Ancient Rome

(Roma)

A city in Latium (Lazio), western Italy, fifteen miles from the Tyrrhenian Sea, on the south (left) bank of the Tiber at the lowest of its practicable crossing points. The early history of Rome is thickly overlaid by the myths so eloquently recounted by Livy, Virgil and many other writers, telling the stories associated with the city's foundation by Romulus in 753 BC (or alternative dates) and relating to the line of kings that constituted Rome's regal period and came to an end, according to the traditional chronological calculation, in c 510. Excavations suggest that early villages on the Palatine, Quirinal and Esquiline Hills had united by the eight century, and that Rome became a strong city-state (dominating Latium) two centuries later, under Etruscan immigrants from Tarquinii (Tarquinia) named Tarquinius Priscus (c 616–579) and Tarquinius Superbus (535–510); between their names the king list includes the evidently powerful and innovative Servius Tullius, who appeared in one version as a Roman or Latin but was probably another Etruscan.

The expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus was followed by the establishment of a Republic, governed by annually elected consuls and praetors and other functionaries—all members of the senate—to whose offices plebeians (non-patricians) were gradually admitted after prolonged pressure and friction. This internal strife was accompanied by the equally gradual expansion of Roman domination in Italy. Under the menace of external foes (Volsci, Aequi, Etruscans) Rome formed an alliance with the Latins (seeRegillus), and a century later, c 396, took a decisive step toward breaking Etruscan power by the conquest of Veii (inconveniently close, only just across the Tiber) after a prolonged siege. Invading Gauls routed the Roman army on the river Allia c 387 and occupied the capital itself, but Rome recovered and after warfare against the Latins (340–338) dissolved their League, instituting a patient and ingenious system of alliances in its place. A foothold in Campania was strengthened, and finally the whole of the mountainous central region of the peninsula was brought under control by three Samnite Wars (343–290); victory over the Boii, Gaulish occupants of northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul), soon followed (283/2). Thurii (near Sibari) in the southeast appealed to Rome against the invading King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose evacuation of Italy (275), followed by the reduction of Tarentum (Taras, now Taranto) three years later, meant that the whole of Italy up to the river Padus (Po) was under Roman rule.

A clash with the other major western Mediterranean power, Carthage, was now inevitable, and materialized when an appeal by Messana (Messina) to Rome was treated by the Carthaginians as a hostile act. In the three Punic Wars that followed the Romans were victorious. The First (264–241), in which they made themselves a naval power, gave them their first provinces, Sicily and Sardinia (with Corsica). The Second War (218–201), comprising the traumatic invasion of Italy by Hannibal but leading to his final defeat at Zama in north Africa, placed Spain in their hands.

The Romans also became deeply involved in the affairs of the Hellenistic east, fighting Illyrian and Macedonian Wars that culminated in victory over the Macedonian monarch Philip V (197). The Seleucid Antiochus III the Great was likewise overcome (190–188), and the defeat of Perseus of Macedonia (168) resulted in the destruction of his kingdom, which was annexed (with Achaea [Greece]) in 146. In the same year, Rome terminated the Third Punic War by the obliteration of Carthage and the creation of the province of Africa, followed by the institution of another great province, Asia (the former kingdom of Pergamum), in 133–129.

Attempts by the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, occupying the traditionally popular office of the tribunate, to develop a more socially equitable society ended in their deaths (133, 122). Transalpine Gaul (southern France) was annexed shortly afterward. Marius, victor in a war against Jugurtha in Numidia (107–104), transformed the Roman citizen militia into an army that depended on its commander for rewards. The civil wars fought by him and his successors against Sulla resulted in the latter's dictatorship (82–80). Then Pompey the Great, by his wars against the Marian Quintus Sertorius in Spain, against pirates in the Mediterranean, and against Mithridates VI of Pontus (followed by large-scale eastern reorganization and annexation), established a powerful position, resisted, however, by determined opponents, notably Cato the Younger.

