Introduction | The emergence of Rome | The beginning of empire
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The emergence of Rome

	Etruscan sculpture, c. 500BC (the twins were added later) – Etruscan culture was the basis of much Roman tradition AKG London/Erich Lessing Enlarge Image

In about 800 BC, Italy was a sparsely populated area with one dominant tribe – the Etruscans – concentrated just north of Rome. Then the Greeks arrived. Over the next two or three centuries, they established several colonies and trade began to flourish – with the Etruscans, with the Carthaginians, with the Latins.

Greeks v Romans
Everything the Greeks did seemed to have magic about it. It was the Greeks who, all over the Mediterranean, defined civilisation. Ideas, artefacts, literature and inventions poured out of those city-states and permeated the known world.

By contrast, the hills of Rome were inhabited by a group of agrarian tribes who had instituted the novel system of electing a different king each year to avoid too much conflict between them. In about 534 BC, they elected the Etruscan Tarquinius Superbus to do the job. It may well be that this is where a lot of the legends of Rome's foundation – Romulus and Remus, for instance – came from.

Certainly Rome had neither the history nor the traditions to match the Greeks', and most of the Romans' most sacred institutions – such as the Temple of Vesta and the sacred practice of reading entrails and the flights of birds – were directly acquired from the Etruscans. It would be fair to say that the Romans continued to have a cultural inferiority complex, particularly about the Greeks.

In 509 BC, after Tarquinius (who had been dictator for 24 years) was banished, the Romans framed a constitution through which they would be ruled by two annually elected consuls. This was the beginning of the republic.

The Roman way of domination
What lifted the Romans above the rest was simply their belligerence. Most local powers were interested in getting rich through trade, and fought battles – usually through mercenaries – only when they had to. The Romans wanted to dominate the land around them, permanently.

While Alexander was marching east to India, slaughtering any army that stood in his way, Roman 'colonies' were springing up all over central and southern Italy. They were the result of conquest on a much more modest scale – like cattle-rustling in the Wild West in some cases. But the battles were usually followed by a deal: in return for signing up to the Roman system, you got a trouble-free life. All the Romans required was a home for some of their citizen farmers and a promise of manpower for armies when required.

Rome v Carthage
The first great contest between Rome and an external power came in about 300 BC when they took on the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians – the people of the mythic Queen Dido whom Aeneas betrayed – were originally Phoenicians from the Middle East, hence their Latin name Punicus. They had built up a western empire based on the city of Carthage, on the site of what is now Tunis. Theirs was fundamentally a sea-borne trading empire, with strong bases in Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. Gradually they found their alliances being interfered with by that landlocked upstart, Rome.

The Punic wars
They went to war. To the Carthaginians' astonishment, they were even beaten at sea when the Romans, with their genius for practical design, worked out a way of ramming their boats and turning sea battles into infantry engagements.

The first of the three Punic wars with the Carthaginians wasn't decisive, but it marked the Romans as a nation to be feared. In the second war, when Hannibal invaded Italy seeking revenge, the strengths and weaknesses of the Roman system were tested to the limit.

At one level, the Roman system of delegating power to annually chosen consuls played into Hannibal's hands: the first few generals he faced were patently better at winning elections than battles. But compared, say, with the effete priestly caste that held sway in the Etruscan cities, Rome was ruled by a consenting democracy, and though the legionaries may have cursed their leaders, they stuck to their task.

Furthermore, Hannibal's assumption that all the colonies and subjugated cities would desert to his banner proved hopelessly misjudged. People who had come under the rule of Rome had already got the message that it was vengeful to enemies, protective of friends and, above all, durable.

All roads lead to Rome
From about 200 BC to the time of Julius Caesar, Rome went brutally from strength to strength. Greece and Spain were conquered, Carthage was eliminated, and the potentates in what is now Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean came, one by one, under its control. Caesar more or less completed the job by subduing Gaul and Egypt.

But just as in Italy, the Romans never conquered simply for booty. They hit but did not run. Instead they installed communications, in the shape of the famous roads that all led to Rome, and administration – praetors and proconsuls who ran the provinces in the Roman manner: a single law, a single currency, a single useful language, tolerance of local custom and religion, and ruthless military discipline.

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