Founding myth

Main article: Founding of Rome

According to the founding myth of Rome, the city was founded on 21 April 753 BC by
the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who descended from the Trojan prince Aeneas,
[12] and who were grandsons of the Latin King Numitor of Alba Longa. King Numitor
was deposed by his brother, Amulius, while Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, gave
birth to the twins.[13][14] Because Rhea Silvia had been raped and impregnated by
Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine.

According to legend, Rome was founded in 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, who were
raised by a she-wolf
The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, so he
ordered them to be drowned.[14] A she-wolf (or a shepherd's wife in some accounts)
saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of
Alba Longa to Numitor.[15][14]

The twins then founded their own city, but Romulus killed Remus in a quarrel over
the location of the Roman Kingdom, though some sources state the quarrel was about
who was going to rule or give his name to the city.[16] Romulus became the source
of the city's name.[14] In order to attract people to the city, Rome became a
sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem, in that
Rome came to have a large male population but was bereft of women. Romulus visited
neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome
was so full of undesirables he was refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the
Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration
of the Latins with the Sabines.[17]

Another legend, recorded by Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, says that

Prince Aeneas led a group of Trojans on a sea voyage to found a new Troy, since the
original was destroyed at the end of the Trojan War. After a long time in rough
seas, they landed on the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the
men wanted to take to the sea again, but the women who were traveling with them did
not want to leave. One woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships
out at sea to prevent their leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but
they soon realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the
settlement after the woman who torched their ships.[18]

The Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid,
where the Trojan prince Aeneas is destined by the gods to found a new Troy. In the
epic, the women also refuse to go back to the sea, but they were not left on the
Tiber. After reaching Italy, Aeneas, who wanted to marry Lavinia, was forced to
wage war with her former suitor, Turnus. According to the poem, the Alban kings
were descended from Aeneas, and thus Romulus, the founder of Rome, was his
descendant.

Kingdom
Main article: Roman Kingdom

Etruscan painting; dancer and musicians, Tomb of the Leopards, in Tarquinia, Italy
The city of Rome grew from settlements around a ford on the river Tiber, a
crossroads of traffic and trade.[15] According to archaeological evidence, the
village of Rome was probably founded some time in the 8th century BC, though it may
go back as far as the 10th century BC, by members of the Latin tribe of Italy, on
the top of the Palatine Hill.[19][20]

The Etruscans, who had previously settled to the north in Etruria, seem to have
established political control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming an
aristocratic and monarchical elite. The Etruscans apparently lost power by the late
6th century BC, and at this point, the original Latin and Sabine tribes reinvented
their government by creating a republic, with much greater restraints on the
ability of rulers to exercise power.[21]

Roman tradition and archaeological evidence point to a complex within the Forum
Romanum as the seat of power for the king and the beginnings of the religious
center there as well. Numa Pompilius the second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus,
began Rome's building projects with his royal palace the Regia and the complex of
the Vestal virgins.

Republic
Main article: Roman Republic

This bust from the Capitoline Museums is traditionally identified as a portrait of

Lucius Junius Brutus, Roman bronze sculpture, 4th to late 3rd centuries BC
According to tradition and later writers such as Livy, the Roman Republic was
established around 509 BC,[22] when the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin
the Proud, was deposed by Lucius Junius Brutus and a system based on annually
elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was established.[23] A
constitution set a series of checks and balances, and a separation of powers. The
most important magistrates were the two consuls, who together exercised executive
authority such as imperium, or military command.[24] The consuls had to work with
the senate, which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or
patricians, but grew in size and power.[25]

Other magistrates of the Republic include tribunes, quaestors, aediles, praetors

and censors.[26] The magistracies were originally restricted to patricians, but
were later opened to common people, or plebeians.[27] Republican voting assemblies
included the comitia centuriata (centuriate assembly), which voted on matters of
war and peace and elected men to the most important offices, and the comitia
tributa (tribal assembly), which elected less important offices.[28]

Italy in 400 BC
In the 4th century BC, Rome had come under attack by the Gauls, who now extended
their power in the Italian peninsula beyond the Po Valley and through Etruria. On
16 July 390 BC, a Gallic army under the leadership of a tribal chieftain named
Brennus, met the Romans on the banks of the Allia River just ten miles north of
Rome. Brennus defeated the Romans, and the Gauls marched directly to Rome. Most
Romans had fled the city, but some barricaded themselves upon the Capitoline Hill
for a last stand. The Gauls looted and burned the city, then laid siege to the
Capitoline Hill. The siege lasted seven months, the Gauls then agreed to give the
Romans peace in exchange for 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of gold.[29] (According to later
legend, the Roman supervising the weighing noticed that the Gauls were using false
scales. The Romans then took up arms and defeated the Gauls; their victorious
general Camillus remarked "With iron, not with gold, Rome buys her freedom.")[30]

The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula, including
the Etruscans.[31] The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum, a
major Greek colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus in 281 BC, but this
effort failed as well.[32][31] The Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman
colonies in strategic areas, thereby establishing stable control over the region of
Italy they had conquered.[31]