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| Rome Timeline | |
|---|---|
| Roman Kingdom and Republic | |
| 753 BC | According to legend, Romolo founds Rome. |
| 753–509 BC | Rule of the seven Kings of Rome. |
| 509 BC | Creation of the long Roman Republic by Giunio Bruto. |
| 390 BC | The Gauls invade Rome. Rome sacked. |
| 264-146 BC | Punic Wars -- Attilio Regolo |
| 146-44 BC | Social and Civil Wars. Emergence of Mario, Silla, Pompeo and Giulio Cesare |
| 44 BC | Julius Caesar assassinated. |
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.
Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to at least 6,000 years of human presence.
The power of the well known tale of Rome's legendary foundation tends also to deflect attention from its actual, and much more ancient, origins.
The origin of the city's name is thought to be that of the reputed founder and first ruler, the legendary Romolo.
It is said that Romolo and his twin brother Remo, apparent sons of the God Mars who were suckled by a she-wolf after being abandoned, decided to build a city.
After an argument, Romolo kills Remo and named the city "Roma" after himself.
After founding and naming (as the story goes) Rome, Romolo permits men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen without distinction.
To provide his citizens with wives, Romolo invites the neighboring tribes to a festival in Rome where he abducted the women from amongst them (known as The Rape of the Sabine Women).
After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romolo shared the kingship with the Sabine king Titus Tatius.
Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the Roman senate as an advisory council to the king.
These men he called patres, and their descendants became the patricians.
Romolo created three centuries of equites named Ramnes (meaning Romans),
Tities (after the Sabine king) and a third called Luceres (Etruscans).
Romolo also divided the general populace into 30 curiae, named after thirty of the Sabine women who had intervened to end the war between Romolo and Tatius.
The curiae formed the voting units in the Comitia Curiata.
More recently, attempts have been made to find a linguistic root for the name Rome.
Possibilities include derivation from the Greek Ῥώμη, meaning bravery, courage;[10] possibly the connection is with a root *rum-, "teat", with a theoretical reference to the totem wolf that adopted and suckled the cognately-named twins.
The Etruscan name of the city seems to have been Ruma.
Compare also Rumon, former name of the Tiber River.
Its further etymology, as with that of most Etruscan words, remains unknown.
The Basque scholar Manuel de Larramendi thought that the origin could be related to the Basque language word orma (modern Basque kirreal), "wall".
Thomas G. Tucker's Concise Etymological Dictionary of Latin (1931) suggests 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 / vr'h" - "top, summit", Russ. верхом / verkhom - "in the upper area; on horseback", Lith. virsus "upper").
Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill and surrounding hills approximately 30 km (19 mi) from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the south side of the Tiber. Another of these hills, the Quirinal Hill, was probably an outpost for another Italic-speaking people, the Sabines. At this location the Tiber forms a Z-shape 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 traveling north and south on the west side of the peninsula.
Archaeological finds have confirmed that in the 8th century BC in the area of the future Rome there were two fortified settlements, the Rumi one on the Palatine Hill and the Titientes one on the Quirinal Hill, backed by the Luceres living in the nearby woods.[12] 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 historians (including Porcius Cato and Gaius Sempronius) regarded the origins of the Romans (descendants of the Aborigines) as Greek despite the fact that their knowledge was derived from Greek legendary accounts.[13] The Sabines, specifically, were first mentioned in Dionysius's account for having captured by surprise the city of Lista which was regarded as the mother-city of the Aborigines.[14]
[edit] Italic context
The Etruscans (Etrusci or Tusci in Latin) were settled north of Rome in Etruria (modern northern Lazio, Tuscany and part of Umbria). They founded cities like Tarquinia, Veii and Volterra and deeply influenced Roman culture, as clearly shown by the Etruscan origin of some of the mythical Roman kings. The origins of the Etruscans are lost in prehistory. Historians have no literature, no texts of religion or philosophy; therefore much of what is known about this civilisation is derived from grave goods and tomb findings.[15] The behaviour of the Etruscans has led to some confusion. Like Latin, Etruscan is inflected and Hellenised. Like the Indo-Europeans, the Etruscans were patrilineal and patriarchal. Like the Italics, they were war-like. The gladiatorial displays actually evolved out of Etruscan funerary customs. Future studies of Etruscan and more excavations in the region will no doubt shed more light on the origin of Rome and the Romans.[16]
The Greeks had founded many colonies in Southern Italy (that the Romans later called Magna Graecia), such as Cumae, Naples, Reggio Calabria, Crotone, Sybaris and Taranto, as well as in the eastern two-thirds of Sicily, between 750 and 550 BC.[17][18]
[edit] Etruscan dominance
Further information: Roman Kingdom
This traditional account of Roman history, which has come down to us through Livy, Plutarch, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others, is that in Rome's first centuries, it was ruled by a succession of seven kings. The traditional chronology, as codified by Varro, allots 243 years for their reigns, an average of almost 35 years, which, since the work of Barthold Georg Niebuhr, has been generally discounted by modern scholarship. The Gauls destroyed much of Rome's historical records when they sacked the city after the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC (Varronian, according to Polybius the battle occurred in 387/6) and what was left was eventually lost to time or theft. With no contemporary records of the kingdom existing, all accounts of the kings must be carefully questioned.[19] The list of kings is also of dubious historical value, though the last-named kings may be historical figures. It is believed by some historians (again, this is disputed) that Rome was under the influence of the Etruscans for about a century. During this period a bridge called the Pons Sublicius was built to replace the Tiber ford, and the Cloaca Maxima was also built; the Etruscans are said to have been great engineers of this type of structure. From a cultural and technical point of view, Etruscans had arguably the second-greatest impact on Roman development, only surpassed by the Greeks.
