ABSTRACT
Archaeological material provides the main basis of knowledge of the prehistory and ethnology of Italy. The nature of Etruscan civilization and the appearance of early Rome and other Italian towns have been revealed largely by the spade. The first historian to take serious notice of Rome's history was curiously not a Roman but a Greek, Timaeus of Tauromenium in Sicily who was impressed by Rome's defeat of Pyrrhus which showed the Greek world that a new power was arising in the west. Many of the difficulties of Roman chronology derive from the long-continued absence of a generally accepted era. The main points chosen by the Romans were the foundation of the city, the first consulships, and the sack of Rome by the Gauls. Attempts to establish these dates were made by two methods, either by synchronizing them with Greek Olympiads or Athenian archonships, or by standardizing the list of Roman magistrates.
