Earliest history Prehistory There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from at least 5,000 years, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites. The evidence suggesting the city's ancient foundation is also obscured by the legend of Rome's beginning involving
Romulus and Remus. The traditional date for the
founding of Rome is
21 April 753 BC,
following M. Terentius Varro, and the city and surrounding region of
Latium has continued to be inhabited with little interruption since around that time. Excavations made in 2014 have revealed a wall built long before the city's official founding year. Archaeologists discovered 9th-century BC walls and 8th-century BC pottery. The
Palatine Hill may have been visited and settled around the 10th century BC. The site of
Sant'Omobono Area is crucial for understanding the related processes of monumentalisation,
urbanisation, and state formation in Rome in the late Archaic period. The Sant'Omobono temple site dates to 7th–6th century BC, making these the oldest known temple remains in Rome.
Legendary origin , showing the twins
Romulus and Remus suckling the
she-wolf. The city's name was long credited to the legendary
culture hero Romulus. It was said that Romulus and his twin brother
Remus were the offspring of the
rape of an
Alban princess by the
war god Mars and, via their mother, were further descended from the
Trojan prince
Aeneas, supposed son of the Greek
love goddess Aphrodite.
Exposed on the
Tiber, they were
suckled by a
she-wolf and raised by a
shepherd and
his wife. Avenging themselves on
their usurping grand-uncle and restoring their grandfather
Numitor to
Alba Longa's
throne, they were ordered or decided to settle the hills around Rome's later
Forum Boarium, an important river port connected in Roman myth with
Hercules's
tenth labour, capturing the cattle of
Geryon. Disputing some point of the founding or its related
auguries, Remus was murdered by Romulus or one of his supporters. Romulus then established a
walled and
roughly square settlement, whose
sacred boundary and gates were established by a
ploughing ritual. Romulus then declared the town an asylum, permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as
citizens, including criminals, runaway
slaves, and freemen without distinction. To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighbouring tribes to a festival in Rome where the Romans
abducted many of their young women. After the ensuing war with the
Sabines, Romulus shared Rome's kingship with the Sabine king
Titus Tatius. Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the
Roman Senate, initially serving as his advisory council. These men he called fathers (), and their descendants became the
patricians. He created three
centuries of
equites: Ramnes (meaning Romans), Tities (after the Sabine king), and Luceres (Etruscans). He also divided the general populace into thirty
curiae, named after thirty of the Sabine women who had intervened to end the war between Romulus and Tatius. The curiae formed the voting units in the
Comitia Curiata.
City's formation Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the
Palatine Hill and
surrounding hills approximately from the
Tyrrhenian Sea on the south side of the
Tiber. The
Quirinal Hill was probably an outpost for the
Sabines, another
Italic-speaking people. At this location, the Tiber forms a Z-shaped curve that contains an
island where the river can be forded. Because of the river and the ford, Rome was at a crossroads of traffic following the river valley and of traders travelling north and south on the west side of the
peninsula.
Archaeological finds have confirmed that there were two fortified settlements in the 8th century BC, in the area of the future Rome: Rumi on the Palatine Hill, and Titientes on the Quirinal Hill, backed by the Luceres living in the nearby woods. These were simply three of numerous Italic-speaking communities that existed in
Latium, a
plain on the
Italian peninsula, by the 1st millennium BC. The origins of the
Italic peoples lie in prehistory and are therefore not precisely known, but their
Indo-European languages migrated from the east in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. According to
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, many Roman historiansincluding
Cato and
Semproniusconsidered the
Italian aborigines to have been prehistoric
Greek colonists. The Romans then considered themselves a mix of these people, the
Albans, and the other
Latins, considered a blend of
Pelasgians,
Arcadians,
Epeans, and refugee
Trojans. Over time, the
Etruscans and other
ancient Italic peoples were admitted as citizens as well. The Sabinesconsidered to be
Gaulish along with the other
Umbri peoples of central Italy were first mentioned in Dionysius's account for having captured the city of Lista by surprise, which was regarded as the mother-city of the Aborigines. Rome was especially large for
Latial settlements; although the majority of larger
Early Iron Age Latial cities were between 50 and 80 hectares in size, Rome had—by the same time—grown to a size of around 200 hectares. The archaeologist Francesca Fulminante suggests that Rome was uniquely predisposed to conquer Latium as it was significantly more powerful than its immediate neighbors. Upon unifying Latium, according to Fulminante, Rome was now more easily able to compete with the disjointed Etruscan city-states.
