The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilization of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced many modern legal systems. Roman history can be divided into the following periods:
Pre-historical and early Rome, covering Rome's earliest inhabitants and the legend of its founding by Romulus The period of Etruscan dominance and the regal period, in which, according to tradition, Romulus was the first of seven kings The Roman Republic, which commenced in 509 BC when kings were replaced with rule by elected magistrates. The period was marked by vast expansion of Roman territory. During the 5th century BC, Rome gained regional dominance in Latium. With the Punic Wars from 264 to 146 BC, ancient Rome gained dominance over the Western Mediterranean, displacing Carthage as the dominant regional power. The Roman Empire followed the Republic, which waned with the rise of Julius Caesar, and by all measures concluded after a period of civil war and the victory of Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, in 27 BC over Mark Antony. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 after the city was conquered by the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Consequently, Rome's power declined, and it eventually became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, as the Duchy of Rome, from the 6th to 8th centuries. At this time, the city was reduced to a fraction of its former size, being sacked several times in the 5th to 6th centuries, even temporarily depopulated entirely.Procopius, Gothic War, III.xxii. "In Rome he suffered nothing human to remain, leaving it altogether, in every part, a perfect desert." Medieval Rome is characterised by a break with Constantinople and the formation of the Papal States. The Papacy struggled to retain influence in the emerging Holy Roman Empire, and during the , the population of Rome fell to as low as 30,000 inhabitants. Following the East–West Schism and the limited success in the Investiture Controversy, the Papacy did gain considerable influence in the High Middle Ages, but with the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism, the city of Rome was reduced to irrelevance, its population falling below 20,000. Rome's decline into complete irrelevance during the medieval period, with the associated lack of construction activity, assured the survival of very significant ancient Roman material remains in the centre of the city, some abandoned and others continuing in use. The Roman Renaissance occurred in the 15th century, when Rome replaced Florence as the centre of artistic and cultural influence. The Roman Renaissance was cut short abruptly with the devastation of the city in 1527, but the Papacy reasserted itself in the Counter-Reformation, and the city continued to flourish during the early modern period. Rome was annexed by Napoleon and was part of the First French Empire from 1809 to 1814. Modern history, the period from the 19th century to the present. Rome came under siege again after the Allied invasion of Italy and was bombed several times. It was declared an open city on 14 August 1943. Rome became the capital of the Italian Republic (established in 1946). With a population of 4.4 million (; 2.9 million within city limits), it is the largest city in Italy. It is among the largest urban areas of the European Union and classified as a global city.
Name Attempts have been made to find a linguistic root for the name Rome. Possibilities include derivation from the Greek Rhṓmē (), meaning "bravery" or "courage";<ref>Cf. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his "The Social Contract", Book IV, Chapter IV, written in 1762, where he writes in a footnote that the word for Rome is Greek in origin and means force. "There are writers who say that the name 'Rome' is derived from 'Romulus'. It is in fact Greek and means force."</recan Cneve Tarchunies Rumach, interpreted as Gnaeus Tarquinius of Rome. http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/francois.html </ref> Compare also Rumon, former name of the Tiber River. Its further etymology remains unknown, as with most Etruscan words. Thomas G. Tucker's Concise Etymological Dictionary of Latin (1931) suggests that the name is most probably from *urobsma (cf. urbs, robur) and otherwise, "but less likely" from *urosma "hill" (cf. Skt. varsman- "height, point," Old Slavonic врьхъ "top, summit", Russ. верх "top; upward direction", Lith. virsus "upper").
Ancient Rome timeline
Rome timelineRoman Kingdom and Republic753 BCAccording to legend, Romulus founds Rome.753–509 BCRule of the seven Kings of Rome.509 BCCreation of the Republic.390 BCThe Gauls invade Rome. Rome sacked.264–146 BCPunic Wars.146–44 BCSocial and Civil Wars. Emergence of Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar.44 BCJulius Caesar assassinated.
Earliest history
Prehistory There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from at least 5,000 years, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.Heiken, G., Funiciello, R. and De Rita, D. (2005), The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal City. Princeton University Press. The evidence suggesting the city's ancient foundation is also obscured by the legend of Rome's beginning involving Romulus and Remus.
The traditional date for the founding of Rome is 21 April 753 BC, following M. Terentius Varro, and the city and surrounding region of Latium has continued to be inhabited with little interruption since around that time. Excavations made in 2014 have revealed a wall built long before the city's official founding year. Archaeologists discovered 9th-century BC walls and 8th-century BC pottery. The Palatine Hill may have been visited and settled around the 10th century BC.
The site of Sant'Omobono Area is crucial for understanding the related processes of monumentalisation, urbanisation, and state formation in Rome in the late Archaic period. The Sant'Omobono temple site dates to 7th–6th century BC, making these the oldest known temple remains in Rome.
