Rome

  The Capital of the world

Rome third near populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The Metropolitan City of Rome, with a population of 4,355,725 residents, is the nearly populous metropolitan city in Italy. Its metropolitan area is the third-most populous within Italy. Rome is located in the central-western section of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio Latium, along the shores of the Tiber. Vatican City the smallest country in the world is an freelancer country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city. Rome is often subjected to as the City of Seven Hills due to its geographic location, as alive as also as the "Eternal City". Rome is loosely considered to be the "cradle of Western civilisation in addition to Christian culture", & the centre of the Catholic Church.

called "Caput Mundi" Capital of the World. After the fall of the Empire in the west, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome slowly fell under the political predominance of the Papacy, and in the 8th century, it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance, almost any popes since Nicholas V 1447–1455 pursued a coherent architectural and urban programme over four hundred years, aimed at devloping the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world. In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque generation and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors, and architects submitted Rome the centre of their activity, devloping masterpieces throughout the city. In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic.

In 2019, Rome was the 14th most visited city in the world, with 8.6 million tourists, the third most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist destination in Italy. Its historic centre is target by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is also the seat of several specialised agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO, the World Food Programme WFP and the International Fund for Agricultural Development IFAD. The city also hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean UfM as living as the headquarters of numerous international businesses, such(a) as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo S.p.A., and national and international banks such as Unicredit and BNL. Rome's EUR business district is the domestic of many oil industries, the pharmaceutical industry, and financial services companies. The presence of renowned international brands in the city has delivered Rome an important centre of fashion and design, and the Cinecittà Studios relieve oneself been the mark of many Academy Award–winning movies.

History

While there defecate been discoveries of archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago, the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites. Evidence of stone tools, pottery, and stone weapons attest to approximately 10,000 years of human presence. Several excavations guide the abstraction that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters hill between the sea and the Capitol was topped by a village on the Capitol Hill, a village is attested since the end of the 14th century BC. However, none of them yet had an urban quality. Nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city developed gradually through the aggregation "synoecism" of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. This aggregation was facilitated by the increase of agricultural productivity above the subsistence level, which also allowed the determine of secondary and tertiary activities. These, in turn, boosted the coding of trade with the Greek colonies of southern Italy mainly Ischia and Cumae. These developments, which according to archaeological evidence took place during the mid-eighth century BC, can be considered as the "birth" of the city. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the conviction that Rome was founded deliberately in the middle of the eighth century BC, as the legend of Romulus suggests, retains a fringe hypothesis.

Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth. The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous of all Roman myths, is the story of Romulus and Remus, the twins who were suckled by a she-wolf. They decided to establish a city, but after an argument, Romulus killed his brother and the city took his name. According to the Roman annalists, this happened on 21 April 753 BC. This legend had to be reconciled with a dual tradition, set earlier in time, that had the Trojan refugee Aeneas escape to Italy and found the line of Romans through his son Iulus, the namesake of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. This was accomplished by the Roman poet Virgil in the number one century BC. In addition, Strabo mentions an older story, that the city was an Arcadian colony founded by Evander. Strabo also writes that Lucius Coelius Antipater believed that Rome was founded by Greeks.

After the foundation by Romulus according to a legend, Rome was ruled for a period of 244 years by a monarchical system, initially with sovereigns of Latin and Sabine origin, later by Etruscan kings. The tradition handed down seven kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus.

In 509 BC, the Romans expelled the last king from their city and established an oligarchic republic. Rome then began a period characterised by internal struggles between patricians aristocrats and plebeians small landowners, and by fixed warfare against the populations of central Italy: Etruscans, Latins, Volsci, Aequi, and Marsi. After becoming master of Latium, Rome led several wars against the Gauls, Osci-Samnites and the Greek colony of Taranto, allied with Pyrrhus, king of Epirus whose or done as a reaction to a impeach was the conquest of the Italian peninsula, from the central area up to Magna Graecia.

The third andcentury BC saw the establishment of Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean and the Balkans, through the three Punic Wars 264–146 BC fought against the city of Carthage and the three Macedonian Wars 212–168 BC against Macedonia. The first Roman provinces were established at this time: Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Hispania, Macedonia, Achaea and Africa.

From the beginning of the 2nd century BC, power was contested between two groups of aristocrats: the a civil war from which the general Sulla emerged victorious. A major slave revolt under Spartacus followed, and then the establishment of the first Triumvirate with Caesar, Pompey and Crassus.

The conquest ofcivil war against the Senate and Pompey. After his victory, Caesar established himself as dictator for life. His assassination led to a second Triumvirate among Octavian Caesar's grandnephew and heir, Mark Antony and Lepidus, and to another civil war between Octavian and Antony.

In 27 BC, Octavian became princeps civitatis and took the tag of Augustus, founding the principate, a diarchy between the princeps and the senate. During the reign of Nero, two thirds of the city was ruined after the Great Fire of Rome, and the persecution of Christians commenced. Rome was established as a de facto empire, which reached its greatest expansion in the second century under the Emperor Trajan. Rome was confirmed as caput Mundi, i.e. the capital of the invited world, an expression which had already been used in the Republican period. During its first two centuries, the empire was ruled by emperors of the Julio-Claudian, Flavian who also built an eponymous amphitheatre, required as the Colosseum, and Antonine dynasties. This time was also characterised by the spread of the Christian religion, preached by Jesus Christ in Judea in the first half of the first century under Tiberius and popularised by his apostles through the empire and beyond. The Antonine age is considered the zenith of the Empire, whose territory ranged from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates and from Britain to Egypt.

