Rome, ancient history

Ancient Rome was a civilization based on the city of Rome. It lasted for about 800 years. Rome is traditionally said to have been founded as a kingdom in 753 BC. Following the expulsion of its last king, Tarquinius Superbus, the monarchy became a republic (traditionally in 509 BC). From then, its history is one of almost continual expansion until the murder of Julius Caesar and the foundation of the Roman Empire in 27 BC under Augustus and his successors. At its peak under Trajan, the empire stretched from Roman Britain to Mesopotamia and the Caspian Sea. A long line of emperors ruling by virtue of military, rather than civil, power marked the beginning of Rome's long decline; under Diocletian the empire was divided into two parts – East and West – although it was temporarily reunited under Constantine, the first emperor to formally adopt Christianity. The end of the Roman Empire is generally dated by the removal of the last emperor in the West in AD 476. The Eastern or Byzantine Empire continued until 1453 with its capital at Constantinople (modern Istanbul).

The Roman Empire occupied first the Italian peninsula, then most of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. It influenced the whole of Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond, in the fields of art and architecture, literature, law, and engineering, and through the continued use by scholars of its language, Latin.