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HISTORY |
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No one knows precisely when Rome was founded. Excavations on the
Palatine Hill have revealed the traces of an Iron Age village, which
date back to the ninth or eighth century BC, but the legends relating to
Rome's earliest history tell it slightly differently. Rea Silvia, a
vestal virgin and daughter of a local king, Numitor, had twin sons - the
product, she alleged, of a rape by Mars. They were supposed to be
sacrificed to the god but the ritual wasn't carried out, and the two
boys were abandoned and found by a wolf, who nursed them until their
adoption by a shepherd, who named them Romulus and Remus . Later they
laid out the boundaries of the city on the Palatine Hill, but it soon
became apparent that there was only room for one ruler, and, unable to
agree on the signs given to them by the gods, they quarrelled, Romulus
killing Remus and becoming in 753 BC the city's first monarch , to be
followed by six further kings. Whatever the truth of this, there's no
doubt that Rome was an obvious spot to build a city: the Palatine and
Capitoline hills provided security, and there was, of course, the river
Tiber, which could be easily crossed here by way of the Isola Tiberina,
making this a key location on the trade routes between Etruria and
Campania.
The Roman Republic
Rome as a kingdom lasted until about 507 BC, when the people rose up
against the tyrannical King Tarquinius and established a Republic ,
appointing the first two consuls and instituting a more democratic form
of government. The city prospered under the Republic, growing greatly in
size and subduing the various tribes of the surrounding areas - the
Etruscans to the north, the Sabines to the east, the Samnites to the
south. The Etruscans were subdued in 474 BC, the Samnites a little later,
and despite a heavy defeat by the Gauls in 390 BC, by the following
century the city had begun to extend its influence beyond the boundaries
of what is now mainland Italy, pushing south into Sicily and across the
ocean to Africa and Carthage. By the time it had fought and won the
third Punic War against its principal rival, Carthage , in 146 BC, it
had become the dominant power in the Mediterranean, subsequently taking
control of present-day Greece and the Middle East, and expanding north
also, into what is now France, Germany and Britain.
Domestically, the Romans built roads - notably the Via Appia, which
dates back to 312 BC - and developed their civic structure, with new
laws and far-sighted political reforms, one of which cannily brought all
of the Republic's vanquished enemies into the fold as Roman citizens.
However, the history of the Republic was also one of internal strife ,
marked by factional fighting among the patrician ruling classes, as
everyone tried to grab a slice of the riches that were pouring into the
city from its plundering expeditions abroad - and the ordinary people,
or plebeians, enjoying little more justice than they had under the Roman
monarchs. This all came to a head in 44 BC, when Julius Caesar , having
proclaimed himself dictator, was murdered in the Theatre of Pompey on 15
March, by conspirators concerned at the growing concentration of power
into one man's hands.
After his murder, Julius Caesar's deputy, Mark Antony , briefly took
control, joining forces with Lepidus and Caesar's adopted son, Octavian,
in a triumvirate that marshalled armies that fought and won against
those controlled by Caesar's assassins, Brutus and Cassius, in a famous
battle at Philippi, in modern-day Greece, in 42 BC. Their alliance was
further cemented by Antony's marriage to Octavians's sister, Octavia, in
40 AD, but in spite of this a brief period of turmoil followed, in which
Antony, unable to put his political ambitions before his emotional
alliance with the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, was defeated by Octavian at
the battle of Actium in 31 BC - escaping to Alexandria, where he
committed suicide, with his lover, the queen.
The Roman Empire
A triumph for the new democrats over the old guard, Augustus (27 BC-14
AD) - as Octavian became known - was the first true Roman emperor, in
firm control of Rome and its dominions. Responsible more than anyone for
heaving Rome into the Imperial era, he was determined to turn the city -
as he claimed - from one of stone to one of marble, building arches,
theatres and monuments of a magnificence suited to the capital of an
expanding empire. Perhaps the best and certainly the most politically
canny of Rome's many emperors, Augustus reigned for forty years. He was
succeeeded by Tiberius (14-37), who ruled from the island of Capri for
the last years of his reign, and he in turn by Caligula (37-41), who was
assassinated after just four years in power. Claudius (41-54), his uncle,
followed, at first reluctantly, and proved to be a wise ruler, only to
be succeeded by his stepson, Nero (54-68), whose reign became more
notorious for its excess than its prudence, and led to a brief period of
warring and infighting after his murder in 68 AD.
