ancient cities

674 Rome, Italy
———. 1902. The Battle with the Slum. New York:
Macmillan.
———. 1902. The Making of an American. New York:
Macmillan.
Ro m e , it a l y
Throughout its 3,000-year history, the city of
Rome has been both a key administrative center
and the scene of notable artistic achievements. In
the ancient world, it was the capital of the vast
Roman empire and was the largest, most architecturally
sophisticated city of antiquity. Reaching a
size of 1 million inhabitants who were supported
by an elaborate infrastructure, Rome became one
of the first great metropolises of history. Although
the city’s size declined in the Middle Ages, its influence
on Western civilization continued unabated
as the seat of the popes and the headquarters of the
Catholic Church. During the Renaissance and
baroque periods, Rome was physically transformed
by the work of great architects and artists
such as Michelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, and
Bernini. During the nineteenth century, after shaking
off French occupation, Rome became the
capital of the newly united Italian state. In the first
half of the twentieth century, a number of grandiose
building projects were constructed in the city
by the Fascist regime of Mussolini. Today, Rome
remains the capital of Italy, the site of the Vatican,
a major transportation node, and one of the most
popular global tourist destinations. Rome is significant
in urban studies chiefly because of the
prominent role the city has played in Western history
and for its widely influential architecture.
Physical Setting
Rome owes much of its importance to its strategic
location on the western side of the Italian peninsula,
22 kilometers inland from the coast along the
banks of the Tiber (Tevere) River, which links the
city with the Mediterranean Sea. The earliest settlement
at Rome arose at the first natural ford
across the Tiber when moving inland from the
coast, thus giving Rome control over the lucrative
north–south salt trade. This site had considerable
topographic variety, consisting of a mixture of
small hills and escarpments interspersed with
swampy valleys and plains, all enclosed within
several bends of the Tiber. The hills provided useful
defensive refuges while the flat areas, such as
the Roman Forum and Forum Boarium, although
prone to flooding, developed into natural market
zones. With its easy access to the sea and its central
location within Italy, and given the central position
of Italy itself within the Mediterranean, Rome was
well-suited by geography to be the seat of an empire
that would dominate the entire Mediterranean
basin. Rome today lies within the modern district
(comune) of Lazio, which is roughly equivalent to
ancient Latium.
Ancient Rome
According to tradition, the city of Rome was
founded on April 21, 753 BC by the twins Romulus
and Remus. Archaeological evidence indicates,
however, that there were minor settlements at
Rome for at least 300 years prior to this date. For
the first several hundred years of its history, Rome
was a small, relatively insignificant city, often
under the domination of its powerful neighbor, the
Etruscans. During this monarchical period of
Roman history (753–509 BC), Rome was ruled by
kings, who undertook a number of public works
projects, such as the building of the Cloaca
Maxima (Great Drain), to render the site more
habitable. This era ended in 509 BC when the
Romans expelled their Etruscan overlords and
established the Roman Republic (509–31 BC). The
subsequent centuries were a time of rapid growth
for both the city and its empire, as the city extended
its political control over the entire Italian peninsula.
In 390 BC, Gauls from the north invaded
Italy and sacked the city of Rome, and the Romans
were spurred by this event to enclose the city
within a circuit of fortifications known as the
Servian Wall. By the end of the fourth century BC,
Rome’s infrastructure was emerging with the construction
of the first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, as
well as the Via Appia, a road that linked Rome
with southern Italy. This was the first of what
would develop into an extensive network of highquality
roads connecting Rome with the entire
Mediterranean, leading to the truism (at least in
the ancient world) that “all roads lead to Rome.”