Rome is the oldest city in central Italy, occupying the left bank of the Tiber River, near the confluence with the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the region of Latium. Its early settlers are known in history as the Latins. We all know that Rome is located on seven hills:
- Capitol
- Palatine
- Quirinal
- Viminal
- Esquiline
- Celius
- Aventine

Two more hills, Janiculum and Vatican, are also part of Rome, they are located on the right bank of the Tiber.

The Legend of the History of the Foundation of Rome

According to a legend that has become known to the whole world and has survived to this day, Rome was founded by twin brothers, Remus and Romulus, the sons of Mars and the Vestals. Shortly after their birth, the villain Amulius took their mother, Rhea Sylvia, into custody, and threw the children into the Tiber. But it so happened that both babies did not drown, but were picked up by the shepherd Faustul. Allegedly, he saw a she-wolf next to the children, feeding them with her milk. The shepherd took the twins home and raised them as his own children. After the return to power of their grandfather, Numitor, the brothers returned to the Palatine and founded a city there outside the fortress walls. The brothers argued for a long time about the name of the city, but did not come to a consensus. Therefore, they decided to guess and wait for the verdict of the gods, for this the brothers, each with his gang of associates, dispersed over two hills. Romulus stayed on the Palatine, Remus went to the Aventine. As a result, it came to a group fight, as a result of which, Rem was killed. Therefore, Rome (Roma) received its name by the name of Romulus.

And now is the time to watch a great video about the history of the founding of Rome:

The entire subsequent history of Rome will be counted precisely from the time of the founding of the city.

Romans

In the future, Rome was under the rule of the Etruscans and was a monarchy, which in 510 BC. was overthrown and the city turned into a patrician republic for the next five centuries. Rome willingly accepted non-residents and strangers into its walls; it has never been a closed, closed city. His aristocracy, the consuls and the senate, were very close-knit among themselves, did not allow internal strife. And the common people, the plebeians, were proud that they were free citizens of Rome and very rarely rebelled. Therefore, Rome was not weakened by the frequent change of power, popular riots, thereby strengthening its stable position.

In 390 BC. Rome survived the invasion of the Gauls, who savagely plundered it and completely burned it. After the invasion, the city quickly recovered. Moreover, the Romans established control over the entire Apennine Peninsula, captured nearby Sardinia, Sicily and Corsica. The Romans built a network of roads linking the city with Florence and other major cities in Italy. These roads: Appian, Aurelian and Flaminian have survived to this day. Truly, "all roads lead to Rome." The power of Rome increased after the conquest of Macedonia, Spain, Asia Minor, and the south of France.

Death of Julius Caesar in 44 AD led Rome to civil war and the despotic rule of Octavian, who had the title of Augustus Caesar. With his coming to power, the republic fell and formed The Roman Empire(27 AD).

The first Christians were severely persecuted during the reign of Nero in the 1st century AD. It was during his reign that the apostles of Christ, Peter and Paul, were martyred. By 313, Christianity had become the main religion of the Roman state.

After the empire

For over 400 years, the Roman Empire flourished. By the 4th century of the new era, however, it began to fade, in 395 it disintegrated and two empires appeared. The Eastern Empire was ruled from Costantinople (modern Istanbul in Turkey). This new empire, called Byzantium, lasted another thousand years.

In 476, Germanic tribes north of the Alps invaded the peninsula and overthrew the last emperor in the Western Roman Empire. For many centuries, all of Italy turned into a network of small states in which many dialects were spoken. Roman law survived, but much of the knowledge and culture was lost. The once great cities were abandoned, and the public baths dried up and stood empty.

By the 12th century, the cities of central and northern Italy were recovering from the fall of Rome. They created states, uniting the surrounding territories under their rule, and got rich on trade. City-states fought each other in an effort to expand their territories. By the middle of the 15th century, Italy was divided into spheres of influence between Milan, Florence and Venice - city-states. Rome became the capital of the Papal States.

In the 16th century, the power of the city-states weakened. New sea routes to Asia and America contributed to the fact that Spain, Britain and the Netherlands began to take the first place in international trade.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the struggle for the liberation and unification of Italy began, the Risorgimento movement appeared. As a result, in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed with its capital in the city of Rome. So Rome regained the high-profile status of the eternal city.