Rome's next rulers, the Flavian emperors , restored some stability,
starting with Vespasian (69-79), who did his best to obliterate all
traces of Nero, not least with an enormous ampitheatre in the grounds of
Nero's palace, later known as the Colosseum, and ending with the emperor
Trajan (98-117), under whose rule the empire reached its maximum limits.
Trajan died in 117 AD, giving way to Hadrian (117-138), who continued
the grand and expansionist agenda of his predecessor, and arguably
provided the empire's greatest years. The city swelled to a population
of a million or more, its people housed in cramped apartment blocks or
insulae; crime in the city was rife, and the traffic problem apparently
on a par with today's, leading one contemporary writer to complain that
the din on the streets made it impossible to get a good night's sleep.
But it was a time of peace and prosperity, the Roman upper classes
living a life of indolent luxury, in sumptuous residences with proper
plumbing and central heating, and the empire's borders being ever more
extended.
The decline of Rome is hard to date precisely, but it could be said to
have started with the emperor Diocletian (284-305), who assumed power in
284 and divided the empire into two parts, east and west, while becoming
known for his relentless persecution of Christians. The first Christian
emperor, Constantine (312-337), shifted the seat of power to Byzantium
in 330, and Rome's heady period as capital of the world was over, the
wealthier members of the population moving east and a series of
invasions by Goths in 410 and Vandals about forty years later only
serving to quicken the city's ruin. By the sixth century the city was a
devastated and infection-ridden shadow of its former self, with a
population of just 20,000.
The Christian era
It was the papacy, under Pope Gregory I ("the Great"; 590-604) in 590,
that rescued Rome from its demise. In an eerie echo of the empire,
Gregory sent missions all over Europe to spread the word of the Church
and publicize its holy relics, so drawing pilgrims, and their money,
back to the city, and in time making the papacy the natural authority in
Rome. The pope took the name "Pontifex Maximus" after the title of the
high priest of classical times (literally "the keeper of the bridges",
which were vital to the city's well-being). Four of the city's great
basilicas were built during this time, along with a great many other
early Christian churches, underlining the city's phoenix-like
resurrection under the popes, who as well as building their own new
structures converted those Roman buildings that were still standing -
for example fortifying the Castel Sant'Angelo to repel invaders. The
crowning a couple of centuries later of Charlemagne as Holy Roman
Emperor, with dominions spread Europe-wide but answerable to the pope,
intensified the city's revival, and the pope and city became recognized
as head of the Christian world.
There were times over the next few hundred years when the power of Rome
and the papacy was weakened: Robert Guiscard, the Norman king, sacked
the city in 1084; a century later, a dispute between the city and the
papacy led to a series of popes relocating in Viterbo; and in 1308 the
French-born Pope Clemente V (1305-16) transferred his court to Avignon.
In the mid-fourteenth century, Cola di Rienzo seized power, setting
himself up as the people's saviour from the decadent ways of the city's
rulers and forming a new Roman republic. But the increasingly autocratic
ways of the new ruler soon lost popularity; Cola di Rienzo was deposed,
and in 1376 Pope Gregory XI (1370-78) returned to Rome.
The Renaissance and Counter-Reformation
As time went on, power gradually became concentrated in a handful of
families , who swapped the top jobs, including the papacy itself,
between them. Under the burgeoning power of the pope, the city began to
take on a new aspect: churches were built, the city's pagan monuments
rediscovered and preserved, and artists began to arrive in Rome to work
on commissions for the latest pope, who would invariably try to outdo
his predecessor's efforts with ever more glorious self-aggrandizing
buildings and works of art.
This process reached a head during the Renaissance ; Bramante, Raphael
and Michelangelo all worked in the city, on and off, throughout their
careers. The reigns of Pope Julius II (1503-13), and his successor the
Medici pope, Leo X (1513-22), were something of a golden age: the city
was at the centre of Italian cultural and artistic life and site of the
creation of great works of art like Michelangelo's frescoes in the
Sistine Chapel, Raphael's Stanze in the Vatican Palace and fine
buildings like the Villa Farnesina, Palazzo Farnese and Palazzo Spada,
not to mention the commissioning of a new St Peter's as well as any
number of other churches. The city was once again at the centre of
things, and its population had increased to 100,000. However, in 1527
all this was brought abruptly to an end, when the armies of the Habsburg
monarch, Charles V, swept into the city, occupying it - and wreaking
havoc - for a year, while Pope Clement VII (1523-34) cowered in the
Castel Sant'Angelo.
