No one knows precisely when Rome
was founded. Excavations on the
Palatine Hill have revealed the
traces of an
Iron Age
village, which date back to the
ninth or eighth century BC, but
the
legends relating to
Rome's earliest history tell it
slightly differently. Rea Silvia,
a vestal virgin and daughter of a
local king, Numitor, had twin sons
- the product, she alleged, of a
rape by Mars. They were supposed
to be sacrificed to the god but
the ritual wasn't carried out, and
the two boys were abandoned and
found by a wolf, who nursed them
until their adoption by a
shepherd, who named them
Romulus
and Remus . Later they laid
out the boundaries of the city on
the Palatine Hill, but it soon
became apparent that there was
only room for one ruler, and,
unable to agree on the signs given
to them by the gods, they
quarrelled, Romulus killing Remus
and becoming in 753 BC the city's
first
monarch , to be
followed by six further kings.
Whatever the truth of this,
there's no doubt that Rome was an
obvious spot to build a city: the
Palatine and Capitoline hills
provided security, and there was,
of course, the river Tiber, which
could be easily crossed here by
way of the Isola Tiberina, making
this a key location on the trade
routes between Etruria and
Campania.
The Roman Republic
Rome as a kingdom lasted until
about 507 BC, when the people rose
up against the tyrannical King
Tarquinius and established a
Republic , appointing the first
two consuls and instituting a more
democratic form of government. The
city prospered...
read
more >>
The Roman Empire
A triumph for the new democrats
over the old guard, Augustus (27
BC-14 AD) - as Octavian became
known - was the first true Roman
emperor, in firm control of Rome
and its dominions. Responsible
more than anyone for heaving Rome
into the...
read
more >>
The Christian era
It was the papacy, under Pope
Gregory I ("the Great";
590-604) in 590, that rescued Rome
from its demise. In an eerie echo
of the empire, Gregory sent
missions all over Europe to spread
the word of the Church and
publicize its holy...
read
more >>
The Renaissance and
Counter-Reformation
As time went on, power gradually
became concentrated in a handful
of families , who swapped the top
jobs, including the papacy itself,
between them. Under the burgeoning
power of the pope, the city began
to take on a new aspect: churches
were...
read
more >>
The eighteenth century to World
War II
The eighteenth century saw the
decline of the papacy as a
political force, a phenomenon
marked by the occupation of the
city in 1798 by Napoleon; Pius VI
(1775-1800) was unceremoniously
sent off to France as a prisoner,
and...
read
more >>
Modern times
Since the war , Italy has become
renowned as a country which
changes its government, if not its
politicians, every few months, and
for the rest of Italy Rome has
come to symbolize the inertia of
their nation's government - at
odds with both the...
read
more >>