Rome today

Many centuries have passed since the founding of the city of Rome, but its history continues, the city attracts thousands and thousands of tourists and travelers from all over the world. Everyone wants to see with their own eyes and literally “touch with their hands” the great heritage of Roman civilization. These are palaces and churches with magnificent paintings by Renaissance masters, with frescoes emerging from dark corners, countless fountains, grandiose squares and monuments.

Rome today has many faces: Ancient Rome, the Catholic Rome of the Vatican, the city of Raphael and Michelangelo, Bernini and Borromini. It is also a city of magnificent cafes and boutiques, modern cars and motorcycles. But that's not the point. The main thing is in life itself in this eternal city, which takes place around all the sights, amazing, sunny, joyful and relaxed. Rome today is a handsome policeman smiling at you, shopkeepers calling to each other and to customers who are hotly bargaining with them. These are streets and lanes where you can wander all day long and revel in the play of colors on medieval facades and glare on the pavement.

The city, sung by the British, dug out by the Germans and inhabited by anyone. A city where it is impossible to work, but you can rest indefinitely. Rome is the capital city where few goods are produced, but many decrees and laws are issued and where almost 40 percent of working citizens are in the public service - this is the largest city in Italy. And the only city where there is a constant influx of population. The Romans are true to themselves, therefore he is the Eternal.

Introduction

The history of Rome began in the lower reaches of the Tiber River on the Apennine Peninsula, in the 8th century. BC e.

There were a lot of different rulers in the history of Rome, these rulers started wars, wise people described all these events and tried to pass on the wisdom of their ancestors to their descendants, created historical monuments.

This is about all that a person who has never been interested in the history of Ancient Rome knows. But, you see, it is so little! It was very interesting for us to learn as much as possible about the history of Ancient Rome, especially since this country was previously considered Latin-speaking. They say that she has a very interesting story, but is it true? Let's check!

Legend of the founding of Rome

The city of Rome was founded in the 8th century BC. e. in a country called Italy. There is a legend associated with its foundation:

Aeneas, together with his son Ascanius, founded the city of Alba - Loniz on the very place, as Vergimit says, where, according to the oracle, they saw a white pig with many piglets: under an oak tree, a huge white pig feeding piglets as white as herself; there is just a place for a new city that you will build, and then your labors will come to an end. Several ancient coins depict Aeneas and his son Ascanius at the moment when they find a white pig. Aeneas, like later Romulus, disappears surrounded by a cloud; he becomes invisible to everyone, and only appears to Ascanius in full armor and announces to him that Jupiter took him to Olympus and placed him among the immortals.

Ascanius reigned for many years and passed his throne to his descendants, among whom were two brothers - Numitor and Amulius. They began to dispute the throne with each other, and, despite the fact that Numitor was older, his brother expelled him and took possession of Alba-Lonza and the throne. The exiled king had a daughter Rhea - Sylvia. Amulius, not wanting his brother to have male offspring, forced the niece to place herself in the cult of Vesta, that is, to become a vestal and, thus, remain a virgin.

In all Latin cities, the goddess Vesta was revered. Girls from about the age of ten became her priestesses. The Vestal Virgins were highly respected. As the priestess of Vesta walked down the street, the crowd parted before her. If the vestal woman accidentally happened to be in the way of the criminal who was being led to execution, then such a meeting was a great success for the convict: the death penalty was replaced by a less severe punishment. However, there was a strict prohibition for the Vestals: for thirty years they did not have the right to marry and have children. Violators of the ban were buried alive in the ground.

Romulus' father, the god of war Mars, was considered the guardian of Rome. In honor of Mars, the first spring month was named, when the Latins celebrated the farewell to winter. A temple to the god was built outside the city on the Field of Mars, where military reviews were held.

