The settlements at Palatine and Quirinal were two of numerous Italic speaking communities which existed in Latium by the 1st millenium BC. In the 8th century BC these Italic tribes — Latins (in the west), Sabines (in the upper valley of the Tiber), Umbrians (in the north-east), Samnites (in the South), Oscans and others — shared the penisula with two other major ethnic groups: the Etruscans and the Greeks.
The Etruscans were settled north of Rome in Etruria (modern Tuscany); many now believe that the Etruscans evolved from an Italian non-Indo-European speaking people called the Villanovans. Greek settlers colonized about 50 poleis in Southern Italy. After 650 BC, the Etruscans became dominant in Italy and expanded into north-central Italy. They came to control Rome and perhaps all of Latium. Roman tradition claimed that Rome had been under the control of seven kings from 753 to 509 BC begining with the mythic Romulus who along with his brother Remus were said to have founded the city of Rome. Two of the last three kings were said to be Etruscan.
Around 500 BC Rome gained independence from the Etruscans but the Etruscans left a lasting influence on Rome. The Romans learned to build temples from them, and they introduced the worship of a triad of gods — Juno, Minerva, and Jupiter — from the Etruscan gods. They transformed Rome from a pastoral communinity into a city. They also passed on elements of Greek culture they had adopted such as the Western version of the Greek alphabet.
After 500 BC, Rome began to emerge as the dominant city in Latium, and by 290 BC over half of the Italian penisula was controlled by Rome. In the 3rd century BC the Greek poleis in the south were brought under Roman control as well.
The Roman Republic and Empire
Rome was a republic from 509 to 29 BC. By the end of the Republic, the city of Rome dominated the whole of the Mediterranean. This grandeur increased under the emperors. From the early 3rd century AD Rome formally remained capital of the empire but emperors spent less and less time there. In 330, Constantine established a second capital at Constantinople, and later western emperors ruled from Milan or Ravenna. The Empire's conversion to Christianity made the Bishop of Rome (later called the Pope) the senior religious figure in the Western Empire.
The fall of the Western Roman Empire made little difference to Rome. Odoacer and then the Ostrogoths continued to rule Italy from Ravenna. Meanwhile, the Senate, even though long since stripped of wider powers, continued to administer Rome itself, and the Pope usually came from a senatorial family.
In 546, the Ostrogoths under Totila sacked the city. The Byzantine general Belisarius recaptured Rome but the Ostrogoths took it again in 549. Belisarius was replaced by Narses, who captured Rome from the Ostrogoths for good in 552. Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565) granted Rome subsidies for the maintenance of public buildings, aqueducts and bridges - though, being mostly drawn from an Italy impoverished by the recent wars, these were not always fully sufficient.
In practice, local power in Rome devolved to the Pope. The reign of Justinian's nephew and successor Justin II (reigned 565–578) would see the invasion of the Lombards under Alboin (568). The armies of the Frankish King invaded the Lombard territories in 584, 585, 588 and 590.
Rome suffered badly from a disastrous flood of the Tiber in 589, followed by a plague in 590. The strong Byzantine cultural influence did not always lead to political harmony between Rome and Constantinople. In 727, Pope Gregory II refused to accept the decrees of Byzanthine Emperor Leo III, establishing iconoclasm. Leo transferred areas previously under the Pope to the Patriarch of Constantinople. This left Rome reliant purely on its own local forces. Other protectors were now needed - and finally, in 753, Pope Stephen III induced Pepin III, king of the Franks, to attack the Lombards.
Papal and Renaissance Rome When Pepin III defeated the Lombards in 756, Rome became the capital city of the Papal States, a territorial entity at least nominally ruled by the Papacy. Rome became the worldwide centre of Christianity and increasingly developed a relevant political role that made it one of the most important towns of the Old Continent. In the 16th century a central area was delimited around the Porticus Octaviae, for the creation of the famous Roman Ghetto, in which the city's Jews were forced to live.
The modern city Following the unification of Italy in 1870 Rome became the capital of the new Italian state. During the Second World War Rome suffered some heavy bombings (notably at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura) and battles (Porta San Paolo, La Storta) and was considered an "open town". However, Rome was spared the wholesale destruction of cities such as Berlin or Warsaw. Rome fell to the Allies on June 4, 1944. It was the first capital of an Axis nation to fall. After the war Rome continued to expand due to Italy's growing state administration and industry, with the creation of new quartieri and suburbs.