Expanding further south, the Etruscans came into direct contact with the Greeks. After initial success in conflicts with the Greek colonists, Etruria went into a decline. Taking advantage of this, around 500 BC Rome rebelled and gained independence from the Etruscans. It also abandoned monarchy in favour of a republican system based on a Senate, composed of the nobles of the city, along with popular assemblies which ensured political participation for most of the freeborn men and elected magistrates annually.
The Etruscans left a lasting influence on Rome. The Romans learned to build temples from them, and the Etruscans may have introduced the worship of a triad of gods — Juno, Minerva, and Jupiter — from the Etruscan gods: Uni, Menrva, and Tinia. However, the influence of Etruscan people in the evolution of Rome is often overstated.[20] Rome was primarily a Latin city. It never became fully Etruscan. Also, evidence shows that Romans were heavily influenced by the Greek cities in the South, mainly through trade.[21]
[edit] Roman Republic
Further information: Roman Republic
After 500 BC, Rome joined with the Latin cities in defence against incursions by the Sabines.
Winning the Battle of Lake Regillus in 493 BC, Rome established again the supremacy over the Latin countries it had lost after the fall of the monarchy. After a lengthy series of struggles, this supremacy became fixed in 393, when the Romans finally subdued the Volsci and Aequi. In 394 BC, they also conquered the menacing Etruscan neighbour of Veii. The Etruscan power was now limited to Etruria itself, and Rome was the dominant city in Latium.
Also a formal treaty with the city of Carthage is reported to have been made in the end of the 6th century BC, which defined the spheres of influence of each city and regulated the trade between them.
At the same time, Heraclides states that 4th-century Rome is a Greek city.[22]
Rome's early enemies were the neighbouring hill tribes of the Volscians, the Aequi, and of course the Etruscans.
As years passed and military successes increased Roman territory, new adversaries appeared. The fiercest were the Gauls, a loose collective of peoples who controlled much of Northern Europe including what is modern North and Central-East Italy.
In 387 BC, Rome was sacked and burned by the Senones coming from eastern Italy and led by Brennus, who had successfully defeated the Roman army at the Battle of the Allia in Etruria. Multiple contemporary records suggest that the Senones hoped to punish Rome for violating its diplomatic neutrality in Etruria. The Senones marched 130 kilometres (81 mi) to Rome without harming the surrounding countryside; once sacked, the Senones withdrew from Rome.[23] Brennus was defeated by the dictator Furius Camillus at Tusculum soon afterwards.[24][25]
After that, Rome hastily rebuilt its buildings and went on the offensive, conquering the Etruscans and seizing territory from the Gauls in the north. After 345 BC, Rome pushed south against other Latins. Their main enemy in this quadrant were the fierce Samnites, who heavily defeated the legions in 321 BC at the Battle of Caudine Forks. In spite of these and other temporary setbacks, the Romans advanced steadily. By 290 BC, Rome controlled over half of the Italian peninsula. In the 3rd century BC, Rome brought the Greek poleis in the south under its control as well.[26]
Amidst the never ending wars (from the beginning of the Republic up to the Principate, the doors of the temple of Janus were closed only twice - when they were open it meant that Rome was at war), Rome had to face a severe major social crisis, the Conflict of the Orders, a political struggle between the Plebeians (commoners) and Patricians (aristocrats) of the ancient Roman Republic, in which the Plebeians sought political equality with the Patricians.
It was the major issue during the History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic, and played a major role in the development of the Constitution of the Roman Republic.
It began in 494 BC, when, while Rome was at war with two neighboring tribes, the Plebeians all left the city (the first Plebeian Secession). The result of this first secession was the creation of the office of Plebeian Tribune, and with it the first acquisition of real power by the Plebeians.[27]
According to tradition, Rome became a republic in 509 BC.
