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:: SILVER HOTELS COLLECTION · HISTORY OF ROME ::

Rome, also known as "the Eternal City" is believed to have been founded between 600 and 700 B.C.
Early Rome was once governed by Kings, with an advisory senate but when the Romans themselves took reign, they instated their own senate who appointed a consul and from this point on the Roman Republic was created.
The word 'Republic' derives from the Latin "'res publica', the original language of the Romans, meaning "public matters" The consul was appointed to rule Rome for one year, when after a new consul was appointed, limiting the possibility of a tyranny due to a long reign. The Roman Republic was a very successful government and lasted from 510 BC until 23 BC - almost 500 years.
During this time, Rome was divided in four classes: Slaves; owned by the people with no rights at all, Plebs; free people but with little or no say, Equestrians; rich knights called to protect Rome in times of combat, and Nobles; the richest patricians where all the real power lay.

The greatest challenge the Roman Republic faced was that of the Carthaginians. Carthage was a very powerful city in North Africa which, much like Rome, controlled its own empire. The fight between the two sides was a long one and took place on land and on sea.
The most famous incident came when the great Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the mountain chain of the Alps to the north of Italy with all his troops, including his war-elephants !, and invaded Italy. In the end, Rome won and Carthage was completely destroyed in the year 146 BC.

Rome's most famous citizen was no doubt Julius Caesar. A Roman politician and general who, conquered many vast territories.
His military campaigns also took him to Egypt where he met the famous Cleopatra.
His life ended when he was infamously murdered in the senate in Rome.
So famous and respected was Caesar that a month of the year is still named after him and his heirs today, July (after Julius Caesar) and his legend was also continued through the famous play written by William Shakespeare called Julius Caesar, about his life and murder.
Many Roman emperors followed after Julius Caesar, some famous and some not so famous.

Rome's first emperor was Augustus, also called Octavian who ruled from 27 B.C. - A.D. 14: reformer, patron of arts and literature, he added many territories to the empire.
Claudius, conquered Britain while he was emperor between 41 and 51 A.D.
One of the most infamous, Nero, ruled Rome between 54 and 68 A.D. and was known for his cruelty and depravity throwing many Christians to the lions for his sheer entertainment.
Trajan, was another great Roman conqueror as well as emperor, and while under his rule, between 98 and 117, Rome reached its greatest territorial extension.
Hadrian ruled between 117 and 138 during which he built the "Hadrians" wall in the north of Britain to shield the province from the northern barbarians.
The emperor Diocletion, spilt the empire in two; western and eastern, during his rule between 284 and 305 A.D.

Constantine the I was the first Christian emperor. Ruling between 324 and 337. He re-united the spilt empire and chose his capital to be the small town Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople.
The Roman empire in the end was overrun by millions of barbarians from the north and east of Europe. It is believed to have happened two or three times in history that huge migrations took place across Europe, where peoples moved to settle in new territories. The great migration proved too much for the Romans to stem. Their armies were designed to defeat other armies, not entire folks and peoples flooding toward them.
The Fall of Western Rome occurred when Rome was conquered by the Visigoth Odoacer and his army in AD 476. But what is generally referred to as 'the Fall of Rome' doesn't include the eastern empire. This, with its centre in Constantinople, managed to cling on for almost another thousand years until it was eventually conquered by the Turks under their leader Mohammed II in the year AD 1453. Constantine XI was he last emperor of Constantinople who died defending his great city against the Turks.

The only social force remaining after the fall of the Roman Empire of the West was the Christian Church. Rome soon became the capital of the catholic world, and this would be the importance of Rome for more than a thousand years to come. In the 4th century the Basilica of Saint Peter's was constructed on the site of the death and burial of Saint Peter.
The centre of the city moved to Campus Martius leaving the ancient center, centred on the Forum Romanum and the Imperial Fora, to later become grassland, fields and gardens, for the medieval city dwellers.
Many non-Christian sanctuaries were converted to Christian churches, and thus owing their survival to the new church. This is the case of the two temples in Piazza Bocca della Verità and also Castel Sant'Angelo, originally the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian. Many others, however, were deliberately destroyed by zealous Christians.
Rome became one of the most important centres of pilgrimage, and soon flourished again. New churches were built, and the pilgrims brought work and money.
This lasted until the pope was forced to move to Avignon (1309), leading to the almost 70 year long schism of the church. In this period Rome was reduce to the smallest size since the origin, barely 20.000 inhabitants on the edge of the Tiber River. With the return of the Pope (1377) good fortune returned to Rome again. With few interruptions Rome now lived more prosperous and tranquil times until the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century. Rome was artistically enriched by artists as Michelangelo Buonarroti, the creator of the marvellous Piazza di Campidoglio and other nulmerous works, and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who created the colonnade in Piazza San Pietro and the Spanish Steps.
With the Napoleonic wars, the Pope was expelled, only to return again when the war had finished. The rule of the Pope was disputed by the public which led to several rebellions, but with the aid of the French troops, the main defender of the temporal powers of the Pope. The rebeelions were brought to a halt.

When the rest of Italy was united under Piedmont's rule between 1859-60, Rome was left undisturbed, mainly because of the presence of French troops in the city. When the French soldiers were called back to France in 1870, the young Italian State quickly attacked and seized Rome, which again became capital of all of Italy.
The new Rome, the 'Third Rome', underwent many changes. A massive expansion of the city started. The size of the town had been much the same since medieval times, and the papal town lived comfortably within the Aurelian Walls with room to spare. Within a few decades the city had spread also outside the ancient walls, and entirely new areas were developed. The town centre suffered many changes as well. A renaissance quarter constructed on top of the ancient Imperial Fora was completely demolished to create space for the new Piazza Venezia and the massive Vittoriano monument, and an entire wing of the Palazzo Venezia had to be moved to a nearby location. The space in front of Campidoglio and the Piazza Bocca della Verità were overrun by traffic as the Via Teatro Marcello was opened. Similar urban interventions were made to create the Corso Vittorio Emanuele connecting Piazza Venezia and the Vatican.

When the fascists took over power in 1921, they immediately started to adapt Rome to their ideas of an imperial capital. Some ancient monuments were unearthed or uncovered, like the Ara Pacis and the Mausoleum of Augustus, other destroyed or covered up, like the Meta Sudans and Imperial Fora.
Other new additions to the image of the town were added. An entirely new quarter were constructed to the south to house the "Esposizione Universale di Roma" (EUR). The world exposition of 1936 was never held, though, because Italy had invaded Ethiopia and consequently was under an embargo by the League of Nations. The African wars brought new additions to the decoration of Rome, notably the Obelisk of Axum. The fascists used Piazza Venezia (called Piazza Italia) as the location public meetings, so to enlarge and improve the square the Via dei Fori Imperiali was created, connecting Piazza Venezia with the Colosseum.
In the other end of town, to the north, the new Olympic Stadium, the Foro Italico, was built, and on the other side of the river the Olympian village, Villaggio Olimpico, to accommodate the athletes. The outbreak of the second world war effectively cancelled the Olympic Games of 1940, so the whole complex was unfinished and unused until the Olympics of 1960, held in Rome.
Rome suffered little materially under the war and development soon continued after the war, giving rise to a number of poor and squalid peripheral suburbs of high rise buildings.
Few new monuments have been erected in the last half a century with the new Mosque being a lone exception.