The legend narrates that a convict named Silvia had from Mars, God of war, two twins whose fate was to be thrown into the river Tevere. But the person in charge of the sacrifice didn't have the courage to do it, and so placed them near the Ficus Ruminalis, where the twins obtained the milk of a wolf that appeared at the place hearing them cry.
They were successively picked up by the shepherd Faustolo that brought them to his wife Acca Larentia, who gave them the names of ROMULUS and REMUS.
Once they were adults they traced on a field, with a sacred plough following the etruscan rite with an ox and a cow, the line that should embrace the boundary of the new city. But they argued, because each one wanted to give their own name to the city and command its fate so during that dispute Romulus killed the brother.
The new city, made of poor and improvised lodges was founded the 21st April, 753 B.C.: and it was called ROME.
But that is what legend recounts, and it is quite probable that the city had been built by citizens of the Lazio Region so as to protect and to make a commercial frontier by the river Tevere, which provided a connection with the Mediterranean Sea, but over all, to avoid intruders like the Etruscans.
Different Kings governed after Romulus. The city, which was called Squared Rome seen from the Palatine Hill, it was getting larger and larger along the perimeter of the Seven Hills: The Capitoline, The Palatine, The Viminal, The Esquiline, The Caelian, The Aventine and The Quirinal.
Rome, rising from a privileged area above the river and near the coast, dominates the commercial flow from the regions of Etruria until that of Campania.
Invasions of Gallic people, Latin ones, and Carthaginians… The Republican Rome became an Imperial one…
The Emperor Augustus within the year 23 B.C. gave a great increment to the construction issue and importance to Art by contributing the creation of today’s well known marbled masterpieces, not just admired by the writers of that time.
Within the year 753 of the foundation of Rome, under Augustus’ Kingdom, Jesus was born in the Roman county of Palestine.
Meanwhile, Rome was getting embellished and charmed with victorious arches, theatres, monuments and palaces. During the II century A.D. the city had already arrived to the apex of its splendour, but very soon the barbarians came and attacked the Empire from every single side.
There were fights among Christian and pagan, invasions of Visigoths and Vandals until the arrival of the Popes, which constituted the base of the great magnitude still not arrived at that time.
The different pontiffs commissioned the creation of various Forts, Bastions and defensive Towers with the aim of providing protection and very quickly arrived the pilgrims coming from each part of the world making possible a continuous increase of inhabitants. In 1870 the population was about 260.000 inhabitants, whereas today Rome has almost 4 million citizens and still increasing by adding the huge affluence of tourists that come every day from all the areas of the world.
Rome
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