ABSTRACT
C hapter 11 describes the last of the great civilizations of the Western Old World: ancient Rome. This was not only a cultural entity but also a political one: a vast empire, binding together peoples of different languages and skin color and different religious beliefs and cultural values. How it succeeded in doing so and in surviving as an empire for over 500 years is one of the main themes of the chapter (see Table 11.1 on page 280). Rome began life as an unexceptional settlement on the banks of the Tiber River. Tradition, supported by Livy and other historians, held that it was founded in 753 B.C. , perhaps through the coalescence of several earlier villages. The legendary founder, Romulus, has long been thought to be fi ction, though excavations on the Palatine and Capitoline Hill and beneath the Forum have produced intriguing results. Remains of early Iron Age huts were found several decades ago on the Palatine Hill, and may represent one of the early villages. There are cemeteries of cremation and inhumation graves nearby. A number of earlier burials, dating back to the Late Bronze Age (before c. 1000 B.C. ), have been found nearby. More directly relevant to the foundation of the city is the discovery of a rectangular timber “palace,” with courtyard and timber columns, below the Forum near the Temple of Vesta. Dated to the eighth century B.C. , this substantial building may have marked the beginning of a process of urbanization that was heavily infl uenced in the centuries to follow by contact with Rome’s Etruscan neighbors to the north. A timber wall and gateway at the foot of the Palatine has been dated to the same period. During the seventh century, the low-lying marshland at the foot of the Palatine and Capitoline hills was drained and laid it out as a public, open space, becoming the Forum, or marketplace of Rome, and also the seat of civic administration. Etruscan infl uence, too, was responsible for the fi rst large-scale buildings at Rome, including a temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Jupiter Best and Greatest), the principal god of the Roman pantheon, on the Capitoline Hill.
