Rome: Ancient History

Latin colonists who came from Alba Longa, a city in ancient Latium, are said to have founded Rome in 753 BC. Legend carried the ancestry of the Romans back to the Trojans and their leader Aeneas, the first king of Alba Longa and founder of Rome.

After Rome was acquired by the leadership of Latium, the Romans fought wars against the Etruscans, the Volscians, and the Aequians. The defeat of the Romans at Allia and the capture and burning of Rome by the Gauls under the leadership of the chief Brennus in 390 BC were great disasters, but their effect did not last long. The capture of the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 BC by the soldier and statesman Marcus Furius Camillus spelled the end for Etruscan independence.

In 264 BC Rome fought with Carthage for the control of the Mediterranean Sea. Carthage at that time was the sole power, controlling the central and western Mediterranean. In 67 BC general Pompey, who had fought the Marian party in Africa, Sicily, and Spain, cleared the Mediterranean of pirates and was put in charge of the war against Mithridates.

Meanwhile his rival Gaius Julius Caesar was gaining ground with his political ability in the absence of Pompey. Caesar became the leader of the popular party and strengthened his hold on the people. Caesar found Marcus Licinius Crassus, a man of great wealth, to be a tractable auxiliary. Pompey returned from the east and asked the Senate to sanction his measures in Asia and land for his legionaries. His demands were opposed, until Caesar, posing as his friend and along with Crassus formed a coalition called the first triumvirate.

After Caesar's assassination by Republican nobles in 44 BC, Mark Antony combined forces with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Caesar's grandnephew, Octavian(Emperor Augustus) to form the second triumvirate.

In 305, a conflict between Augusti and Caesars resulted in civil wars, until Constantine the Great rose to power in 312. In 314 Constantine defeated Licinius, emperor in the East, and became sole ruler of the Roman world.

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