The Roman civialisation originated in the 8th or 9th centuries BC when northern tribes migrated to the Italian peninsula and settled around the Tiber river. For several hundred years Rome was the most important city in the western world as the capital of the Roman Empire. With the rise of Christianity, Rome became the centre of the Roman Catholic Church and the home of the Popes. Later, after the Middle Ages, Rome had a resurgence as the political capital of Europe leading up to the Renaissance.

The origin of the city's name is unknown, with several theories. The most popular of these is with possible reference to the totem wolf that adopted and suckled the cognately-named twins Romulus and Remus. Romulus and Remus are believed to come from the people of Lavinium. Romulus killed Remus and founded Rome.

In the past few decades further progress in the Etruscan language and the archaeology of Italy made the above theories less likely, and made a clearer hypotheses possible. We know now that Etruscan was spoken from what became Rhaetia in the Alps through Etruria to include Latium all the way south to Capua. The Italic tribes intruded into Latium from a core Italic region in the central mountains, into which they had moved from the east coast.

After 500 BC, Rome joined with the Latin cities in defence against incursions by the Sabines. Winning the Battle of Lake Regillus in 493 BC, Rome established again the supremacy over the Latin countries it had lost after the fall of the monarchy.

In 387 BC Rome was suddenly sacked and burned by invaders coming from Gaul, led by Brennus, who had successfully invaded Etruria. The northern menace was thwarted by consul Furius Camillus, who defeated Brennus at Tusculum soon afterwards. After that, Rome hastily rebuilt its buildings and went on the offensive, conquering the Etruscans and seizing territory from the Gauls in the north.

By the end of the Republic, the city of Rome had achieved a grandeur befitting the capital of an empire dominating the whole of the Mediterranean. It was, at the time, the largest city of the world. Estimates of its peak population range from 450,000 to over 3.5 million people with estimates of 1 to 1.6 million being most popular with historians. This grandeur increased under Augustus, who completed Caesar's projects and added many of his own, such as the Forum of Augustus and the Ara Pacis.

Rome's population declined after its peak in the 2nd century. At the end of that century, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a plague killed 2,000 people a day. Rome's population was only a fraction of its peak when the Aurelian Wall was completed in the year 273 (at that year its population was only around 500,000).


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