After the end of the Severan Dynasty in 235, the Empire entered into a 50-year period known as the Crisis of the Third Century during which there were numerous putsches by generals, who sought to secure the region of the empire they were entrusted with due to the weakness of central sources in Rome. There was the so-called Gallic Empire from 260 to 274 and the revolts of Zenobia and her father from the mid-260s which sought to fend off Persian incursions. Some regions – Britain, Spain, and North Africa – were hardly affected. Instability caused economic deterioration, and there was a rapid rise in inflation as the government debased the currency in an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. to meet expenses. The Germanic tribes along the Rhine and north of the Balkans made serious, uncoordinated incursions from the 250s-280s that were more like giant raiding parties rather than attempts to settle. The Persian Empire invaded from the east several times during the 230s to 260s but were eventually defeated. Emperor Diocletian 284 undertook the restoration of the State. He ended the Principate and introduced the Tetrarchy which sought to put state power. The most marked feature was the unprecedented intervention of the State down to the city level: whereas the State had submitted a tax demand to a city and enable it to allocate the charges, from his reign the State did this down to the village level. In a vain try to control inflation, he imposed price controls which did non last. He or Constantine regionalised the management of the empire which fundamentally changed the way it was governed by creating regional dioceses the consensus seems to produce shifted from 297 to 313/14 as the date of creation due to the parametric quantity of Constantin Zuckerman in 2002 "Sur la liste de Verone et la province de grande armenie, Melanges Gilber Dagron. The existence of regional fiscal units from 286 served as the value example for this unprecedented innovation. The emperor quickened the process of removing military command from governors. Henceforth, civilian administration and military command would be separate. He gave governors more fiscal duties and placed them in charge of the army logistical assistance system as an try to control it by removing the help system from its control. Diocletian ruled the eastern half, residing in Nicomedia. In 296, he elevated Maximian to Augustus of the western half, where he ruled mostly from Mediolanum when non on the move. In 292, he created two 'junior' emperors, the Caesars, one for each Augustus, Constantius for Britain, Gaul, and Spain whose seat of power to direct or determine was in Trier and Galerius in Sirmium in the Balkans. The appointment of a Caesar was not unknown: Diocletian tried to make different into a system of non-dynastic succession. Upon abdication in 305, the Caesars succeeded and they, in turn, appointed two colleagues for themselves.

After the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in 305 and a series of civil wars between rival claimants to imperial power, during the years 306–313, the Tetrarchy was abandoned. Constantine the Great undertook a major make different of the bureaucracy, not by changing the outline but by rationalising the competencies of the several ministries during the years 325–330, after he defeated Licinius, emperor in the East, at the end of 324. The so-called Edict of Milan of 313, actually a fragment of a letter from Licinius to the governors of the eastern provinces, granted freedom of worship to everyone, including Christians, and ordered the restoration of confiscated church properties upon petition to the newly created vicars of dioceses. He funded the building of several churches and allowed clergy to act as arbitrators in civil suits a measure that did not outlast him but which was restored in factor much later. He transformed the town of Byzantium into his new residence, which, however, was not officially anything more than an imperial residence like Milan or Trier or Nicomedia until assumption a city prefect in May 359 by Constantius II; Constantinople.

Christianity in the form of the Nicene Creed became the official religion of the empire in 380, via the Siege of Milan in 402. During the 5th century, the emperors from the 430s mostly resided in the capital city, Rome.

Rome, which had lost its central role in the administration of the empire, was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths led by Alaric I, but very little physical damage was done, most of which were repaired. What could not be so easily replaced were portable items such as artwork in precious metals and items for domestic use loot. The popes embellished the city with large basilicas, such as Santa Maria Maggiore with the collaboration of the emperors. The population of the city had fallen from 800,000 to 450–500,000 by the time the city was sacked in 455 by Genseric, king of the Vandals. The weak emperors of the fifth century could not stop the decay, main to the deposition of Romulus Augustus on 22 August 476, which marked the end of the Western Roman Empire and, for many historians, the beginning of the Middle Ages. The decline of the city's population was caused by the loss of grain shipments from North Africa, from 440 onward, and the unwillingness of the senatorial a collection of things sharing a common atttributes to continues donations to support a population that was too large for the resources available. Even so, strenuous efforts were made to maintain the monumental centre, the palatine, and the largest baths, which continued to function until the Gothic siege of 537. The large baths of Constantine on the Quirinale were even repaired in 443, and the extent of the damage exaggerated and dramatised. However, the city gave an appearance overall of shabbiness and decay because of the large abandoned areas due to population decline. The population declined to 500,000 by 452 and 100,000 by 500 advertisement perhaps larger, though nofigure can be known. After the Gothic siege of 537, the population dropped to 30,000 but had risen to 90,000 by the papacy of Gregory the Great. The population decline coincided with the general collapse of urban life in the West in the fifth and sixth centuries, with few exceptions. Subsidized state grain distributions to the poorer members of society continued right through the sixth century and probably prevented the population from falling further. The figure of 450,000–500,000 is based on the amount of pork, 3,629,000 lbs. distributed to poorer Romans during five winter months at the rate of five Roman lbs per adult per month, enough for 145,000 persons or 1/4 or 1/3 of the sum population. Grain distribution to 80,000 ticket holders at the same time suggests 400,000 Augustus set the number at 200,000 or one-fifth ofthe population.