Ancient Rome

Romans later told a story of twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, raised by a wolf. They dated their city's foundation to 753 BCE. This is a traditional date, not a recorded building day. Archaeology reveals communities that developed over generations.

The location helped. Hills offered protection, while the river connected inland routes with the coast. Latin, Sabine and Etruscan neighbours helped shape the growing city.

Rome's early rulers were kings. Temples, drainage works and gathering places gradually turned separate communities into an urban centre.

Nothing about this beginning made an empire inevitable. Rome grew by learning from its neighbours, competing with them and drawing people into its own community. Those habits would outlast the monarchy.

The Republic developed over time. Two consuls normally held the highest annual office. The Senate guided policy, while assemblies of male citizens voted on laws and elected officials.

This was no modern democracy. Wealth and family connections carried great influence. Women could not vote or hold these offices. Enslaved people had no political voice.

Ordinary citizens, known as plebeians, challenged the privileges of patrician families. They gained representatives called tribunes and greater access to political office. Written laws, remembered as the Twelve Tables, made rules more publicly visible.

The Republic gave Romans ways to argue about power without placing it permanently in one man's hands. Whether those restraints would hold depended on people respecting them.

Its armies suffered serious defeats, but the city kept raising soldiers and rebuilding its position. Victory over Latin neighbours, Samnite communities and other rivals gradually extended Roman control.

Rome treated defeated communities differently. Some people received citizenship. Others became allies who kept local institutions but owed soldiers and support. Colonies helped secure important places.

When the Greek king Pyrrhus fought Rome, even his victories proved costly. After he withdrew, Rome captured Tarentum in 272 BCE. Much of the peninsula now lay within Rome's growing system of power.

This network brought opportunities, obligations and resentment. It also gave Rome something crucial: access to far more manpower than its own city could supply. Italian soldiers would carry Roman expansion across the sea.

The Punic Wars began in 264 BCE. During the second war, Hannibal crossed the Alps and inflicted terrible defeats on Roman armies. Rome survived because it kept fighting and many Italian allies remained with it.

Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 BCE. Rome's power then grew in the east as well as the west. In 146 BCE, Roman forces destroyed Carthage and devastated Corinth.

Conquest brought land, taxes, treasure and enslaved people. Commanders gained glory, merchants found new opportunities, and Greek culture deeply influenced Roman life.

The Republic now controlled an overseas empire. But the wealth arrived unevenly. A system built for competition within one city faced the pressures of governing much of a sea.

The Republic had already endured generations of violence. Arguments over land, citizenship and office had brought murder, military intervention and harsh reprisals. Successful generals could offer rewards that public institutions struggled to control.

Caesar's conquest of Gaul gave him wealth, prestige and experienced troops. When compromise with Pompey and leading senators failed, he chose armed confrontation.

He defeated his rivals and became dictator for life. Senators assassinated him on 15 March 44 BCE, claiming to defend liberty. Killing Caesar did not restore trust or settle who controlled the armies.

More war followed. His adopted heir Octavian eventually defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra's forces. Rome's struggle to prevent permanent personal rule was ending with one man beyond serious challenge.

The Senate still met. Consuls still took office. But Augustus controlled the strongest military resources and held powers that placed him above ordinary rivals. The Republic's familiar institutions now operated around a dominant ruler.

He reorganised government, supported building projects and established a more dependable military system. For many people exhausted by civil war, order was a powerful argument in his favour.

This peace was uneven. Rome continued conquest and suppression abroad, and political freedom at the centre was restricted.

Augustus died in 14 CE. Tiberius succeeded him, showing that the new order could survive its founder. Rome now had an imperial system, though every succession would raise the difficult question of who should inherit its power.

Farmers supplied food. Ships carried grain, oil and wine. Towns brought together markets, temples, workshops and public baths. Roads helped soldiers and officials travel, while trade connected distant regions.

Life depended heavily on status. Wealthy families occupied spacious homes; poorer residents often rented crowded rooms. Women managed households and sometimes businesses, although political office remained closed to them.

Enslaved people worked throughout society. Their labour supported comfort and wealth from which they could be excluded. Some gained freedom, but no one could count on it.

Roman life also looked different from province to province. Local languages, gods and customs continued beside imperial institutions. The empire connected many communities without making them identical.

Citizenship had already spread through grants, local office, military service and some forms of release from slavery. Provincial families could rise to influence. Emperors themselves increasingly came from outside Italy.

Caracalla's grant widened this legal community dramatically. It also served imperial interests, including revenue, although historians debate his full motives.

Citizenship did not make everyone equal. Wealth and social rank still affected legal treatment. Women remained excluded from political office, and enslaved people were not freed by the decree.

People could now be Roman citizens while keeping local identities and traditions. Rome's strength had grown partly through this ability to include outsiders. Yet belonging to the same empire could not protect its inhabitants from a new age of political and military crisis.

Diocletian, who became emperor in 284 CE, reorganised authority and created a system of four rulers. Sharing command helped tackle problems across great distances, though succession disputes returned.

Constantine later reunited imperial power under himself. He supported Christianity and, with Licinius in 313, agreed a policy of religious toleration. This did not make Christianity the empire's official religion overnight.

In 330, Constantine dedicated Constantinople on the site of Byzantium. Its position linked Europe and Asia and strengthened an already important eastern centre of power.

The Roman world was being remade, not simply fading away. Stronger administration and Christian patronage changed public life. But military competition and the difficulty of holding east and west together continued to test its rulers.

Western imperial government had already lost crucial territory and revenue. Civil wars, military pressures and the creation of new kingdoms weakened its ability to pay armies and recover control.

The eastern empire continued from Constantinople. Its inhabitants still called themselves Romans. Their state survived for nearly another thousand years.

In the west, change varied by region. Some towns and trade networks contracted sharply. Elsewhere, Roman law, landholding, Christian institutions and administrative habits continued under new rulers.

Rome's inheritance also travelled into later languages, buildings and ideas about power. Its story ended neither in complete disappearance nor in unbroken continuity. People kept adapting parts of a world whose government had changed.