Origins of Rome

As legend has it, Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, the god of war.
Left to drown in a basket on the Tiber by a king of nearby Alba Longa and rescued by a she-
wolf, the twins lived to defeat that king and found their own city on the river’s banks in 753 B.C.
After killing his brother, Romulus became the first king of Rome, which is named for him. A line
of Sabine, Latin and Etruscan (earlier Italian civilizations) kings followed in a non-hereditary
succession.

Did You Know?

Four decades after Constantine made Christianity Rome's official religion, Emperor Julian--
known as the Apostate--tried to revive the pagan cults and temples of the past, but the process
was reversed after his death, and Julian was the last pagan emperor of Rome.

Rome’s era as a monarchy ended in 509 B.C. with the overthrow of its seventh king, Lucius
Tarquinius Superbus, whom ancient historians portrayed as cruel and tyrannical, compared to his
benevolent predecessors. A popular uprising was said to have arisen over the rape of a virtuous
noblewoman, Lucretia, by the king’s son. Whatever the cause, Rome turned from a monarchy
into a republic, a world derived from res publica, or “property of the people.”

The Early Republic

The power of the monarch passed to two annually elected magistrates called consuls; they also
served as commanders in chief of the army. The magistrates, though elected by the people, were
drawn largely from the Senate, which was dominated by the patricians, or the descendants of the
original senators from the time of Romulus. Politics in the early republic was marked by the long
struggle between patricians and plebeians (the common people), who eventually attained some
political power through years of concessions from patricians, including their own political
bodies, the tribunes, which could initiate or veto legislation.

In 450 B.C., the first Roman law code was inscribed on 12 bronze tablets–known as the Twelve
Tables–and publicly displayed in the Roman Forum. These laws included issues of legal
procedure, civil rights and property rights and provided the basis for all future Roman civil law.
By around 300 B.C., real political power in Rome was centered in the Senate, which at the time
included only members of patrician and wealthy plebeian families.

Military Expansion
During the early republic, the Roman state grew exponentially in both size and power. Though
the Gauls sacked and burned Rome in 390 B.C., the Romans rebounded under the leadership of
the military hero Camillus, eventually gaining control of the entire Italian peninsula by 264 B.C.
Rome then fought a series of wars known as the Punic Wars with Carthage, a powerful city-state
in northern Africa. The first two Punic Wars ended with Rome in full control of Sicily, the
western Mediterranean and much of Spain. In the Third Punic War (149–146 B.C.), the Romans
captured and destroyed the city of Carthage and sold its surviving inhabitants into slavery,
making a section of northern Africa a Roman province. At the same time, Rome also spread its
influence east, defeating King Philip V of Macedonia in the Macedonian Wars and turning his
kingdom into another Roman province.

Rome’s military conquests led directly to its cultural growth as a society, as the Romans
benefited greatly from contact with such advanced cultures as the Greeks. The first Roman
literature appeared around 240 B.C., with translations of Greek classics into Latin; Romans
would eventually adopt much of Greek art, philosophy and religion.

Internal Struggles in the Late Republic

Rome’s complex political institutions began to crumble under the weight of the growing empire,
ushering in an era of internal turmoil and violence. The gap between rich and poor widened as
wealthy landowners drove small farmers from public land, while access to government was
increasingly limited to the more privileged classes. Attempts to address these social problems,
such as the reform movements of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (in 133 B.C. and 123-22 B.C.,
respectively) ended in the reformers’ deaths at the hands of their opponents.

Gaius Marius, a commoner whose military prowess elevated him to the position of consul (for
the first of six terms) in 107 B.C., was the first of a series of warlords who would dominate
Rome during the late republic. By 91 B.C., Marius was struggling against attacks by his
opponents, including his fellow general Sulla, who emerged as military dictator around 82 B.C.
After Sulla retired, one of his former supporters, Pompey, briefly served as consul before waging
successful military campaigns against pirates in the Mediterranean and the forces of Mithridates
in Asia. During this same period, Marcus Tullius Cicero, elected consul in 63 B.C., famously
defeated the conspiracy of the patrician Cataline and won a reputation as one of Rome’s greatest
orators.

Caesar’s Rise
When the victorious Pompey returned to Rome, he formed an uneasy alliance known as the First
Triumvirate with the wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus (who suppressed a slave rebellion led by
Spartacus in 71 B.C.) and another rising star in Roman politics: Gaius Julius Caesar. After
earning military glory in Spain, Caesar returned to Rome to vie for the consulship in 59 B.C.
From his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, Caesar received the governorship of three wealthy
provinces in Gaul beginning in 58 B.C.; he then set about conquering the rest of the region for
Rome.

After Pompey’s wife Julia (Caesar’s daughter) died in 54 B.C., and Crassus was killed in battle
against Parthia (present-day Iran) the following year, the triumvirate was broken. With old-style
Roman politics in disorder, Pompey stepped in as sole consul in 53 B.C. Caesar’s military glory
in Gaul and his increasing wealth had eclipsed Pompey’s, and the latter teamed with his Senate
allies to steadily undermine Caesar. In 49 B.C., Caesar and one of his legions crossed the
Rubicon, a river on the border between Italy from Cisalpine Gaul. Caesar’s invasion of Italy
ignited a civil war from which he emerged as dictator of Rome for life in 45 B.C.

