Grade 6 Fall — Ancient Civilizations from Deep Time to 476 CE: Mesopotamia, Egypt and Nubia, Indus, China, Hebrews, Greece, and Rome — Whose Sources? Whose Voices? Whose Living Descendants?
History · CIV
G6
hist.g6.f.civ.roman_republic_governance
Analyze the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE) — its founding mythology (Aeneas, Romulus and Remus, Cincinnatus), mixed-constitution governance (2 Consuls + Senate + Plebeian Tribunes + popular assemblies), the Conflict of the Orders 494-287 BCE (patricians vs plebeians), the Twelve Tables c. 450 BCE, and Cicero's De Re Publica political theory — per Mary Beard's SPQR scholarship
Apply MG-16 Roman Republic Governance Diagram; identify consul-tribune-Senate dynamic; read Cicero De Re Publica Book I excerpt (Zetzel translation); use MG-17 patricians-vs-plebeians comparison; compare with US Constitution checks-and-balances (G5-Spring six principles); engage modern Italian-scholar stewardship
Mastery threshold
90%
Min instances
12
Typical minutes
45
Spaced intervals (days)
1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60
Prereqs
- Analyze Athenian direct democracy (Cleisthenes' reforms 508 BCE through the Periclean period and the end of the Classical Athenian democracy in 322 BCE) — its institutions (Assembly / Council of 500 / popular courts / ostracism) AND its citizenship-exclusion ratio (~10-13% per Mogens Herman Hansen 1991): only adult male citizens could vote; women, enslaved people (~25-30% of Attic population), metics (resident foreigners), and children were excluded
- Analyze the foundational Greek philosophers — Socrates (c. 470-399 BCE), Plato (c. 428-348 BCE), Aristotle (384-322 BCE) — and key Greek mathematical/scientific contributions (Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Hypatia), recognizing Greek philosophy's enduring influence AND its developmental context within the Mediterranean intellectual world (Egyptian + Mesopotamian + Persian + later Hellenistic Alexandria contributions)
Successors
- Analyze the Punic Wars (264-146 BCE — Rome vs Carthage three wars) and the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire — Marius and Sulla, the First Triumvirate (60 BCE Caesar + Pompey + Crassus), the Caesarian civil war (49-45 BCE), Caesar's assassination (44 BCE), the Second Triumvirate, Octavian/Augustus's principate (27 BCE), and the structural reasons the Republic could not survive its empire
- Analyze the Roman Empire under the Pax Romana (27 BCE - 180 CE) — including daily life across classes, Roman religion (polytheism + emperor cult + later spread of Christianity), Roman engineering (roads, aqueducts, concrete), AND Roman chattel slavery honestly per Walter Scheidel: ~30-40% of Italian population enslaved at the Pax Romana peak — the largest slave society of ancient Mediterranean
Common misconceptions
- Treating the Roman Republic as a democracy — it was a REPUBLIC with mixed-constitution elements (oligarchic Senate + popular assemblies + magisterial executive), not a democracy
- Forgetting the Conflict of the Orders — plebeian rights were won through ~200 years of organized struggle (494-287 BCE) including secessions of the plebs, NOT given freely
- Treating Roman governance as identical to US governance — Roman magistrates were unpaid + property-qualified + held office briefly (1 year for consuls); Roman Senate seats were lifetime appointments; the two systems differ significantly