The ensuing years were ones of yet more restoration, and perhaps because
of this it's the seventeenth century that has left the most tangible
impression on Rome today, the vigour of the Counter-Reformation throwing
up huge sensational monuments like the Gesù church that were designed to
confound the scepticism of the new Protestant thinking, and again using
pagan artefacts (like obelisks), not to mention the ready supply of
building materials provided by the city's ruins, in ever more
extravagant displays of wealth. The Farnese pope, Paul III (1534-50),
was perhaps the most efficient at quashing anti-Catholic feeling, while,
later, Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) was perhaps the most determined to mould
the city in his own image, ploughing roads through the centre and laying
out bold new squares at their intersections. This period also saw the
completion of St Peter's under Paul V (1605-1621), and the ascendancy of
Gian Lorenzo Bernini as the city's principal architect and sculptor
under the Barberini pope, Urban VIII (1623-44) - a patronage that was
extended under the Pamphili pope, Innocent X (1644-55).
The eighteenth century to World War II
The eighteenth century saw the decline of the papacy as a political
force, a phenomenon marked by the occupation of the city in 1798 by
Napoleon; Pius VI (1775-1800) was unceremoniously sent off to France as
a prisoner, and Napoleon declared another Roman republic, with himself
at its head, which lasted until 1815, when papal rule was restored under
Pius VII (1800-23).
Thirty-four years later a pro-Unification caucus under Mazzini declared
the city a republic but was soon chased out, and Rome had to wait until
Garibaldi stormed the walls in 1870 to join the unified country - the
last but symbolically most important part of the Italian peninsula to do
so. "Roma o morte", Garibaldi had cried, and he wasted no time in
declaring the city the capital of the new kingdom under Vittorio
Emanuele I, and confining the by now quite powerless pontiff, Pius IX
(1846-78), in the Vatican until agreement was reached on a way to
coexist.
As capital of a modern European country, Rome was (some would say still
is) totally ill-equipped, and the Piemontese rulers of the new kingdom
set about building a city fit to govern from, cutting new streets
through Rome's central core (Via Nazionale, Via del Tritone) and
constructing grandiose buildings like the Altar of the Nation. Mussolini
took up residence in Rome in 1922, and in 1929 signed the Lateran Pact
with Pope Pius XI (1922-39), a compromise which forced the Vatican to
accept the new Italian state and in return recognized the Vatican City
as sovereign territory, independent of Italy, together with the key
basilicas and papal palaces in Rome, which remain technically
independent of Italy to this day. Mussolini's motivations weren't
dissimilar to the popes, however, when he bulldozed his way through the
Roman Forum and began work on the futuristic, self-publicizing planned
extension to the city known as EUR. Rome was declared an "open city"
during World War II , and as such emerged from the war relatively
unscathed. However, after Mussolini's death, and the end of the war, the
Italian king, Vittorio Emanuele III, was forced to abdicate and Italy
was declared a republic - still, however, with its capital in Rome.
Modern times
Since the war , Italy has become renowned as a country which changes its
government, if not its politicians, every few months, and for the rest
of Italy Rome has come to symbolize the inertia of their nation's
government - at odds with both the slick, efficient North, and the poor,
corrupt South. Despite this, the city's growth has been phenomenal in
the post-war years, its population soaring to close on four million and
its centre becoming ever more choked by traffic. Though famous in the
Sixties as the home of Fellini's Dolce Vita and Italy's bright young
things, Rome is still, even by Italian standards, a relatively
provincial place, and one which is in some ways still trying to lug
itself into the twenty-first century. Great efforts were made to prepare
the city for the arrival of the Millennium and the millions of visitors
who came to celebrate the Jubilee (Holy Year) declared by the pope, and
the city is looking better than ever; museums and monuments that have
been closed for decades have reopened to an eager public. Traffic
congestion is still a major problem in the city centre, but by the time
you read this, it's hoped that there will never have been a better time
to visit Rome.
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