The Punic Wars were fought between Rome and Carthage. Carthage, with its extremely powerful navy, were expanding their empire to the East, as Rome secured the Italian peninsula and began greater expansion via land. In the second Punic War, Hannibal lead the Carthagian army over the alps to confront the Roman forces.

The Assemblies of the Roman Republic were accorded many important powers in their first early centuries. The members of the Assemblies were selected from each of the various familial and/or ethnic tribes and possessed an assortment of powers, including: the power to conduct trials and carry out executions, the power to declare war and peace, and the power to elect various city officials.

The years between 100 and 31 BCE witnessed the long, slow death throes of the Roman Republic. These years were wracked by intermittent civil warfare, continual social unrest, and a succession of temporary leaders, all jockeying for power. Ultimately, the Republic’s demise was hastened by a multitude of social conflicts which sprang up amongst the Republic’s various collections of peoples – often, these conflicts intersected with and exacerbated one another. Roman citizens sought to deny the extension of citizenship to noncitizens, fearing a loss of prestige and benefits, while noncitizens battled mightily to gain Roman citizenship, as well as all the attendant rights that came with it. Class warfare also broke out between the optimates (the wealthy and landed nobles) and the popularis (the poor majority). The popularis in particular felt that they had been deprived of their rightful share of political power, while the wealthier optimates, who had long maintained an iron grip on the Republic’s governmental controls, had no intention of surrendering one iota of their accumulated influence. In the meantime, the city of Rome was itself a hotbed of political scheming, as the city’s leaders strove to keep the high-ranking members of the military (whom they regarded as their social and intellectual inferiors) from gaining positions of social and/or political prominence. The military leadership, in turn, felt that their victories in battle had entitled them to some say in how their great city functioned and they were determined not be denied. But perhaps the most dangerous threat was posed by the rise of factionalism – specifically, ambitious and charismatic individuals who drew crowds of fiercely loyal followers and who sought to propel themselves into positions of high power, regardless of the mechanisms by which they might ascend. Often, these individuals faced off against each other, sometimes on the Senate floor and other times on the battlefield, but violence increasingly became common. Some of the most influential of these ruthless individualists were: Cicero, Marc Antony, Crassus, Octavian, Pompey, and Julius Caesar.

The Julio-Claudians was the first Roman dynasty, started in 27 BCE with Augustus and ended in 68 CE with the assassination of Nero. The Julio-Claudians set the tone for the first few eras of Roman rule; good emperors tried to behave like Augustus, bad ones tended to err on the side of Caligula or Nero. In this way, the Julio-Claudians function as a lesson in the power, capability and debauchery of the emperors of Rome.

In the late seventh century BCE, the Etruscans, as the undisputed top power on the Italian Peninsula, consolidated their control over the region around the fledgling city of Rome. They remained in control here until 509 BCE, when the early Romans rose up in rebellion and toppled their Etruscan overlords. After having secured their freedom, the Romans set about erecting their own system of government: the famous Roman Republic, which lasted until the outbreak of civil warfare in 100 BCE. The Republic was governed by two consuls, who were elected by the Senate each year; power was further divided between the Senate and a larger assembly, which was intended to represent all citizens and was organized on the basis of tribal (later familial) affiliation.

The Plebeians was the term used for the citizen-commoners of the Roman Republic, so that would not be the best choice. The Aristocracy was not a term in use during the Roman Republic, so that would not be a good answer here. The Brahmans were at the top of the Indian caste system, so they too would not be the best answer. Finally, the Patricians were the ruling class of the Republic that the Senate was drawn from, so that would be the best answer here.

The Italian Peninsula’s first settlers, who arrived between 1000 and 675 CE and who would later establish the Roman and Villanovan cultures, were first drawn to the region by the lure of the Tiber River. The River offered the promise of an easy mode of transportation, as well as a supply of water and fresh seafood. These early settlers congregated around the Tiber on the area’s series of hills and set up a string of small villages, which would later become the great city of Rome. These hills (the most favored of which were the Capitoline, the Palatine, and the Esquiline) offered the perfect defensive positioning and allowed the Latins to gradually amass control of the Tiber River and the surrounding region from a naturally protected base.

Julius Caesar, among his many accomplishments, is credited with starting and/or popularizing the artistic style known as Verism. Verism was most often used in portraiture, sculpture, paintings, murals, and even death masks. The movement’s most defining characteristic is its passionate embrace of realism – subjects were shown in a manner that was accurate as possible; no wrinkle or wart or other physical “imperfection” was spared. Additionally, historical and mythical themes were shunned in favor of more every-day, ordinary settings and scenes. As is perhaps only natural, some of the best examples of Verist artwork portray Julius Caesar, including many full-bodied statues and busts. In these images, true to Verist form, Caesar is shown in his natural state, with lines around his mouth and eyes, facial blemishes, and a steely, flinty stare. Many historians view Caesar’s link to Verism as a logical extension of his typical style of self-promotion: he favored direct, unflinching, even overt interactions, with a sort of aggressive understanding of the real conditions of the world and his own place in it.

The region immediately north of the city of Rome was home to rather large natural deposits of valuable metals, most notably copper and iron. Although these copper and iron caches had first been discovered by the Villanovans and the Etruscans, the Latins did not begin to exploit these resources in earnest until around 1000 BCE (perhaps due to prior Etruscan dominance of the area). Not only were these metal deposits inherently valuable in themselves, but their importance was heightened by their relative scarcity – the Italian Peninsula was not particularly rich in metallic resources and so the copper and iron fields around Rome were doubly vital due to this rarity. Some historians point to the Latins’ acquisition of these two metals as a key stepping stone towards the founding of the Roman Empire.

Venice, while a city in Italy, was not ever the seat of the Roman Empire, so it would not be a good choice. Gaul was the name of the Roman province that encompassed much of modern day France and Germany, not a city at all, so that would not be the best answer. Beijing is a city in China and was never held by the Roman Empire, so that would not be the best choice here. London was founded by the Romans but it was never a large civic center for them, so that too would not be the correct answer. Lastly, Constantinople was named after Constantine and was where he moved the capitol of the empire, so that would be the best choice.