Legendary origin
The city's name was long credited to the legendary culture hero Romulus.Livy, Ab Urbe Condita I, 7. It was said that Romulus and his twin brother Remus were the offspring of the rape of an Alban princess by the war god Mars and, via their mother, were further descended from the Trojan prince Aeneas, supposed son of the Greek love goddess Aphrodite. Exposed on the Tiber, they were suckled by a she-wolf and raised by a shepherd and his wife. Avenging themselves on their usurping grand-uncle and restoring their grandfather Numitor to Alba Longa's throne, they were ordered or decided to settle the hills around Rome's later Forum Boarium, an important river port connected in Roman myth with Hercules's tenth labour, capturing the cattle of Geryon.
Disputing some point of the founding or its related auguries, Remus was murdered by Romulus or one of his supporters. Romulus then established a walled and roughly square settlement, whose sacred boundary and gates were established by a ploughing ritual. Romulus then declared the town an asylum, permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including criminals, runaway slaves, and freemen without distinction.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:8. To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighbouring tribes to a festival in Rome where the Romans abducted many of their young women. After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romulus shared Rome's kingship with the Sabine king Titus Tatius.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:9–13. Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the Roman Senate, initially serving as his advisory council. These men he called fathers (), and their descendants became the patricians. He created three centuries of equites: Ramnes (meaning Romans), Tities (after the Sabine king), and Luceres (Etruscans). He also divided the general populace into thirty curiae, named after thirty of the Sabine women who had intervened to end the war between Romulus and Tatius. The curiae formed the voting units in the Comitia Curiata.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:8, 13.
City's formation Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill and surrounding hills approximately from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the south side of the Tiber. The Quirinal Hill was probably an outpost for the Sabines, another Italic-speaking people. At this location, the Tiber forms a Z-shaped curve that contains an island where the river can be forded. Because of the river and the ford, Rome was at a crossroads of traffic following the river valley and of traders travelling north and south on the west side of the peninsula.
Archaeological finds have confirmed that there were two fortified settlements in the 8th century BC, in the area of the future Rome: Rumi on the Palatine Hill, and Titientes on the Quirinal Hill, backed by the Luceres living in the nearby woods. These were simply three of numerous Italic-speaking communities that existed in Latium, a plain on the Italian peninsula, by the 1st millennium BC. The origins of the Italic peoples lie in prehistory and are therefore not precisely known, but their Indo-European languages migrated from the east in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC.
According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, many Roman historiansincluding Cato and Semproniusconsidered the Italian aborigines to have been prehistoric Greek colonists. The Romans then considered themselves a mix of these people, the Albans, and the other Latins, considered a blend of Pelasgians, Arcadians, Epeans, and refugee Trojans. Over time, the Etruscans and other ancient Italic peoples were admitted as citizens as well. The Sabinesconsidered to be Gaulish along with the other Umbri peoples of central Italy were first mentioned in Dionysius's account for having captured the city of Lista by surprise, which was regarded as the mother-city of the Aborigines.
Rome was especially large for Latial settlements; although the majority of larger Early Iron Age Latial cities were between 50 and 80 hectares in size, Rome had—by the same time—grown to a size of around 200 hectares. The archaeologist Francesca Fulminante suggests that Rome was uniquely predisposed to conquer Latium as it was significantly more powerful than its immediate neighbors. Upon unifying Latium, according to Fulminante, Rome was now more easily able to compete with the disjointed Etruscan city-states.
Italic context
The Italic speakers in the area included Latins (in the west), Sabines (in the upper valley of the Tiber), Umbrians (in the north-east), Samnites (in the South), Oscans, and others. In the 8th century BC, they shared the peninsula with two other major ethnic groups: the Etruscans in the North and the Greeks in the south.
The Etruscans (Etrusci or Tusci in Latin) are attested north of Rome in Etruria (modern northern Lazio, Tuscany and part of Umbria). They founded cities such as Tarquinia, Veii, and Volterra and deeply influenced Roman culture, as clearly shown by the Etruscan origin of some of the mythical Roman kings. Historians have no literature, nor texts of religion or philosophy; therefore, much of what is known about this civilization is derived from grave goods and tomb findings.Larissa Bonfante, 'Etruscan Inscriptions and Etruscan Religion' in The Religion of the Etruscans – University of Texas Press 2006, page 9
The Greeks had founded many colonies in Southern Italy between 750 and 550 BC (which the Romans later called Magna Graecia), such as Cumae, Neapolis, Rhegion, Crotone, Sybaris, and Taras, as well as in the eastern two-thirds of Sicily.
Etruscan dominance