2 A2 empire

CHAPTER 1 The Start of Empires WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD EMPIRE? DO YOU KNOW HOW AND WHY EMPIRES START? If you look at a map of the world today, you will see there are hundreds of countries. Each country has its own way of life, and many have their own languages. Many thousands of years ago, the world was a very different place. In the beginning, there were no countries. People lived together in small groups. These groups were called tribes, and they were always moving around looking for food. Then, about 12,000 years ago, people began to grow their own food and build houses. They began to use money. The strongest people usually became the leaders the kings and queens.

第一章帝国的开始当你听到帝国这个词的时候你会想到什么？ 你知道帝国是如何以及为什么开始的吗？ 如果你看一下今天的世界地图，你会看到有数百个国家。 每个国家都有自己的生活方式，许多国家有自己的语言。 几千年前，世界是一个非常不同的地方。 一开始，没有国家。 人们以小团体的形式生活在一起。 这些群体被称为部落，他们总是四处走动寻找食物。 然后，大约12000年前，人们开始自己种植食物和建造房屋。 他们开始使用金钱。最强壮的人通常成为领袖，国王和王后。

The areas where they lived were their kingdoms. Over time, there were many kingdoms. Often, they joined together, and the kingdoms became very big. The kingdoms did not always join together in a friendly way. Sometimes, a kingdom needed more food for its people. Or a king wanted more money. When this happened, a strong kingdom attacked others and took control of them. That was how empires started. An empire was a group of many kingdoms with one leader. The leader was called an emperor or an empress. He or she was the leader of millions of people. There were many empires in different parts of the world at different times in the past. In this book, we are going to look at five of the most famous ones.

他们居住的地方就是他们的王国。 随着时间的推移，出现了许多王国。 他们经常联合在一起，王国变得非常大。 这些王国并不总是以友好的方式联合在一起。 有时，一个王国需要为它的人民提供更多的食物。 或者国王想要更多的钱。 当这种情况发生时，一个强大的王国攻击其他国家并控制了它们。 帝国就是这样开始的。 帝国是由一个领袖领导的许多王国组成的集团。 领袖被称为皇帝或皇后。 他或她是数百万人的领袖。 在过去的不同时期，在世界的不同地区有许多帝国。 在这本书中，我们将看看其中最著名的五个。

CHAPTER 2 The Roman Empire EVERYBODY KNOWS THE NAME OF THE ROMANS. BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY GAVE TO THE WORLD? The ancient Romans lived in modern-day Italy. They were very smart people and made one of the biggest, most important empires in the history of the world. The center of their empire was the city of Rome. The leaders of Rome took control of place after place until they had a very large empire. The first Roman emperor was a man called Octavius Augustus. He became emperor in 27 BCE.

罗马帝国每个人都知道罗马人的名字。 但你知道他们给世界带来了什么吗？ 古罗马人生活在今天的意大利。 他们是非常聪明的人，建立了世界历史上最大、最重要的帝国之一。 他们帝国的中心是罗马城。 罗马的领导人控制了一个又一个地方，直到他们拥有了一个非常大的帝国。 第一位罗马皇帝是一个叫屋大维的人。 他在公元前27年成为皇帝。

At one time, 130 million people lived in the Roman Empire, and it was more than five million square kilometers in size. There were about 130 emperors in the history of the empire. Many were good men. Augustus, for example, made sure there were very few wars, and he made the empire very rich. But other emperors were very bad, even crazy. It is difficult to be sure about things that happened so long ago, but there are many stories of crazy things that emperors did. People said that the Emperor Caligula wanted his horse to be in the government. They also said that Emperor Nero played a musical instrument while there was a big fire in Rome and people died.

罗马帝国一度有1.3亿人口，面积超过500万平方公里。 在罗马帝国的历史上，大约有130位皇帝。 许多人都是好人。例如，奥古斯都确保很少有战争，他使帝国非常富有。 但其他皇帝非常坏，甚至疯狂。 很难确定很久以前发生的事情，但有很多关于皇帝做过的疯狂事情的故事。 人们说卡利古拉皇帝想让他的马进入政府。 他们还说，当罗马发生大火，人们死亡时，尼禄皇帝演奏了乐器。

People in every part of the Roman Empire knew what the emperor looked like. They saw his face all the time. The Romans put a picture of the emperor on their coins. This changed the way that people used money. People could buy things in any part of the empire with the same coins. Life in the empire was good for the rich, important people, but it was terrible for regular people. In Rome there is a building called the Colosseum. It is like a stadium. Today, many people visit it and take pictures. But terrible things happened there. Thousands of people in ancient Rome came there to watch special sports. The sports were bloody and deadly. People had to fight and kill each other, or dangerous animals attacked and killed people. The Romans shouted happily as they watched.

罗马帝国各地的人都知道皇帝长什么样。 他们一直看到他的脸。 罗马人把皇帝的画像印在他们的硬币上。 这改变了人们使用金钱的方式。 人们可以用同样的硬币在帝国的任何地方买东西。 帝国的生活对有钱有势的人来说很好，但对普通人来说却很糟糕。 在罗马有一座叫斗兽场的建筑。 它就像一个体育场。今天，许多人参观它并拍照。 但是那里发生了可怕的事情。 在古罗马，成千上万的人来这里观看特殊的体育运动。 运动是血腥和致命的。 人们不得不互相厮杀，或者危险的动物袭击并杀死人们。 罗马人一边看着，一边高兴地喊着。

There were also many slaves in ancient Rome. A slave is someone who must work for a rich person, but doesn't get any money. A lot of the things we use today came from the Romans. The Romans spoke Latin, and there are many Latin words in modern English and other European languages. They gave us the calendar we use today. They also built good roads. We can still see many Roman roads in Europe today! So, what happened to the Romans? In the fifth century CE, the Roman Empire ended. There were many reasons for this: It was too big it became more and more difficult for Rome to control it. The army was not as strong as before. The empire spent too much money, more than it had. It had enemies, most importantly, the Visigoths. This was a tribe from Germany. In 410 CE, the Visigoths attacked the city of Rome and brought the great Roman Empire to an end.

古罗马也有很多奴隶。 奴隶是必须为富人工作，但却得不到任何钱的人。 我们今天使用的很多东西都来自罗马人。 罗马人说拉丁语，现代英语和其他欧洲语言中有许多拉丁单词。 他们给了我们今天使用的日历。 他们还修建了良好的道路。 今天，我们仍然可以在欧洲看到许多罗马时代的道路！那么，罗马人后来怎么样了？ 公元5世纪，罗马帝国灭亡。 这有很多原因：它太大了，罗马越来越难以控制它。 军队不像以前那么强大了。 帝国花了太多的钱，比它拥有的还要多。 它有敌人，最重要的是西哥特人。 这是一个来自德国的部落。 公元410年，西哥特人进攻罗马城，终结了伟大的罗马帝国。