Regal period

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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. Roman history up to this point seems to have written as a tableau for securing Roman virtues and vices in history for the purposes of political imitation and avoidance on a skeleton history of its people in response to both the world and the local events of the time. For example, Hugh Last wrote:

The legends which grew up round the origin of Rome have so slight a value as evidence for the history of the city that they can claim little space: all that is needed is to make their irrelevance plain. The arrival of the Greeks in the western Mediterranean gradually brought Italy within the ambit of Greek myth, and it is on Greek foundations that the whole saga of early Rome is based (ch. 11, part VI, "The Foundation Legends", p. 363).

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.

Greek connection to Rome

The Cambridge Ancient History goes on to say about the origin of Rome:

Though it would be wrong to say that the advent of Aeneas to the western Mediterranean was due to his connection in Greek minds with any locality which could boast a cult capable of identification with that of Aphrodite, in Greek mythology the hero's connection with his divine mother was undoubtedly close (p. 364).

The author speculates that the Aphrodite shrine near Rome may have been a "stepping-stone" (ibid) for Greek willingness to identify Aeneas, the sole survivor of the siege of Troy, and thus Phrygian Greece, with the also nearby, and third most prestigious shrine in Italy of the era, Juppiter Latiaris, and regard it as being founded by a descendant of Aeneas.

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 killed Remus in a heated community 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, presented with the dates of some destructions of previous world powers, some Biblical.

• Romulus (753 to 717 BC)
• 722 BC: Fall of Samaria (lost tribes of Israel) by Assyria
• Numa Pompilius (717 to 673 BC)
• Tullus Hostilius (673 to 642 BC)
• Ancus Marcius (642 to 616 BC)
• 621 BC: End of ancient Athens as Draco's laws are put into place
• Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (616 to 579 BC)
• 612 BC: Destruction of Assyria
• 594 BC: End of Draconian Athens as Solon's reforms are put into place
• 587 BC: Destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon
• Servius Tullius (579 to 535 BC)
• 539 BC: Liberation of Judea from destruction of Babylon
• Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (535 to 509 BC)

Bibliography

• Livy, From the Founding of the City, book 1.
• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, books 1-4.
• 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.
• Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay, ch. 1, "The Romans".
• Cook, S.A., ed. et al., Cambridge Ancient History, v. 7, "The Hellenistic Monarchies and the Rise of Rome".
  • ch. 10. Jones, H. Stuart. "The Sources for the Tradition of Early Roman History".
  • ch. 11. Last, Hugh. "The Founding of Rome".
  • ch. 12. Last, Hugh. "The Kings of Rome".
  • ch. 13. Jones, H. Stuart. "The Primitive Institutions of Rome".