From Caesar to Augustus

Less than a year later, Caesar was murdered by a group of his enemies (led by the republican
nobles Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius). Consul Mark Antony and Caesar’s great-
nephew and adopted heir, Octavian, joined forces to crush Brutus and Cassius and divided power
in Rome with ex-consul Lepidus in what was known as the Second Triumvirate. With Octavian
leading the western provinces, Antony the east, and Lepidus Africa, tensions developed by 36
B.C. and the triumvirate soon dissolved. In 31 B.C., Octavian triumped over the forces of
Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt (also rumored to be the onetime lover of Julius Caesar) in
the Battle of Actium. In the wake of this devastating defeat, Antony and Cleopatra committed
suicide.

By 29 B.C., Octavian was the sole leader of Rome and all its provinces. To avoid meeting
Caesar’s fate, he made sure to make his position as absolute ruler acceptable to the public by
apparently restoring the political institutions of the Roman republic while in reality retaining all
real power for himself. In 27 B.C., Octavian assumed the title of Augustus, becoming the first
emperor of Rome.

Age of the Emperors

Augustus’ rule restored morale in Rome after a century of discord and corruption and ushered in
the famous pax Romana–two full centuries of peace and prosperity. He instituted various social
reforms, won numerous military victories and allowed Roman literature, art, architecture and
religion to flourish. Augustus ruled for 56 years, supported by his great army and by a growing
cult of devotion to the emperor. When he died, the Senate elevated Augustus to the status of a
god, beginning a long-running tradition of deification for popular emperors.

Augustus’ dynasty included the unpopular Tiberius (14-37 A.D.), the bloodthirsty and unstable
Caligula (37-41) and Claudius (41-54), who was best remembered for his army’s conquest of
Britain. The line ended with Nero (54-68), whose excesses drained the Roman treasury and led
to his downfall and eventual suicide. Four emperors took the throne in the tumultuous year after
Nero’s death; the fourth, Vespasian (69-79), and his successors, Titus and Domitian, were known
as the Flavians; they attempted to temper the excesses of the Roman court, restore Senate
authority and promote public welfare. Titus (79-81) earned his people’s devotion with his
handling of recovery efforts after the infamous eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the towns
of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

The reign of Nerva (96-98), who was selected by the Senate to succeed Domitian, began another
golden age in Roman history, during which four emperors–Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and
Marcus Aurelius–took the throne peacefully, succeeding one another by adoption, as opposed to
hereditary succession. Trajan (98-117) expanded Rome’s borders to the greatest extent in history
with victories over the kingdoms of Dacia (now northwestern Romania) and Parthia. His
successor Hadrian (117-138) solidified the empire’s frontiers and continued his predecessor’s
work of establishing internal stability and instituting administrative reforms.

Under Antoninus Pius (138-161), Rome continued in peace and prosperity, but the reign of
Marcus Aurelius (161–180) was dominated by conflict, including war against Parthia and
Armenia and the invasion of Germanic tribes from the north. When Marcus fell ill and died near
the battlefield at Vindobona (Vienna), he broke with the tradition of non-hereditary succession
and named his 19-year-old son Commodus as his successor.

Decline and Disintegration

The decadence and incompetence of Commodus (180-192) brought the golden age of the Roman
emperors to a disappointing end. His death at the hands of his own ministers sparked another
period of civil war, from which Lucius Septimius Severus (193-211) emerged victorious. During
the third century Rome suffered from a cycle of near-constant conflict. A total of 22 emperors
took the throne, many of them meeting violent ends at the hands of the same soldiers who had
propelled them to power. Meanwhile, threats from outside plagued the empire and depleted its
riches, including continuing aggression from Germans and Parthians and raids by the Goths over
the Aegean Sea.

The reign of Diocletian (284-305) temporarily restored peace and prosperity in Rome, but at a
high cost to the unity of the empire. Diocletian divided power into the so-called tetrarchy (rule of
four), sharing his title of Augustus (emperor) with Maximian. A pair of generals, Galerius and
Constantius, were appointed as the assistants and chosen successors of Diocletian and Maximian;
Diocletian and Galerius ruled the eastern Roman Empire, while Maximian and Constantius took
power in the west.

The stability of this system suffered greatly after Diocletian and Maximian retired from office.
Constantine (the son of Constantius) emerged from the ensuing power struggles as sole emperor
of a reunified Rome in 324. He moved the Roman capital to the Greek city of Byzantium, which
he renamed Constantinople. At the Council of Nicaea in 325, Constantine made Christianity
(once an obscure Jewish sect) Rome’s official religion.

Roman unity under Constantine proved illusory, and 30 years after his death the eastern and
western empires were again divided. Despite its continuing battle against Persian forces, the
eastern Roman Empire–later known as the Byzantine Empire–would remain largely intact for
centuries to come. An entirely different story played out in the west, where the empire was
wracked by internal conflict as well as threats from abroad–particularly from the Germanic tribes
now established within the empire’s frontiers–and was steadily losing money due to constant
warfare.

Rome eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bloated empire, losing its provinces one
by one: Britain around 410; Spain and northern Africa by 430. Attila and his brutal Huns invaded
Gaul and Italy around 450, further shaking the foundations of the empire. In September 476, a
Germanic prince named Odovacar won control of the Roman army in Italy. After deposing the
last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, Odovacar’s troops proclaimed him king of Italy,
bringing an ignoble end to the long, tumultuous history of ancient Rome.