Once, when she, performing various duties at the temple, went to the river for water, she had a dream: the god of war Mars appeared to her and entered into an alliance with her. In the Pio-Clementino Museum there is an antique bas-relief depicting a visit by Mars to Rhea-Silvia, who then soon gave birth to two twins - Romulus and Remus. Hearing about this, Amulius ordered the children to be thrown into the Tiber, and Rhea - Sylvia to be given the usual execution of criminal vestals: “Whether it was the case or the will of the gods,” says Titus Livius, “but this year the Tiber spilled very widely. The people who were instructed to throw the children left the basket with them among the surging waves; when the water began to sell, the basket ended up on land, and the she-wolf, who came from the mountains to quench her thirst, attracted by the plaintive cries of abandoned children, began to feed them. The shepherd Faustulus, seeing this miracle, took Romulus and Remus to him and brought them up.

Several ancient coins have survived that depict a she-wolf feeding children, and in the Vatican there is an ancient group practicing the same plot. Both brothers, having become young men, expelled Amulius, and put their father on the throne. They themselves decided to found a city on the spot where they were found. Having founded it, they began to argue about the primacy and about which of them to name the city by its name. In order to finally stop the quarrel, they began to pray to the gods to send them some kind of sign or sign. Soon Romulus, seeing in the sky six hawks flying around his head, but almost at the same time Rey announced that twelve hawks were flying towards him; this further increased the strife and fights between the adherents of both brothers. According to some legends, Rem was killed in one of these fights; other legends say that Remus climbed the walls erected by Romulus around the new city with one jump and began to mock him; so angry Romulus kills his brother, saying: "Thus will perish everyone who dares to climb these walls."

After the death of his brother, Romulus named the city after himself and began to reign in it. But there were no inhabitants in the city; then Romulus granted him the right of asylum, and players, thieves, slaves fleeing the tyranny of their masters, and people expelled from everywhere began to move there. In cities that were granted the right of asylum, even criminals enjoyed immunity. Those who violated the right of asylum suffered the punishment of the gods and the state. Of the neighboring inhabitants, no one wanted to enter into marriage alliances with such a rabble, and the city was bound to die out, not replenished with the birth of children for lack of women. Romulus, wanting to stop this state of affairs, resorted to the following trick: he arranged a luxurious feast and invited neighboring residents, the Sabines, with their wives and children. At the sign given to them, the Romans rushed at their guests and kidnapped all the girls who were present at the celebration.

Such violence caused a war, but when the two armies stood one against the other, the kidnapped Sabine women rushed between the opponents and began to beg their fathers and brothers to leave them in Rome with their husbands and make peace. The rape of the Sabine women was often the subject of numerous works of art. Of the latest works, paintings by David Poussin and Rubens are famous.

Shortly after the abduction of the Sabine women, Romulus, having given the city laws and founded public institutions there, ordered all the inhabitants to be informed through the senator that the time would come when this city would be considered the ruler of the world, and that no people could withstand the power of the Roman arms. Then he disappeared or, as the legend says, was taken by the gods to Olympus and was accepted by them as one of the immortal gods.

According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC. This happened on the banks of the Tiber River - as historians write, about 22 km from its mouth, in the delta, which would later become the port of Ostia. Ostia was founded by King Ancus Marcius in view of the presence of rich salt mines here, and also in order to prevent enemy ships from penetrating Rome along the river.

At the same time, the same historians believe that the tradition of April 21 should be questioned. “There was no such initial moment when the scattered Iron and Bronze Age villages on the hills decided to unite and call themselves a city,” writes art historian and art critic Robert Hughes. - The older the city, the more doubts its origins, and Rome is definitely old. However, this did not stop the Romans from the 2nd century BC. and further to name the implausibly exact dates of its occurrence: Rome, as stated earlier, did not just arise in the 8th century BC, namely, in 753 BC, and its founder was Romulus, the twin brother of Remus. Thus begins a confused tradition that exists in many versions and usually revolves around the same motives: it is ambition, patricide, fratricide, betrayal, and again all-consuming ambition. Especially the last one. There has never been a more ambitious city than Rome, and probably never will be, although New York can argue with it on this. And no other city was so infused with cruelty from the very beginning as Rome, which brings us back to the tradition of its mythical infancy.

The legend says: once the beautiful Rhea Silvia, who took a vow of celibacy, met the god of war Mars and gave birth to twins from him - Romulus and Remus. Rhea's uncle, King Amulius, got angry and gave the order to execute the dissolute niece, and put the newborn boys in a basket and throw them into the Tiber.

