Ancient Rome

The term Ancient Rome refers to the city of Rome, which was located in central Italy; and also to the empire it came to rule, which covered the entire Mediterranean basin and much of western Europe. At its greatest extent in stretched from present-day northern England to southern Egypt, and from the Atlantic coast to the shores of the Persian Gulf.

Rome’s location in central Italy placed it squarely within the Mediterranean cluster of civilizations. The most famous of these was that of the Ancient Greeks, but others included those of the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians and the Etruscans, plus several lesser-known peoples such as the Lycians. The civilization of Ancient Rome was rooted, directly or indirectly, in all these earlier culture.

In its early centuries Rome was particularly influenced by the powerful Etruscan civilization to its north, from which it acquired many aspects of its culture. As Rome’s reach expanded, it came into direct contact with the Greeks. From then on Greek influence would become an increasingly important element within Roman life. However, the Romans would give Greek culture their own slant, giving it a new grandeur which can be seen in Roman remains throughout the empire.

Ancient Roman society originated as a society of small farmers. However, as it grew more powerful and more extensive, it became one of the most urbanized societies in the pre-industrial world.

At the height of its empire, Rome was probably the largest city on the planet, with more than a million inhabitants. The empire had a handful of other cities with several hundred thousand inhabitants, and many other large and wealthy urban settlements.

These cities had some features which would have looked very familiar to us: high rise apartment blocks, overcrowded slums, busy streets, plazas, imposing public administrative buildings, and so on.

The Roman Empire contained around 2000 “cities”. For the Romans, cities were communities which ran their own affairs, and constituted the main building-blocks of the empire. Every free person in the empire belonged to a city – which may not necessarily have been where he or she was living at any given time, but was his or her “home town”.

The Roman city was built around a forum. This was an open space surrounded by colonnades and public buildings. It functioned as a market place, political meeting point and social center. The public buildings surrounding it would include the main temple, the basilica (the main government building where the town council met and town administration was carried on), the law courts (if separate from the Basilica), and the main public baths of the city.

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