Rome, Italy

Physical Setting

Rome owes much of its importance to its strategic location on the western side of the Italian peninsula, 22 kilometers inland from the coast along the banks of the Tiber (Tevere) River, which links the city with the Mediterranean Sea. The earliest settlement at Rome arose at the first natural ford across the Tiber when moving inland from the coast, thus giving Rome control over the lucrative north—south salt trade. This site had considerable topographic variety, consisting of a mixture of small hills and escarpments interspersed with swampy valleys and plains, all enclosed within several bends of the Tiber. The hills provided useful defensive refuges while the flat areas, such as the Roman Forum and Forum Boarium, although prone to flooding, developed into natural market zones. With its easy access to the sea and its central location within Italy, and given the central position of Italy itself within the Mediterranean, Rome was well-suited by geography to be the seat of an empire that would dominate the entire Mediterranean basin. Rome today lies within the modern district (comune) of Lazio, which is roughly equivalent to ancient Latium.

Ancient Rome

According to tradition, the city of Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC by the twins Romulus and Remus. Archaeological evidence indicates, however, that there were minor settlements at Rome for at least 300 years prior to this date. For the first several hundred years of its history, Rome was a small, relatively insignificant city, often under the domination of its powerful neighbor, the Etruscans. During this monarchical period of Roman history (753—509 BC), Rome was ruled by kings, who undertook a number of public works projects, such as the building of the Cloaca Maxima (Great Drain), to render the site more habitable. This era ended in 509 BC when the Romans expelled their Etruscan overlords and established the Roman Republic (509—31 BC). The subsequent centuries were a time of rapid growth for both the city and its empire, as the city extended its political control over the entire Italian peninsula. In 390 BC, Gauls from the north invaded Italy and sacked the city of Rome, and the Romans were spurred by this event to enclose the city within a circuit of fortifications known as the Servian Wall. By the end of the fourth century BC, Rome's infrastructure was emerging with the construction of the first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, as well as the Via Appia, a road that linked Rome with southern Italy. This was the first of what would develop into an extensive network of high-quality roads connecting Rome with the entire Mediterranean, leading to the truism (at least in the ancient world) that “all roads lead to Rome.”

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