According to the historian Titus Livius, the basket with babies was washed ashore, and there the she-wolf found the dirty and wet twins, who fed them with her milk. According to some versions, a woodpecker and a lapwing (a small bird of the plover family) also took care of Romulus and Remus. Interestingly, later the Romans began to consider the lapwing an ominous bird. In the famous "Satyricon" by Petronius the Arbiter, there is a saying "Malam parram pilavit" ("I plucked a bad cygalitsa (pigalitsa)"), which meant - no luck, got into an unpleasant situation.

When the kids grew up and got stronger, they were brought up by the royal shepherd Faustul. The boys matured by leaps and bounds, and soon they overthrew their treacherous relative Amulius. Rhea Sylvia was already dead by that time.

Then the twins decided to establish a settlement on the Tiber, but the brothers could not choose the exact location. Remus chose between the Aventine and Capitoline hills, and Romulus insisted on the Palatine Hill. And here again different versions of the legend arise: according to the first, the twins sat down with their backs to each other and began to wait for signs from above. Remus saw six kites soaring in the sky, and Romulus saw twelve. The victory was on the side of Romulus (by the way, twelve kites will symbolize the twelve years of Roman power).

The second version is much more bloodthirsty: a dispute broke out between the brothers, and Romulus killed Remus, and then founded the city, which he gave his name to.

“So, the first founder of the earthly city was a fratricide who, out of envy, killed his brother, a citizen of the eternal city, a wanderer on this earth (Gen. 4), the Christian theologian and philosopher Aurelius Augustine would later write. “It is not surprising that after so much time, at the founding of that city that was to become the head of this earthly city of which we speak, and to reign over so many peoples, there was a kind of imitation of this first example, or, as the Greeks say, archetype. For here too, as one of their poets mentions the villainy itself, "the first walls, alas, were stained with brotherly blood."

This is how Rome was founded, judging by the evidence of Roman history about the murder of his brother Remus by Romulus. The only difference is that they were both citizens of an earthly city. Both of them sought the glory of creating the Roman Republic; but both together could not have such glory as each of them could have if they were alone. For whoever wants to be famous for his domination, rules the less, the more he shares his power with a large number of partners. So, in order to alone have all the power in his hands, a comrade was killed, and through this villainy increased in the worst form, which, not being stained by crime, would be less, but better. But those brothers, Cain and Abel, did not have the same desire for earthly things, and the one who killed his brother did not envy him because his dominion could become less if both of them dominated (for Abel did not seek dominion in that city , which was founded by his brother); he envied that devilish envy which evil people envy good people only because they are good, while they are evil...

When founding Rome, the surviving twin brother harnessed a cow and a bull to a plow and plowed a furrow. This furrow was called pomerium, and it was she who marked the sacred line of the city walls.

“History does not tell how Romulus felt after killing his only brother: however, it may be no coincidence that the priests, who in subsequent years periodically ran around the pomerium, in order to thereby ensure the fertility of the Roman herds and Roman women, were called Luperci, that is, “ brotherhood of the wolf,” writes Robert Hughes.

At first, Romulus was the only inhabitant of the newly founded city, but soon he decided to invite the dregs of society - murderers, runaway slaves, exiles. Later, the hill on which these scum found shelter would be called the Capitol. The Capitol Temple will be built on the Capitol, where meetings of the Senate and popular assemblies will take place.

This legend of runaway slaves and murderers, according to historians, suggests that Rome was not created by an ethnically homogeneous tribe.

In the early years in Rome there were not enough representatives of the fair sex, and then Romulus decided to arrange a holiday in honor of the god-caretaker of the grain reserves, Kons. Sabines (the people of the Italian group) came to the holiday. At a moment when all the guests were passionate about games, Romulus gave his people a sign, and they attacked the guests and captured their women. During the turmoil that arose, Romulus himself profited - he grabbed the Sabine Hersilia, whom he soon took as his wife. It is curious that later they began to believe that the wedding with the ritual of bride kidnapping became a Roman custom from that time.

According to legend, after the death of Romulus, Hersilia came to his grave, and at that time a star descended from the sky and lit her hair, as a result of which the widow herself turned into a star and ascended to heaven.