However, it took a few centuries for Rome to become the great city of popular imagination. By the 3rd century BC, Rome had become the pre-eminent city of the Italian peninsula. During the Punic Wars between Rome and the great Mediterranean empire of Carthage (264 to 146 BC), Rome's stature increased further as it became the capital of an overseas empire for the first time. Beginning in the 2nd century BC, Rome went through a significant population expansion as Italian farmers, driven from their ancestral farmlands by the advent of massive, slave-operated farms called latifundia, flocked to the city in great numbers. The victory over Carthage in the First Punic War brought the first two provinces outside the Italian peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia.[28] Parts of Spain (Hispania) followed, and in the beginning of the 2nd century the Romans got involved in the affairs of the Greek world. By then all Hellenistic kingdoms and the Greek city-states were in decline, exhausted from endless civil wars and relying on mercenary troops.
The Romans looked upon the Greek civilisation with great admiration. The Greeks saw Rome as a useful ally in their civil strifes, and it wasn't long before the Roman legions were invited to intervene in Greece. In less than 50 years the whole of mainland Greece was subdued. The Roman legions crushed the Macedonian phalanx twice, in 197 and 168 BC; in 146 BC the Roman consul Lucius Mummius razed Corinth, marking the end of free Greece.
The same year, Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the son of Scipio Africanus destroyed the city of Carthage, making it a Roman province.
In the following years, Rome continued its conquests in Spain with Tiberius Gracchus, and it set foot in Asia, when the last king of Pergamum gave his kingdom to the Roman people. The end of the 2nd century brought once again threat, when a great host of Germanic peoples, namely Cimbri and Teutones, crossed the river Rhone and moved to Italy. Gaius Marius was consul five consecutive times (seven total), and won two decisive battles in 102 and 101 BC He also reformed the Roman army, giving it such a good reorganization that it remained unchanged for centuries.
The first thirty years of the last century BC were characterised by serious internal problems that threatened the existence of the Republic.
The Social War, between Rome and its allies, and the Servile Wars (slave uprisings) were very hard conflicts,[29] all within Italy, and forced the Romans to change their policy with regards to their allies and subjects.[30] By then Rome had become an extensive power, with great wealth which derived from the conquered people (as tribute, food or manpower, i.e. slaves).
The allies of Rome felt bitter since they had fought by the side of the Romans, and yet they were not citizens and shared little in the rewards. Although they lost the war, they finally got what they asked, and by the beginning of the 1st century AD practically all free inhabitants of Italy were Roman citizens.
However, the growth of the Imperium Romanum (Roman power) created new problems, and new demands, that the old political system of the Republic, with its annually elected magistrates and its sharing of power, could not solve.
The dictatorship of LUCIO SILLA, the extraordinary commands of POMPEO, and the first triumvirate made that clear.
In January 49 BC, GIULIO CESARE the conqueror of Gaul, marched his legions against Rome.
In the following years, Giulio Cesare vanquished his opponents, and ruled Rome for four years.
After his assassination in 44 BC, the Senate tried to reestablish the Republic, but its champions, Marcus Junius Brutus (descendant of the founder of the republic) and Gaius Cassius Longinus were defeated by Caesar's lieutenant Marcus Antonius and Caesar's nephew, Octavian.
The years 44-31 BC mark the struggle for power between Marcus Antonius and Octavian (later known as Augustus).
Finally, on 2 September 31 BC, in the Greek promontory of Actium, the final battle took place in the sea. Octavian was victorious, and became the sole ruler of Rome (and its empire).
That date marks the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principate.
| Rome Timeline | |
|---|---|
| Roman Empire | |
| 44 BC - AD 14 | Augustus establishes the Empire. |
| AD 64 | Great Fire of Rome during Nero's rule. |
| 69-96 | Flavian Dynasty. Building of the Colosseum. |
| 3rd century | Crisis of the Roman Empire. Building of the Baths of Caracalla and the Aurelian Walls. |
| 284-337 | Diocletian and Constantine. Building of the first Christian basilicas. Battle of Milvian Bridge. Rome is replaced by Constantinople as the capital of the Empire. |
| 395 | Definitive separation of Western and Eastern Roman Empire. |
| 410 | The Goths of Alaric sack Rome. |
| 455 | The Vandals of Gaiseric sack Rome. |
| 476 | Fall of the west empire and deposition of the final emperor Romulus Augustus. |
| 6th century | Gothic War (535–554). The Goths cut off the aqueducts in the siege of 537, an act which historians traditionally regard as the beginning of the Middle Ages in Italy [33] |
By the end of the Republic, the city of Rome had achieved a grandeur befitting the capital of an empire dominating the whole of the Mediterranean.
It was, at the time, the largest city in the world. Estimates of its peak population range from 450,000 to over 3.5 million people with estimates of 1 to 2 million being most popular with historians.[34] This grandeur increased under Augustus, who completed Caesar's projects and added many of his own, such as the Forum of Augustus and the Ara Pacis.
