jesus had been traveling ar ...
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Christianity Catches On in Rome
How did a small group of Jesus’s followers, located in a remote outpost of the Roman ...
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The Gospel of Mark
Historians believe that Mark’s Gospel was first written down in Jerusalem sometime i ...
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The Decline of the Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was at the height of its glory in 117 CE. Its territory stretched as far ...
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Christianity and the Two Empires
How many Roman Empires were there? One? Two? None? The answer to that question depends on ...
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Rome’s Legacies
Latin, the language of ancient Rome, is often called a dead language because no one has sp ...
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