According to a beautiful legend, Rome was founded by Romulus, one of two brothers fed by a she-wolf in his lair. But you, since you started reading this article, are probably wondering how far the legend is from reality.

Today we will find out how titled Italian historians explain the origin of Rome.

I am sitting at a lecture on Ancient Rome at the University of Bologna, many of you know that I am studying history in Italy. Our professor says...

What evidence do we have? Literary sources and archaeological finds!

Who founded Rome - Romulus

Alas, not a single literary source names the person who personally saw how Romulus outlined the boundaries of the new city. There are no direct eyewitnesses and could not be. Because writing in Rome appeared only at the end of the 7th century BC, that is, more than a hundred years have passed since the founding of Rome.

But even the appearance of writing does not shed light on the mystery, because the history of Rome really began to be interested in a few centuries later - when it grew, strengthened and began to threaten its neighbors. Approximately from the middle of the IV century BC. The ancient Greeks paid the most attention to Rome. But the historians we can rely on today - Titus Livius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus - lived in the first century BC!

Of course, they also relied in their works on other authors who had heard folk legends about Romulus and the first seven kings of Rome... But to establish what share of the truth came to them after so many years, today no one can do it...

Greek historians tried to show that the Romans owe their origin to... who else, the ancient Greeks!

Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes so directly in his "Roman Antiquities": "The inhabitants of Arcadia were the first of the Hellenes to cross the Adriatic and landed in Italy. They were led by Enotre, the son of Lycaon, born 17 generations before the Trojan War ... Enotre and the Hellenes who sailed with him, found here a lot of land useful for grazing and for agriculture.Some of them were deserted, some inhabited by local peoples, but these settlements were few in number.Freeing Italy from the barbarians, Enotre founded new cities, close to each other, as they did in ancient times. The lands occupied by him were called Enotria, and the inhabitants who inhabited it were called Oenotry "...

Titus Livius dedicated 142 books to Rome. The first of them fully tells about his formation... Titus Livy mentions the legend of Aeneas, who, after the Trojan War, also sailed to Italy.

Well, it turns out that the Italians are the direct descendants of the ancient Greeks?

Of course no. In modern historiography, one can read about many nationalities that lived in Italy in the Bronze Age. "Golasecca" - in modern Piedmont and Lombardy; not far from Padua, another culture, it is called the "Este culture"; on the territory of today's Tuscany and Emilia - the "civilization of Villanoviana", from which the Etruscans came ...

However, we digress. Who founded Rome?

Surprisingly, all ancient historians answer unequivocally: Romulus. It is doubtful whether this was a real person. Or due to the fact that the city was already called Rome, the legend added a founder with a consonant name - Romulus? Yes, it often happens: with a lack of facts, cause and effect are reversed ...

In Italy, archaeologists are constantly finding something interesting...

Both Titus Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus tell how Romulus took a plow in his hands and outlined the boundaries of the new city. The god Mars was declared the father of Romulus. You can read this beautiful legend on the website, go to

However, the authors themselves are not very sure about it. Titus Livy writes: “Antiquity is excusable, interfering with the human with the divine, to exalt the beginning of cities; and if it is permissible for any people to consecrate their origin and erect it to the gods, then the military glory of the Roman people is such that, if he calls Mars himself his ancestor and father their ancestor, the human tribes will demolish it with the same humility with which they demolish the power of Rome. But such stories, no matter how they look at them and no matter what people think about them, I do not attach great importance. "

Who founded Rome? summed up our professor. - We will assume that it was Romulus, not forgetting that the confirmation of this is a legend. In fact, we do not know exactly why Rome was called Rome. According to one version, the word was based on ruma , which means a female breast, shaped like a rounded hill (on such a hill the city was born). According to another version - from the word Rumon , in ancient Latin, this was the name of the Tiber River, on which Rome stands. ( Note: the Italian name of the city is Roma).

Rome was founded in 753 BC

If the name of Romulus is called by a legend recognized as vague even by historians, then how did scientists calculate the year of the foundation of Rome with such accuracy?

The answer is archeology!

