Rome history

The legendary beginnings of Rome are related in the tale of Romulus and Remus. Vestal virgin Rhea Silvia, ravished by Mars (the God of War), gave birth to the twins and abandoned them to fate. The River Tiber carried them to the Palatine Hill, where a she-wolf mothered the babes until their discovery by a shepherd. The brothers later argued over where to found a new city, and Romulus killed Remus. The rest... is history.

History's version of events is spectacular in a different way. The city developed from unimportant pastoral settlement (the earliest remains date back to the ninth century BC) to vast empire, ruled over by a string of emperors, before the fall of the Roman Empire around the 5th century.

Rome saw a second period of development during the 15th-century Renaissance, when the Papacy took up permanent residence in the city. Over the next 200 years, many of the cities most impressive buildings, such as St Peter’s basilica and the Trevi fountain, were commissioned by the great papal dynasties. By the 17th century, Rome had been furnished with its ornate baroque cityscape of churches, fountains and palazzi just in time to take on the mantle of capital city in 1861, when Italy was finally unified and Victor Emmanuel proclaimed King.