Rome history

The city of Rome originated as a village of the Latini in the 8th century BC. It was initially ruled by
kings, but the Roman Republic was established in 509 BC. During the 5th century BC, Rome gained
regional dominance in Latium, and eventually the entire Italian peninsulaby the 3rd century BC. The
population of the city at this point is estimated at about 300,000 people.
With the Punic Wars, Rome gained dominance over the Mediterranean, displacing Hellenistic
Greece as the dominant regional power for the next five centuries. The Roman Empire was
established under Octavian in 27 BC, after Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, followed by a period of
civil war. The city of Rome now surpassed a population of one million, likely the first city in history to
reach this size (compared to world population of about 200300 million at the time).
At the peak of Roman imperial power in the 2nd century, the population of the city numbered some
1.6 million, a size that it never attained again until its becoming the capital of the Republic of Italy in
1946; close to three percent of the population of the empire lived within its limits. Following the Crisis
of the Third Century and the transfer of the imperial capital to Constantinople in AD 330, Rome
entered a period of gradual decline.
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Rome managed to hang on to the empire, still
known as the Roman empire but long centered on the eastern Mediterranean, until the 8th century
as the Duchy of Rome. But the city was reduced to a fraction of its former size, being sacked several
times in the 5th to 6th centuries, in 546 even temporarily depopulated entirely.[1] With the final loss of
imperial control in Italy, Rome became the capital of the Papal States in medieval Italy. Papacy
struggled to retain influence in the emerging Holy Roman Empire, and during the Saeculum
obscurum, the population of Rome fell to as low as 30,000 inhabitants. Following the EastWest
Schism and the limited success in the Investiture Controversy, the Papacy did gain considerable
influence in high medieval Europe, but with the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism, the city of
Rome was reduced to irrelevance, its population falling below 20,000.
Rome's decline into complete irrelevance during the medieval period, with the associated lack of
construction activity, assured the survival of very significant ancient Roman material remains in the
centre of the city, some abandoned and others continuing in use. Rome began to recover some
importance in the late 15th and 16th century. The Sistine Chapel was restored in 1480
and decorated by Michelangelo in 15081512. Construction of the Apostolic Palace began in 1589.
Construction of St. Peter's Basilica was begun in 1506, the most renowned work of Renaissance
architecture. The Roman Renaissance was cut short abruptly with the devastation of the city in 1527,

but the Papacy reasserted itself in the Counter-Reformation, and the city continued to flourish during
the early modern period.
Rome was annexed by Napoleon and was technically part of France during 17981814. During
the Italian unification in the 19th century, the Roman Question referred to the status of Rome under
the temporal power of the popes. Rome was declared the capital of thekingdom of Italy on 27 March
1861, but the Italian government could not take its seat there because it was defended by a French
garrison. Rome was eventually captured in 1870, and the dispute was finally resolved with
the Lateran Pacts of 1929 establishing theVatican State. Rome served as the capital of the Italian
Empire and Fascist Italy from 1870 to 1943. During this period, population hextupled from about
250,000 to 1.5 million. The Palace of Justice was completed 1910.
Rome was under siege by the Allied invasion of Italy and was bombed several times. It was declared
an open city on 14 August 1943. It became the capital of the Italian Republic (established in 1946),
with a population of 4.4 million in its metropolitan area (as of 2015; 2.8 million within city limits)one
of the largest cities in Italy (after Milan, and roughly on par with Naples). It is among the largest
urban areas of the European Union[2] and classified as a "global city".[3]