Regal period

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Ancient Rome

Historical Periods

Regal period (753 – 509 B.C.) Republic (509 – 27 B.C.) Empire (27 B.C. – 395 A.D.) Western Empire (395 – 476) Eastern Empire (395 – 500)

Great Romans

Marius, Cato the Younger, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Pompey, Augustus, Trajan, Diocletian, Constantine, Augustine, Justinian I

Roman Legacy

Ancient Rome in popular culture

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The regal period of Rome extended from the foundation of the city in 753 BC to the expulsion of Tarquin Superbus, the last king, in 509 BC. The legends of this period were well known to Romans of the late Republic and Empire, but historical records are few and unreliable.

Accomplishments attributed to the regal period include the "Calendar of Numa," a precursor to the Julian Calendar, and the Cloaca Maxima, the world's first sewage system.

Romulus and Remus

According to legend recounted by Cassius Dio through a derivative work by Johannes Tzetzes, Romulus and Remus were the twin sons of Mars, the god of war, by the daughter of a prior Latin king named Numitor, who was cast out of the land by another king named Amulius, the other king having received an oracle that he would be slain by descendants of Numitor.

Romulus and Remus were rescued from the mighty Tiber River by a daughter of Amulius who sent the two boys to be raised by a shepherd couple, with other derivations of the story relating it was a mother wolf who nursed them back to health and raised them. In 753 BC, Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome. Romulus murdered Remus in a heated debate on where the base of the city should be built. Romulus is considered the city's first king.

Timeline

Rome had seven legendary kings as follows:

• Romulus (753 to 717 BC)
• Numa Pompilius (717 to 673 BC)
• Tullus Hostilius (673 to 642 BC)
• Ancus Marcius (642 to 616 BC)
• Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (616 to 579 BC)
• Servius Tullius (579 to 535 BC)
• Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (535 to 509 BC)

Bibliography

Livy, From the Founding of the City, book 1.
Plutarch, Romulus and Numa Pompilius.
Cassius Dio, Roman History, v. 1-2.
Thomas Arnold, The History of Rome, v. 1, ch. 1-8.
Theodore Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1-2.
Cook, S.A., ed. et al., Cambridge Ancient History, v. 7, "The Hellenistic Monarchies and the Rise of Rome", ch. 10-13.