In 60 Pompey, Julius Caesar and the wealthy Crassus formed the unofficial First Triumvirate. Thereafter Pompey ruled in Italy (with representatives in Spain), and Caesar conquered central and northern Gaul (and reconnoitred Britain), but in 53 Crassus was defeated by the Parthians at Carrhae (Haran) and lost his life. The ensuing civil war between Caesar and Pompey (49) led to the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalus and his subsequent death (48)—followed by the overthrow of his adherents (46/5)—which left the dictator Caesar in absolute control. Further civil strife after his death eliminated his assassins Brutus and Cassius at the battle of Philippi (42), won by their enemies Antony and Octavian (Caesar's grandnephew and adoptive son), who had formed the Second Triumvirate with the high priest Lepidus. In 31 Octavian defeated Antony and his ally and mistress, Caesar's former mistress Cleopatra VII of Egypt, at Actium, and they committed suicide in the following year.

Augustus, as Octavian now called himself (27), ruled the entire Roman world under the guise of a restored republic, performing gigantic feats of permanent reorganization and adding Egypt, the Danubian provinces (Noricum, Pannonia, Moesia) and central Asia Minor (Galatia) to the empire, although he failed to retain Germany beyond the Rhenus (Rhine) and up to the Albis (Elbe). His work was continued by the remaining emperors of his Julio-Claudian dynasty (Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius [who annexed Britannia (England)] and Nero), on whose regimes—characterized by the growing power of the praetorian guard—Tacitus and Suetonius cast a lurid light. The prolonged and complex civil wars in the Year of the Four Emperors finally awarded the purple to Vespasian (AD 69–79), who founded the Flavian dynasty and was succeeded by his sons Titus and Domitian—whom the army loved but senators hated, replacing him by Nerva.

The emperors who ruled for most of the second century (Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius) gained their thrones by merit and adoption. Trajan (98–117) conquered Dacia (Rumania) and temporarily overran Mesopotamia (Iraq). Hadrian entertained wider cosmopolitan ideas, and Marcus Aurelius (161–80, author of the Meditations) repeated Augustus' failure to annex large parts of Germany. After ferocious civil wars Septimius Severus (193–211), from North Africa, reorganized the empire on more overtly military lines, and his son Caracalla (211–17) completed a gradual process of status unification by conferring Roman citizenship on all provincials.

For most of the rest of the century Rome faced terrible external problems, under an unprecedented dual threat from much-strengthened Germans from the north and formidable Sassanian Persians from the east—a threat greatly exacerbated by continuous violent changes of emperor imposed by the provincial armies. Against all apparent probability, however, external security and internal unity were restored by a succession of soldier emperors, one of the greatest of whom, Aurelian (270–75), built a new wall round Rome. Diocletian (284–305), an administrator and reformer on the scale of Augustus, regularized the permanent regimentation of the populace that such military efforts seemed to necessitate, and established a tetrarchy under which the empire was ruled by two Augusti and two Caesars. His western colleague Maximian located his capital at Mediolanum (Milan) instead of Rome, and Constantine I the Great (306–37), who directed the triumph of Christianity, chose Constantinople (Byzantium).

When Valentinian I (364–75) divided the empire into western and eastern sections, their capital cities remained Mediolanum and Constantinople respectively, while at Rome the power of the increasingly autonomous Popes became more and more evident. However, after Honorius had moved his capital to the more defensible Ravenna (404), the Rhine frontier was permanently breached (406) and Rome itself was temporarily occupied, and sacked, by the Visigoth Alaric (410) and the Vandal Gaiseric (455). In 476 the last western emperor to rule in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer the Herulian, who ruled as king of the Germans in the peninsula (although a western emperor, Julius Nepos, remained in Dalmatia until 480) and was succeeded by Theoderic the Ostrogoth (493–518). (The eastern emperors continued to reign in Constantinople, with an intermission during the thirteenth century, until 1453; seeByzantium.)

Postholes for early Iron Age huts, in the shape of urns, have been found on the Palatine, where Romulus, according to patriotic myth, had founded his city in 753 BC. The marshy depression that was subsequently transformed into the Forum served as a burial ground for the surrounding settlements, until it was drained by the Cloaca Maxima and served as the public square of a gradually unified city. Although unification was under way by the eighth century BC, the completed development was associated with Tarquinius Priscus (616–579), whose successor Servius Tullius was also said to have further enlarged the city, incorporating the Esquiline, Quirinal and Viminal hills, building fortifications (although the `Wall of Servius Tullius’ is of later date; see below) and dividing the new town into four regions. The last kings of Rome built the Temples of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva on the Capitol and a shrine of Diana on the Aventine. Other buildings of the monarchic period included the Regia (house of the pontifex maximus [chief priest], recently reexcavated), the Temple of Vesta, Curia (senate house), Volcanal—holy place of the god Vulcan (Hephaestus), with which the sacred area containing an inscribed `Black Stone’ of c 575–550 has now been identified—and Forum Boarium (cattle market; in which recent excavations carry back the sacred area of Sant'Omobono to successive phases in c 600–575).

