EMERGENCE OF AN URBAN COMMUNITY
Like many other places on or near the west coast of central Italy, Rome began to develop into a city-state in the eighth and seventh centuries. Rome would become an especially powerful city in the Orientalizing and Archaic periods, when it overshadowed many of its neighbors. Because of its wealth and power, and the later success of the elites that made it their center, Rome’s early history is better known than that of any other community in Italy. From the evidence that survives, it is clear that many of the conditions and institutions that would contribute to the city’s subsequent power had their roots in the seventh, sixth, and fifth centuries.
Ancient Rome occupied a group of hills overlooking the Tiber River. Rome’s loca-tion was a favorable one. Water was plentiful, while hills and river made defense easy. Two of the most important routes in central Italy passed by the site, one from the salt pans at the mouth of the Tiber along the banks of the river into the interi¬or, and the other the coastal road from Etruria to Campania, which crossed the Tiber by a ford here, the closest place to the sea where this was possible. A small stream running through a marshy valley separated three of the hills that proved especially important in early Rome: the Capitol, the Palatine, and the Velia. When drained in the seventh and sixth centuries, this valley would become the Forum Romanum (Roman Forum), the city’s political and religious center. Along the banks of the Tiber, where the stream that drained the Forum valley joined the river, a small plain gave access to the Tiber ford; this plain would become the Forum Boarium, the chief market and harbor of urban Rome.
The hills and valleys here were inhabited long before Rome became a city. Archeologists have found scattered fragments of pottery datable back to the Middle Bronze Age, but the site may not have been permanently settled until much later. The earliest known burials hence undoubted traces of settlement date to around 1000; with similar interments at other Latin sites, they mark the beginning of the first phase of the “Latial culture.” During the three millennia since, Rome has for long been densely settled, so that little in the way of surface surveys or systematic large-scale excavations is possible today. However, finds do show that several small clusters of huts occupied the hills, and perhaps also the valleys between them and the plain by the river. Some of these hamlets shared cemeteries, but it would seem that no sense of common identity linked all the hamlets on the hills. In this respect, early Rome was little different from other Latin centers, although it may have been more populous than most.