All of ancient Rome [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION The traditional date of the foundation of Rome is that given by Varro — 753 B.C. Archaeological studies have however revealed the presence of man here even earlier, with evidence dating as far back as the Bronze age in the second millennium B. C. The first settlement on the site of Rome dates to the early Iron age, at the beginning of the first millennium B.C., with villages of huts on the Palatine and necropolises in the valley of the Forum (along the via Sacra), on the Esquiline and on the Quirinal. These three hills were the first to be inhabited by distinctly separate human groups which to judge from their funerary customs probably also differed in their origin: cremation graves on the Palatine and the Quirinal, inhumation graves on the Esquiline. These settlements must have been very small and independent, if not rivals, as would seem to be indicated by the presence of two separate villages on the Palatine Hill. These communities lived primarily from sheep-herding and had been induced to settle here by the geographical amenities of the site at the crossroads of the most important communication routes by water (Tiber) and land between Etruria, Latium and Campania at the spot where the best ford over the Tiber was located. The first « Rome » was then nothing but a duster of small villages of huts whose aspect we can reconstruct precisely from the discovery of their foundations on the Palatine Hill and the hut-shaped cinerary urns found in contemporary necropolises. These huts had their foundations cut into the tufa and they were rectangular in shape with rounded corners, with walls of wattle and daub. Post holes contained the posts which supported the wooden beams of the straw roof and a smoke hole was left in the front part of the roof These communities seem to have coalesced into a political, religious federation around the time of the traditional founding date of Rome. The various historical legends relating to the fusion of different peoples, first of all the Latins and the Sabines, into an urban community hark back to this event. Moreover one of the oldest religious festivals, the Seplimonlium, was based on the participation of the various communities which lived on the hills of Rome and this would seem to indicate that they were distinct from each other. A particularly important moment in the development of Rome is represented by the reign of Ancus Március who augmented trade by exploiting the strategic position of the site. This was the king who built the first wooden bridge over the Tiber, the Pons Sublicius, and who occupied the Janiculum and the Aventine to protect the communication routes that converged on it from the north. In addition Ancus also founded the colony of Os-tia at the mouth of the Tiber, a city that was to become Rome's port. But the phase which marks the definitive transformation of Rome from a simple cluster of villages into a real city »vűs the advent of the Etruscan monarchy — the period of the Etruscan kings, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus, from the end of the 7th century B.C. to all of the 6th century B.C.