"First of all, Romulus fortified the Palatine Hill, where he was brought up," writes Titus Livius.

Today, the Palatine Hill in Rome looks like this.

No, no, yes, you can see how scientists in heavy boots are excavating on the territory of the Palatine.

We've come to the fun part...

In 1988, the Italian archaeologist Andrea Carandini and his team excavated on the southern slope of the Palatina. He discovered a semblance of a palisade, and parallel to it, closer to the center of the hill, the remains of a wall, they date back to the 8th century BC.

The hypothesis of scientists: the stone wall enclosed Ancient Rome, it was laid by Romulus. A palisade circled the boundaries of the holy possessions of the city, he went around a larger territory. It was impossible to plant trees on it, or to bury the dead, or to build houses and workshops ... A kind of "no man's land".

Another historian who lived in the 1st century BC, Mark Terentius Varro, describes the ancient ritual of laying the foundation of the city:

"In Lazio, it was customary to lay a city in the manner of the Etruscans. A bull and a cow were harnessed to the plow, and this was how the limit of the city was outlined. It was a religious custom, the ritual was performed on the day marked by a sign. The boundaries of the city were marked by a ditch and a wall. A ditch is a furrow, which the plow left behind. The wall was the earth that came out from under his knife. The wall was built inside, the ditch outside. The boundaries of the city were marked by columns. Beyond them, the possessions of the city no longer extended."

Varro mentions that the day for laying the city was chosen on purpose. Scientists today call not only the year of the founding of Rome, but also the day - April 21, the feast of pastures and grazing animals.

Not always the border of the city's possessions and the stone wall were close to each other, sometimes there was a significant space between them. The wall was built for protection and covered the territory that needed it. And the border of possessions in Rome lay with a large margin, as if implying that the city would grow.

The expansion of the boundaries of the city could only take place in special cases. Then the old columns were preserved, and new possessions were designated by new ones, as the rituals dictated. In Rome, it was possible to expand the boundaries of the city only at the expense of the territory conquered from another people. The next time after Romulus, the border was outlined already in the 1st century BC. And the last time - under the emperor Aurelian in the III century AD.

Another find of archaeologists in Latin is called "Black Stone".

On January 10, 1899, during excavations in the Roman Forum, the scientist Giacomo Boni discovered this tombstone. An inscription is carved on the stone, which warns: anyone who touches it brings great disasters on his head.

Scientists believe that the stone may mark the burial place of Romulus. According to another version, Faustulus, who sheltered and raised the brothers Romulus and Remus, was buried here. If you are ordinary tourists who have come to Rome, then you can easily find the place where Lapis Niger rests in the Roman forum.

As soon as the find was discovered, it was immediately associated with a written source, which mentions a black stone near the site of the comitia, not far from the curia. The tomb of Romulus is marked with a black stone, the chronicle says.

Of course, no one dares to name the exact year the stone appeared, they only say that the age of the find allows us to be sure that the monarchs of Rome were very ancient. None of the scientists speaks about whether human remains were found anywhere near the Black Stone.

Where to look for Romulus, they don't know yet...

There is a version that Romulus could have been killed at one of the "meetings" of the Curia, which took place not far from the "black stone", cut his body into pieces, and taken out of the city ...

Who founded Rome, the year of the foundation of Rome - today I tried to answer these questions without cunning, with maximum frankness. As far as the knowledge obtained in one of the best universities in the world allows.

Hope the article was helpful. Although, probably, it did not live up to the expectations of some readers 😉

According to one version of the history of the founding of Rome, the following happened. After the death of ancient Troy, few defenders of the city managed to escape. They were headed by the same Aeneas - "motor lad". The fugitives wandered the sea for a long time on their ships. And after a long journey, finally, they were able to land on the shore. On the shore they saw the mouth of a wide river flowing into the sea. Along the banks of the river there is a forest and thick bushes. A little further under the blue sky stretches a fertile plain, illuminated by the gentle sun.

Exhausted by the long journey, the Trojans decided to land on this hospitable coast and settle on it. This coast turned out to be the coast of Italy. Later, the son of Aeneas founded the city of Alba Longa on this site.

