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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.