He is said to have remarked that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. Augustus' successors sought to emulate his success in part by adding their own contributions to the city.
In AD 64, during the reign of Nero, the Great Fire of Rome left much of the city destroyed, but in many ways it was used as an excuse for new development.
Rome was a subsidised city at the time, with roughly 15 to 25 percent of its grain supply being paid by the central government.
Commerce and industry played a smaller role compared to that of other cities like Alexandria. This meant that Rome had to depend upon goods and production from other parts of the Empire to sustain such a large population. This was mostly paid by taxes that were levied by the Roman government. If it had not been subsidised, Rome would have been significantly smaller.
Rome's population declined after its peak in the 2nd century. At the end of that century, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a plague killed 2,000 people a day.[37] Marcus Aurelius died in 180, his reign being the last of the "Five Good Emperors" and Pax Romana. His son Commodus, who had been co-emperor sinAD 177, assumed full imperial power, which is most generally associated with the gradual decline of the Western Roman Empire. Rome's population was only a fraction of its peak when the Aurelian Wall was completed in the year 273 (at that year its population was only around 500,000).
Starting in the early 3rd century, matters changed. The "Crisis of the third century" defines the disasters and political troubles for the Empire, which nearly collapsed. The new feeling of danger and the menace of barbarian invasions was clearly shown by the decision of Emperor Aurelian, who at year 273 finished encircling the capital itself with a massive wall which had a perimeter that measured close to 20 km (12 mi). Rome formally remained capital of the empire, but emperors spent less and less time there. At the end of 3rd century Diocletian's political reforms, Rome was deprived of its traditional role of administrative capital of the Empire. Later, western emperors ruled from Milan or Ravenna, or cities in Gaul. In 330, Constantine I established a second capital at Constantinople. At this time, part of the Roman aristocratic class moved to this new centre, followed by many of the artists and craftsmen who were living in the city.
However, the Senate, while stripped of most of its political power, was socially prestigious.
The Empire's conversion to Christianity made the Bishop of Rome (later called "The Pope") the senior religious figure in the Western Empire, as officially stated in 380 by the Edict of Thessalonica.
In spite of its increasingly marginal role in the Empire, Rome retained its historic prestige, and this period saw the last wave of construction activity: Constantine's predecessor Maxentius built buildings such as its basilica in the Forum, Constantine himself erected the Arch of Constantine to celebrate his victory over the former, and Diocletian built the greatest baths of all. Constantine was also the first patron of official Christian buildings in the city. He donated the Lateran Palace to the Pope, and built the first great basilica, the old St. Peter's Basilica.
Still Rome remained one of the strongholds of Paganism, led by the aristocrats and senators.
When the Visigoths showed off before the walls in 408, the Senate and the prefect proposed pagan sacrifices, and it seems that even the pope was agreeable if this could help to save the city.[38] However, the new walls did not stop the city being sacked first by Alaric on 24 August, 410, by Geiseric in 455 and even by general Ricimer's unpaid Roman troops (largely composed of barbarians) on 11 July, 472.[39][40] This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to an enemy. The previous sack of Rome had been accomplished by the Gauls under their leader Brennus in 387 BC. The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote that "The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken."[41] These sackings of the city astonished all the Roman world. The fall of Rome is read today as the definitive fall of the ancient order. Many inhabitants fled as the city no longer could be supplied with grain from Africa from the mid-5th century onward. At the end of the 5th century Rome's population may have been less than 50,000. In any case, the damage the sackings may have been overestimated. The city was already in a steep decline, and many monuments had been destroyed by the citizens themselves, who stripped stones from closed temples and other precious buildings, and even burned statues to make lime for their personal use. In addition, most of the increasing number of churches were built in this way. For example, the first Saint Peter's Basilica was erected using spoils from the abandoned Circus of Nero.[42] This "self-eating" attitude was a constant feature of Rome until the Renaissance. From the 4th century, imperial edicts against stripping of stones and especially marble were common, but the need for their repetition shows that they were ineffective. Sometimes new churches were created by simply taking advantage of early Pagan temples, perhaps changing the Pagan god or hero to a corresponding Christian saint or martyr. In this way, the Temple of Romulus and Remus became the basilica of the twin saints Cosmas and Damian. Later, the Pantheon, Temple of All Gods, became the church of All Martyrs.
Suetonius mentions in passing that during the reign of Nero "punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition" (superstitionis novae ac maleficae).[45] He gives no reason for the punishment. Tacitus reports that after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, some among the population held Nero responsible and that the emperor attempted to deflect blame onto the Christians.[46] The war against the Jews during Nero's reign, which so destabilised the empire that it led to civil war and Nero's suicide provided an additional rationale for suppression of this 'Jewish' sect.
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