http://it.geocities.com/mp_pollett/roma-aq1.htm

A good Internet site with capsule descriptions of the aqueducts that supply the city of Rome is at http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/j/p/jph181/
 

Vitruvius on road pavements:
http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/7.html#1.1
http://www.mmdtkw.org/VRomanRoads.html

Images of and along the Appia are at http://www2.siba.fi/~kkoskim//rooma/pages/VAPPIA.HTM

Where the roads went:

The Republican Revolution established principles of self government which Romans would nostalgically emulate even in the Augustan age. That the primary sources recording this important event are largely historical myth is frustrating to the modern scholar, they are more valuable for what they reveal towards the Roman idea of virtue, morality, and the Roman perception of the ideal woman, than actual events.

The cause of the revolution is said to be the rape of Lucretia.
 
 

While other wives were found in various states of wantonness, Lucretia was: "very differently employed from the king's daughters-in-law, whom they had seen passing their time in feasting and luxury with their acquaintances. She was sitting at her wool work in the hall, late at night, with her, maids busy round her. The palm in this competition of wifely virtue was awarded to Lucretia."

Her virtue only served to make her the target of Sextus Tarquin. Livy goes on to say that: "Sextus Tarquin, inflamed by the beauty and exemplary purity of Lucretia, formed the vile project of effecting her dishonour."

Sextus Tarquin "went in the frenzy of his passion with a naked sword to the sleeping Lucretia, and placing his left hand on her breast, said, "Silence, Lucretia! I am Sextus Tarquin, and I have a sword in my hand; if you utter a word, you shall die." When the woman, terrified out of her sleep, saw that no help was near, and instant death threatening her, Tarquin began to confess his passion, pleaded, used threats as well as entreaties, and employed every argument likely to influence a female heart...he threatened to disgrace her, declaring that he would lay the naked corpse of the slave by her dead body, so that it might be said that she had been slain in foul adultery. By this awful threat, his lust triumphed over her inflexible chastity, and Tarquin went off exulting in having successfully attacked her honour. Lucretia, overwhelmed with grief at such a frightful outrage, sent a messenger to her father at Rome and to her husband at Ardea, asking them to come to her..."

Her husband and father at her side, they attempted to console her, philosophically explaining that: "it is the mind that sins not the body, and where there has been no consent there is no guilt."

Nevertheless, Lucretia could not bear to live with her honor forsaken. "She had a knife concealed in her dress which she plunged into her, heart, and fell dying on the floor. Her father and husband raised the death-cry."

Later "They carried the body of Lucretia from her home down to the Forum, where, owing to the unheard-of atrocity of the crime, they at once collected a crowd. Each had his own complaint to make of the wickedness and violence of the royal house..."

Incited by the sight of the dead Lucretia, and spurned on by speeches advocating revolution, the crowd successfully overthrew Tarquinius Superbus, and established a republican government headed by two consuls.

Cicero said that: "Lucretia having been ravished by force by the king's son, having invoked the citizens to revenge her, slew herself. And this indignation of hers was the cause of liberty to the state."

Diodorus recorded that Lucretia "who renounced life of her own will in order that later generations might emulate her deed we should judge to be fittingly worthy of immortal praise, in order that women who choose to maintain the purity of their persons altogether free from censure may compare themselves with an authentic example."

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ROME/RAPE.HTM
 

The foundation of both the Republic and Empire was not based solely upon the forces of conquest, but also upon the forces of labour. Rome's slaves played an enormous role in daily activities, and ultimately Rome's success. Slaves themselves occupied a wide spectrum spanning class divisions from the Greek tutor who would initiate Patrician youth in the sophistications of Hellenism, to the gladiator whose life was at the mercy of the mob. (from Britannica)

"whilst those who knew nothing of the plot asked what disturbance or sudden outbreak of war called for the supreme authority of a dictator or required Quinctius , after reaching his eightieth year, to assume the government of the republic."

Cincinnatus was considered a model of Roman virtue, both in ancient times and in the early American Republic. George Washington consciously modeled his behavior on that of Cincinnatus and founded the "Order of the Cincinnati" after he American Revolution.

The campaign of Democratic Party presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark is trying to capitalize on the Cincinnatus image, but the effort has been greeted, thus far, by laughter and yawns.

And, yes, Cincinnati Ohio is named after him.

http://www.romansonline.com/sources/Hor/Eng/LV03_26.asp

http://www.leadershipnow.com/cincinnatus.html
 

If a father thrice surrender a son for sale, the son shall be free from the father.

A child born ten months after the father's death will not be admitted into a legal inheritance.

Females shall remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority ... except Vestal Virgins.

A spendthrift is forbidden to exercise administration over his own goods.

Persons shall mend roadways. If they do not keep them laid with stone, a person shall drive his beasts where he wishes.

It is permitted to gather fruit falling down on another man's farm.

If any person has sung or composed against another person a song such as was causing slander or insult to another, he shall be clubbed to death.

If a person has maimed another's limb, let there be retaliation in kind unless he makes agreement for settlement with him.

Intermarriage shall not take place between plebeians and patricians..."

For information about the parallels between the Twelve Tables and the US Bill of Rights, see:

http://www.mmdtkw.org/VTwelveTables.html
 

Cornelia bore 12 children, however only three lived to adulthood, the famous brothers Tiberius and Caius, who died championing the rights of the common people, and daughter Sempronia, wife of Scipio Aemilianus (Scipio the Younger) the destroyer of Carthage.

