Rome Notes

Who Settled Rome?

• Etruscans
• Came from the north-central part of the peninsula 
• Metalworkers, artists, architects
• Two foundation myths: 
• Virgil’s Aeneid (where Aeneas escapes from Troy - sound familiar?)
• the story of Remus and Romulus
• Greeks
• They had many colonies around the Mediterranean Sea
• Romans borrowed many ideas from them such as:
• Religious beliefs
• alphabet
• Art
• Military techniques and weapons
• Latins (first)
• Descendants of Indo- Europeans
• Settled on the banks of the Tiber River
• Situated so that trading ships, not war fleets could navigate as far as Rome but no further
• a commercial port but not susceptible to attack
• Built on seven hills many streams flowed into the Tiber
• there was a marshy area called the Forum,  between Palatine and Capitoline Hills
• Tarquin the Proud’s grandfather built the Cloaca Maxima (largest ancient drain), which channeled water into the Tiber
• Lucius Tarquinias Superbus was the seventh ad final king of Rome
• Known as Traquin the Proud
• He was a tyrant