Test: An Empire Across Three Continents- 1 - UPSC MCQ

Although Augustus was the sole ruler and the only real source of authority, the fiction was kept alive that he was actually only the ‘leading citizen’ (Princeps in Latin), not the absolute ruler. This was done out of respect for the Senate, the body which had controlled Rome earlier in the days when it was a Republic.

The first inhabitants of today’s Campania were the Aurunci and the Opici of Greek origins. They settled at Cuma, north of present day Naples in the 8^th century B.C., but in the 6^th century B.C., their settlements fell to the Etruscans, who in turn were overtaken by the Sannites. In the 4^th century B.C., Campania was annexed by the Roman Empire and given the name Campus or “plain” from which the area derives the current name. Under Roman organization and rule, the region enjoyed a period of relative peace until A.D. 79, when the volcano Vesuvius suddenly and violently erupted, burying the neighboring cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under a sea of melted lava and suffocating ash.

The Ostrogoths were a branch of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe that played a major role in the political events of the late Roman Empire. The other branch was the Visigoths.

In the Roman currency system, the Denarius was a small silver coin, first minted in 211 BC. It was the most common coin produced for circulation but was slowly debased until its replacement by the Antoninianus.

Saint Augustine (354-430 CE) was the Bishop of Hippo, a North African city, from 396 CE, and a towering figure in the intellectual history of the Church. In AD 386, he had converted to Christianity.

Christianity is a monotheistic religion, centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, as presented in the New Testament. The Christian faith is essentially a faith in Jesus as the Christ (or Messiah), the Son of God, the Saviour, the manifestation of God to humankind and himself.

Throughout the second and third centuries, it was the provincial upper classes who supplied most of the cadre that governed the provinces and commanded the armies. They came to form a new elite of administrators and military commanders who became much more powerful than the senatorial class because they had the backing of the emperors. As this new group emerged, the emperor Gallienus (253-68) consolidated their rise to power by excluding senators from military command.

For example, one calendar tells us that spectacula (shows) filled no less than 176 days of the year!

The emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion in the 4th century CE. The same century witnessed a lot of cultural and economic changes in Rome.

Like Christianity, Islam is a monotheistic religion, centered on the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, as presented in the Quran.