After the death of her husband Tiberius in 154 BC: "Cornelia, taking upon herself all the care of the household and the education of her children, approved herself so discreet a matron, so affectionate a mother, and so constant and noble-spirited a widow, that Tiberius seemed to all men to have done nothing unreasonable in choosing to die for such a woman; who, when King Ptolemy himself proffered her his crown, and would have married her, refused it, and chose rather to live a widow."

Cornelia is credited with inspiring her children towards civic duty, and ensuring that they obtained the education necessary to accomplish great deeds. As the attitudes towards the agrarian democratic reforms proposed by her sons ranged from outrage to admiration, so too does opinion towards Cornelia, as to whether she motivated her sons action, or sought to temper their brashness.

As Plutarch says: "some have also charged Cornelia, the mother of Tiberius, with contributing towards it, because she frequently upbraided her sons, that the Romans as yet rather called her the daughter of Scipio, than the mother of the Gracchi."

Cornelia lived in a period of political turmoil, of which her family was often the center. Clearly Cornelia exercised political influence. Her son Caius "proposed two laws. The first was, that whoever was turned out of any public office by the people, should be thereby rendered incapable of bearing any office afterwards; the second, that if any magistrate condemn a Roman to be banished without a legal trial, the people be authorized to take cognizance thereof.

One of these laws was manifestly leveled at Marcus Octavius, who, at the instigation of Tiberius, had been deprived of his tribuneship. The other touched Popilius, who, in his praetorship, had banished all Tiberius's friends; whereupon Popilius, being unwilling to stand the hazard of a trial, fled out of Italy. As for the former law, it was withdrawn by Caius himself, who said he yielded in the case of Octavius, at the request of his mother Cornelia."

The Roman citizenry "had a great veneration for Cornelia, not more for the sake of her father than for that of her children; and they afterwards erected a statue of brass in honour of her, with this inscription, Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi."

Plutarch ends his Life of Caius Gracchus with an eloquent description of Cornelia: "It is reported that as Cornelia, their mother, bore the loss of her two sons with a noble and undaunted spirit, so, in reference to the holy places in which they were slain, she said, their dead bodies were well worthy of such sepulchres. She removed afterwards, and dwelt near the place called Misenum, not at all altering her former way of living. She had many friends, and hospitably received many strangers at her house; many Greeks and learned men were continually about her; nor was there any foreign prince but received gifts from her and presented her again. Those who were conversant with her, were much interested, when she pleased to entertain them with her recollections of her father Scipio Africanus, and of his habits and way of living. But it was most admirable to hear her make mention of her sons, without any tears or sign of grief, and give the full account of all their deeds and misfortunes, as if she had been relating the history of some ancient heroes. This made some imagine, that age, or the greatness of her afflictions, had made her senseless and devoid of natural feelings. But they who so thought were themselves more truly insensible not to see how much a noble nature and education avail to conquer any affliction; and though fortune may often be more successful, and may defeat the efforts of virtue to avert misfortunes, it cannot, when we incur them, prevent our hearing them reasonably."
http://dominae.fws1.com/Influence/Cornelia/Index.html

The senators wrenched clubs from the very hands of the followers of Gracchus, or with pieces of torn-up benches or other things that had been brought for the use of the comitia, began mauling them and in hot pursuit, drove them over the precipice. In the riot many followers of Gracchus were killed and Gracchus himself, being seized near the temple, was slain at the door near the statues of the kings. All the corpses were thrown into the Tiber at night.

Thus died on the Capitol and while still tribune, Tiberius Gracchus, the son of the Gracchus who was twice consul and of Cornelia, the daughter of the Scipio that conquered Carthage. He lost his life because he followed up an excellent plan in too lawless a way. This awful occurrence, the first of the kind that took place in the public assembly, was never long without a new parallel thereafter. On the matter of the killing of Gracchus, the city was divided between grief and joy. Some sorrowed for themselves and him and bewailed the existing state of affairs, believing that the republic no longer existed, but had been usurped by coercion and violence. Others congratulated themselves that everything had turned out just as they wanted it to.
http://www.roman-empire.net/republic/tib-gracchus.html
 

This struggle, primarily, was based upon class. Plutarch tells us that "having cleared himself of every suspicion, and proved his entire innocence, he now at once came forward to ask for the tribuneship; in which, though he was universally opposed by all persons of distinction, yet there came such infinite numbers of people from all parts of Italy to vote for Caius, that lodgings for them could not be supplied in the city; and the Field being not large enough to contain the assembly, there were numbers who climbed upon the roofs and the tilings of the houses to use their voices in his favour. However, the nobility so far forced the people to their pleasure and disappointed Caius's hope, that he was not returned the first, as was expected, but the fourth tribune. But when he came to the execution of his office, it was seen presently who was really first tribune, as he was a better orator than any of his contemporaries..."
http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CLASS_366/C.Gracchus.1.html and
http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CLASS_366/C.Gracchus.2.html
 

Blossius committed suicide, Pergamum became the Roman province of Asia.
http://www.romansonline.com/Persns.asp?IntID=1672&Ename=Aristonicus
http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/10/winston10art.htm