Ancient Rome: Social and Historical Documents from the Early Republic to the Death of Augustus

Abstract

The city of Rome, halfway down the western coast of Italy and some 15 kilometres inland, started its history as a few primitive huts on adjacent hills; the earliest archaeological remains belong to the foundations of dwellings on the Palatine dating to the middle of the eighth century BC. The city would eventually be built over and around the famous seven hills: the Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal and Viminal. Tradition and myth gave the city a founder, Romulus, but nearly everything about him is probably fictitious. For the Romans, he was the first of seven kings, before the Republic came into being in 509 BC with the overthrow of the last king, the Etruscan Tarquinius Superbus 'the Proud'. Livy and Dionysius record much about these seven kings, who ruled over some 250 years, but the pre-regal and regal history of Rome is more or less lost except for the archaeological record.