page_title: History of Rome
section_title: Legend of Rome origin
hierarchical_section_title: History of Rome / Ancient Rome / Earliest history / Legend of Rome origin
caption_attribution_description: English: Lupa Capitolina: she-wolf with Romulus and Remus. Bronze, 13th century AD[1] (the twins are a 15th-century addition). Français&#160;: Lupa Capitolina: louve avec Romulus et Rémus. Bronze, œuvre du XIIIe siècle. (les jumeaux sont un ajout du XVe siècle).
context_page_description: The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced many modern legal systems. Roman history can be divided into the following periods:
  Pre-historical and early Rome, covering Rome's earliest inhabitants and the legend of its founding by Romulus.
  The period of Etruscan dominance and the Regal Period, in which according to tradition, Romulus was the first of seven kings.
  The Roman Republic, which commenced in 509 BC when kings were replaced with rule by elected senators. The period was marked by vast expansion of Roman territory. During the 5th century BC, Rome gained regional dominance in Latium. With the Punic Wars from 264 to 146 BC, Ancient Rome gained dominance over the Western Mediterranean, displacing Carthage as the dominant regional power.
  The Roman Empire - with the rise of Julius Caesar, the Republic waned, and by all measures concluded after a period of civil war and the victory of Octavian, the adopted son of Caesar in 27 BC over Mark Antony.
context_section_description: The origin of the city's name is thought to be that of the reputed founder and first ruler, the legendary Romulus. It is said that Romulus and his twin brother Remus, apparent sons of the god Mars and descendants of the Trojan hero Aeneas, were suckled by a she-wolf after being abandoned, then decided to build a city. The brothers argued, Romulus killed Remus, and then named the city Rome after himself. After founding and naming Rome (as the story goes), he permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen without distinction. To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighboring tribes to a festival in Rome where he abducted many of their young women (known as The Rape of the Sabine Women). After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romulus shared the kingship with Sabine King Titus Tatius. Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the Roman senate as an advisory council to the king. These men he called patres, and their descendants became the patricians. He created three centuries of equites: Ramnes (meaning Romans), Tities (after the Sabine king), and Luceres (Etruscans). He also divided the general populace into thirty curiae, named after thirty of the Sabine women who had intervened to end the war between Romulus and Tatius. The curiae formed the voting units in the Comitia Curiata.
  Attempts have been made to find a linguistic root for the name Rome. Possibilities include derivation from the Greek Ῥώμη, meaning bravery, courage; possibly the connection is with a root *rum-, "teat", with a theoretical reference to the totem wolf that adopted and suckled the cognately-named twins. The Etruscan name of the city seems to have been Ruma. Compare also Rumon, former name of the Tiber River. Its further etymology remains unknown, as with most Etruscan words. Thomas G. Tucker's Concise Etymological Dictionary of Latin (1931) suggests that the name is most probably from *urobsma (cf. urbs, robur) and otherwise, "but less likely" from *urosma "hill" (cf. Skt. varsman- "height, point," Old Slavonic врьхъ "top, summit", Russ. верх "top; upward direction", Lith. virsus "upper").
caption: Capitoline Wolf suckles the infant twins Romulus and Remus.
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