During the Republic, Rome underwent further continuous expansion. The Forum, which was now the hub of civic life, witnessed the construction of temples of Saturn (c 497), the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux, c 484) and Concordia (c 336)—all still to be seen, in rebuilt forms. The Aventine Hill became the center of plebeian activity. After its sack by the Gauls (c 387) the perimeter of the city was surrounded by the `Wall of Servius Tullius,’ of which portions survive. Appius Claudius Caecus, during his censorship (312), built the first aqueduct and the Via Appia leading southeastward to Campania. Other aqueducts followed, and several basilicas (meeting places for judicial and commercial purposes) were erected in the second century, during which the influx of wealth and booty gave a new impetus to public building. Further encouragement was provided by the revolutionary discovery and initial exploitation of concrete, already displayed in a warehouse, the Porticus Aemilia (193–174), part of a recently excavated river harbor system. As censor in 1984 Cato the Elder improved the sewage arrangements of the city.

A fashionable and relatively luxurious residential quarter developed on the Palatine, and the urban area was extended northward into the Campus Martius (Field of Mars). The remains of a number of temples of Republican date have survived in the Largo Argentina and elsewhere. Quintus Lutatius Catulus (78) built the Tabularium (Record Office) beside the Forum, backing onto the Capitoline Hill, on which he also reconstructed and rededicated the Temple of Jupiter (69), destroyed in the civil war between the Marians and Sulla. Pompey the Great put up the first permanent theater, and Caesar built a forum of his own, thus launching the series of `Imperial fora’ that supplemented the increasingly inadequate dimensions of the crowded Forum Romanum. By this time the population of the capital was between half a million and a million.

The even larger Rome of imperial times displayed a sharp contrast between squalid slums and magnificent public buildings erected by successive emperors. According to Suetonius, Augustus boasted `I found Rome a city of bricks, and left it a city of marble.’ He equipped the temple of Apollo Medicus (Sosianus, 32 BC) with pedimental sculptures—dating from the fifth century BC, and probaly transported from Eretria—which have now been restored; their commemoration of the victory of Theseus over the Amazon Hippolyta echoes the Roman ruler's own triumphs over Cleopatra. He also built the great forum named after him, centering round a temple of Mars the Avenger (Ultor), while his deputy Marcus Agrippa repaired the old aqueducts, built new ones, and erected many public buildings in the Campus Martius, notably the Pantheon or Temple of the Olympic Gods (no longer extant in its original form: see below). Measures were also taken to protect the city from Tiber floods—also from fires, but in vain, since the Great Fire of AD 64 inflicted enormous damage, though this was repaired by Nero's energetic reconstruction program (including the building of his own Golden House [Domus Aurea]). Vespasian and Titus created the Colosseum (dedicated in 80). The earliest of the surviving Triumphal Arches was set up in honor of Titus (those of Septimius Severus and Constantine I the Great can also still be seen); Vespasian and Nerva and Trajan designed new fora—the latter included a great basilica and market—and Titus and Trajan constructed baths on an unprecedented scale. Then Hadrian erected an enormous Temple of Venus and Rome, and the superb circular, domed Pantheon with its rectangular porch, on the site of Agrippa's earlier shrine.

The epoch that followed witnessed the culmination of the gigantic imperial thermal establishments, represented by the Baths of Caracalla (206–17) and Diocletian, the latter the work of his colleague Maximian (298–305/306). Maximian's son Maxentius started to build the Basilica known by his name, of which three arches still stand; unlike earlier flat-roofed basilicas it possessed mighty vaults, resembling those of the huge halls of the public baths. Maxentius' basilica was altered and completed by Constantine I the Great, whose Basilica Constantiniana (S. Giovanni in Laterano; initiated c 320 on the site of a building of about 270) and first Basilica of St. Peter's (the Vatican church) were later overbuilt. The church of SS. Marcellino and Pietro (from 325) and Santa Costanza (c 350) housed the mausolea of his mother Helena and his daughter Constantina respectively. Of the first Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (385), little remains, but much of the original structure of S. Maria Maggiore, the work of a great builder Pope Sixtus III (432–44) still survives.