Founding of Rome

• 1. Bronze Age Settlements

  ›

  Thick deposits of manure and ancient pottery shards have been discovered in the Forum Boarium from the middle of the Bronze Age. Core samples show that the terrain of Bronze-Age Rome differed greatly from what is present now. The area north of the Aventine Hill was a seasonally dry plain that provided a safe inland port for seafaring ships. It offered a wide area for watering horses and cattle and a safe ford of the Tiber with shallow water. This advantageous but exposed location was closely flanked by the Capitoline, which rose sharply from the more easterly bank of the Tiber. That hill provided a ready citadel for defense and control of salt production along the river. Other hills and marshes between them provided similarly defensible points for settlement. Current evidence suggests there were three separate bronze-using settlements on the Capitoline during the period 1700 to 1350 BC. In the neighboring valley that later became the Roman Forum, occupation occurred from 1350 to 1120 BC. Some structures from the 13th century BC indicate that the Capitoline was already being terraced to manage its slope. Excavations near the modern Capitoline Museums suggest the construction of fortifications. By 1000 BC, a necropolis existed in the Forum for cremation graves.

  36

• 2. Twin Founders And She-Wolf

  ›

  Romulus and Remus are the grandsons of Numitor, the king of Alba Longa. After Numitor is deposed by his brother Amulius, his daughter Rhea Silvia becomes pregnant allegedly raped by the war god Mars. Amulius orders that the children be left to die on the slopes of the Palatine or in the Tiber River. They are suckled by a she-wolf at the Lupercal cave and then discovered by the shepherd Faustulus. Faustulus takes them in with his wife Acca Larentia. The twins eventually depose or murder Amulius and restore Numitor to his throne. They leave to establish a new city at the location where they had been rescued. The twins come into conflict during the foundation of the city, leading to the murder of Remus. The dispute is variously said to have been over the naming of the new city or the interpretation of auguries. Some accounts say Romulus slays his brother with his own hand. Others state that Remus and sometimes Faustulus are killed in a general melee. Romulus ritualistically ploughs the generally square course of the city's future boundary. He erects its first walls and declares the settlement an asylum for exiles, criminals, and runaway slaves.

  4129

• 3. Indo-European Migrations

  ›

  The Italic languages include Latin and were spoken in the lower Tiber Valley according to inscriptions. Faliscan was once thought to be a separate language but 1980s discoveries indicate Latin was spoken more generally in the area. Etruscan speakers were concentrated in modern Tuscany with a similar language called Raetic on the upper Adige. Indo-European peoples arrived in various waves of migrations during the first and second millennia BC. A western Italic group including Latin arrived first followed by a central Italic group of Osco-Umbrian dialects. A late arrival of Greek and Celtic occurred from across the Adriatic and Alps respectively. These migrations displaced speakers of Etruscan and other pre-Indo-European languages. The start of the Iron age saw a gradual increase in social complexity and population. This led to the emergence of proto-urban settlements in central and northern Italy writ large. These proto-urban agglomerations were normally clusters of smaller settlements that were insufficiently distant to be separated communities. Over time they would unify into larger political entities. Archaeological evidence suggests Rome developed over a long period but it was definitely occupied by the middle of the Bronze Age.

  7810

• 4. Village To City State

  ›

  By this time four major settlements emerged in Rome. The nuclei appeared on the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Quirinal and Viminal, and the Caelian, Oppian, and Velia. There is no evidence linking any settlement on the Quirinal hill with the Sabines as alleged by some ancient accounts. The area of the Forum also was converted at this time into a public space. Burials there discontinued and portions of it were paved over. Votive offerings appear in the comitium in the eighth century indicating a more central religious cult. One building was the domus publica which is now believed to have been constructed between 750 and 700 BC. Religious activity started also in this period on the Capitoline hill suggesting a connection to the ancient cult of Jupiter Feretrius. Other offerings discovered indicate Rome's connections outside Latium with imported Greek pottery from Euboea and Corinth. The first evidence of a wall appears in the middle or late eighth century on the Palatine dated between 730 and 720 BC. It is possible that the circuit of the wall marked out what later Romans believed to be the original pomerium sacred boundary of the city. By 600 BC a process was complete and a unified Rome had formed.

  141625

• 5. Conflicting Founding Dates

  ›

  Ancient historians placed Rome's foundation date differently ranging from 814 BC to 729 BC. Gnaeus Naevius and Ennius offered dates while Timaeus suggested 814 BC. Asinius Quadratus proposed 776 BC via synchronism with Eratosthenes' date for the first Olympiad. Calpurnius Piso listed 757, 753, or 751 BC. Varro and Plutarch settled on 754/53 BC claiming the 21st of April 753 BC synchronized with an eclipse. Dionysius of Halicarnassus placed it in 752/51 BC. Cato the Elder and Diodorus argued for 751/50 BC. Polybius suggested 750/49 BC while Fabius Pictor noted 748/47 BC. The earliest dates placed it around 1100s BC out of a belief that Romulus had been Aeneas's grandson. This moved Rome's foundation much closer to the fall of Troy dated by Eratosthenes to 1184, 83 BC. Most scholars view the move from a foundation date in the 1100s to one in the 700s to have come from Roman calculations. Their attempts to estimate how long the regal period lasted are largely rejected as synthetic calculations. From Claudius's Secular Games in AD47 to Hadrian's Romaea in AD121 the official date used the chronology established by Varro.

  132123

• 6. Trojan Lineage And Aeneas

  ›

  The tradition of Romulus was also combined with a legend telling of Aeneas coming from Troy and travelling to Italy. Greeks by 550 BC had begun to speculate given the lack of any clear descendants of Aeneas that he had established a dynasty outside the proper Greek world. The first attempts to tie this story to Rome were in works of two Greek historians at the end of the fifth century BC. Hellanicus of Lesbos and Damastes of Sigeum likely only mentioned off hand the possibility of a Roman connection. A more assured connection emerged at the end of the fourth century BC when Rome started having formal dealings with the Greek world. Ancient Roman annalists fabricated a story of Aeneas's son founding the city of Alba Longa and establishing a dynasty there. This eventually produced Romulus. In Livy's first book he recounts how Aeneas leaves Troy after its destruction during the Trojan War. He brings his son Ascanius and a group of companions landing in Italy. He forms an alliance with a local magnate called Latinus and marries his daughter Lavinia joining them into a new group called the Latini. They then found a new city called Lavinium. His son Ascanius then founds the legendary city of Alba Longa which became the dominant city in the region.

  615