Decades later, Alba Longa was ruled by Numitor, one of the descendants of Aeneas. Numitor was not very lucky with a close relative. His younger brother Amulius fiercely hated the ruler and longed to take his place. Thanks to insidious intrigues, Amulius overthrew Numitor, but left him with his life. However, Amulius was very afraid of revenge from the descendants of Numitor. Because of this fear, on his orders, the native son of the former ruler was killed. And daughter Rhea Sylvia was sent as a vestal to. But, despite the fact that priestesses should not have offspring, Rhea Sylvia soon gave birth to twin boys. According to another legend, their father could be the god of war Mars.

Upon learning of everything, Amulius became very angry and ordered to kill Rhea Sylvia, and throw the newborns into. The slave who followed the order carried the children to the river in a basket. At this time, there were big waves on the Tiber due to a strong flood, and the slave was afraid to go into the raging river.

He left the basket with the children on the shore in the hope that the water itself would pick up the basket and the twins would drown. But the river only carried the basket lower to the Palatine Hill, and soon the flood ended.

She-wolf

The water left, and the boys fell out of the fallen basket and began to cry. A she-wolf, who had recently lost her puppies, came out to the river at the cries of children. She approached the children and maternal instinct overcame the instinct of a predator. The she-wolf licked the children and gave them her milk to drink. Nowadays, it is installed in a museum, it is a symbol of Rome.

Who raised Romulus and Remus

Later, the boys were noticed by the royal shepherd. He took the children and raised them. The shepherd named the twins Romulus and Remus. Children grew up in nature and became strong and dexterous warriors. When Remus and Romulus grew up, the named father revealed to them the secret of their birth. Having learned the secret of their origin, the brothers decided to return the throne to their grandfather Numitor. They gathered a detachment for themselves and headed for Alba Longa. The indigenous inhabitants of the city supported the uprising of Romulus and Remus, since Amulius was a very cruel ruler. So, thanks to the townspeople, the grandchildren were able to return the throne to their grandfather.

The young men fell in love with their way of life and did not stay with Numitor. They headed towards the Palatine Hill, to the place where the she-wolf had once found them. Here they decided to build their own city. However, in the process of deciding: “where to build a city?”, “whose name should it be named after?” and “who will rule?”, a very strong quarrel broke out between the brothers. During the dispute, Romulus dug a moat that was supposed to surround the future wall of the city. Rem, in mockery, jumped both over the ditch and over the embankment. Romulus was angry and on impulse killed his brother with the words: “Such is the fate of everyone who crosses the walls of my city!”.

Founding of Rome

Then Romulus founded a city on this site, starting with a deep furrow that marked the boundaries of the city. And he named the city in his honor - Rome (Roma). In the beginning, the city was just a group of poor mud and straw huts. But Romulus very much wanted to increase the population and welfare of his city. He attracted exiles and fugitives from other cities and carried out military raids on neighboring peoples. In order to marry, a Roman had to steal his wife from a neighboring settlement.

The Rape of the Sabine Women

Traditions say that once war games were organized in Rome to which neighbors with their families were invited. In the midst of the games, adult men rushed to the guests and, grabbing the girl, ran away.

Since most of the abductees belonged to the Sabine tribe, what happened became known in history as the Rape of the Sabines. Thanks to the stolen women, Romulus managed to unite the Sabines and the Romans into one, thus expanding the population of his city.

Development of ancient Rome

Years, decades and centuries passed. Rome developed and provided the basis for the most powerful of the ancient civilizations - Ancient Rome. When ancient Rome was at the height of its power, its power, culture, and traditions spread to much of Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. And the heart of this state was Italy.

Ancient Rome created the basis for the development of European civilization.

Thanks to him, some unique architectural forms, Roman law and much more appeared. Also, it was on the territory of the Roman Empire that a new creed was born - Christianity.

The capital of Italy has experienced periods of both decline and rebirth more than once. In this Eternal City, standing on seven hills, various eras with their variety of styles harmoniously combined. Antiquity and modernity, a certain freedom and religion have created a many-sided image of the great city. In modern Rome, the ruins of ancient temples, majestic cathedrals, luxurious palaces coexist with advertising of popular companies on billboards and facades of houses, numerous outlets with their noisy merchants.

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