Italic context François Tomb, IV century BC The Italic speakers in the area included
Latins (in the west),
Sabines (in the upper valley of the
Tiber),
Umbrians (in the north-east),
Samnites (in the South),
Oscans, and others. In the 8th century BC, they shared the peninsula with two other major ethnic groups: the
Etruscans in the North and the
Greeks in the south. The
Etruscans (
Etrusci or
Tusci in
Latin) are attested north of Rome in
Etruria (modern northern Lazio,
Tuscany and part of
Umbria). They founded cities such as
Tarquinia,
Veii, and
Volterra and deeply influenced Roman culture, as clearly shown by the Etruscan origin of some of the mythical Roman kings. Historians have no literature, nor texts of religion or philosophy; therefore, much of what is known about this civilisation is derived from grave goods and tomb findings. The Greeks had founded many colonies in Southern
Italy between 750 and 550 BC (which the Romans later called
Magna Graecia), such as
Cumae,
Naples,
Reggio Calabria,
Crotone,
Sybaris, and
Taranto, as well as in the eastern two-thirds of
Sicily.
Etruscan dominance 526–509 BC takes its name from king Servius Tullius and is the first true wall of Rome. After 650 BC, the
Etruscans became dominant in Italy and expanded into north-central Italy. Roman tradition claimed that Rome had been under the control of
seven kings from 753 to
509 BC beginning with the mythical
Romulus who was said to have
founded the city of Rome along with his brother
Remus. The last three kings were said to be Etruscan (at least partially)—namely
Tarquinius Priscus,
Servius Tullius and
Tarquinius Superbus. (Priscus is said by the ancient literary sources to be the son of a Greek refugee and an Etruscan mother.) Their names refer to the Etruscan town of
Tarquinia.
Livy,
Plutarch,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and others claim that Rome was ruled during its first centuries by a succession of seven kings. The traditional chronology, as codified by
Varro, allots 243 years for their reigns, an average of almost 35 years, which has been generally discounted by modern scholarship since the work of
Barthold Georg Niebuhr. The
Gauls destroyed much of Rome's historical records when they sacked the city after the
Battle of the Allia in 390 BC (according to Polybius, the battle occurred in 387/386) and what was left was eventually lost to time or theft. With no contemporary records of the kingdom existing, all accounts of the kings must be carefully questioned. The list of kings is also of dubious historical value, though the last-named kings may be historical figures. It is believed by some historians (again, this is disputed) that Rome was under the influence of the Etruscans for about a century. During this period, a bridge was built called the
Pons Sublicius to replace the
Tiber ford, and the
Cloaca Maxima was also built; the Etruscans are said to have been great engineers of this type of structure. From a cultural and technical point of view, Etruscans had arguably the second-greatest impact on Roman development, only surpassed by the Greeks. Expanding further south, the Etruscans came into direct contact with the Greeks and initially had success in conflicts with the Greek colonists; after which, Etruria went into a decline. Taking advantage of this, Rome rebelled and gained independence from the Etruscans around 500 BC. It also abandoned monarchy in favour of a republican system based on a
Senate, composed of the nobles of the city, along with popular assemblies which ensured political participation for most of the freeborn men and elected magistrates annually. The Etruscans left a lasting influence on Rome. The Romans learned to build temples from them, and the Etruscans may have introduced the worship of a triad of gods—
Juno,
Minerva, and
Jupiter—from the
Etruscan gods:
Uni,
Menrva, and
Tinia. However, the influence of Etruscan people in the development of Rome is often overstated. Rome was primarily a Latin city. It never became fully Etruscan. Also, evidence shows that Romans were heavily influenced by the Greek cities in the South, mainly through trade.
Roman Republic '' The commonly held stories of the early part of the Republic (before roughly 300 BC, when Old Latin inscriptions and Greek histories about Rome provide more concrete evidence of events) are generally considered to be legendary, their historicity being a topic of debate among classicists. The Roman Republic traditionally dates from 509 BC to 27 BC. After 500 BC, Rome is said to have joined with the Latin cities in defence against incursions by the
Sabines. Winning the
Battle of Lake Regillus in 493 BC, Rome established again the supremacy over the Latin countries it had lost after the fall of the monarchy. After a lengthy series of struggles, this supremacy became fixed in 393, when the Romans finally subdued the
Volsci and
Aequi. In 394 BC, they also conquered the menacing Etruscan neighbour of
Veii. The Etruscan power was now limited to Etruria itself, and Rome was the dominant city in Latium. A formal treaty was agreed with the city-state of
Carthage in 509 BC which defined the spheres of influence of each city and regulated trade between them. At the same time,
Heraclides stated that 4th-century Rome was a
Greek city (Plut. Cam. 22). Rome's early enemies were the neighbouring hill tribes of the Volscians, the Aequi, and of course the Etruscans. As years passed and military successes increased Roman territory, new adversaries appeared. The fiercest were the
Gauls, a loose collective of peoples who controlled much of Northern Europe including what is modern North and Central-East Italy. In 387 BC, Rome was sacked and burned by the
Senones coming from eastern Italy and led by
Brennus, who had successfully defeated the Roman army at the
Battle of the Allia in
Etruria. Multiple contemporary records suggest that the Senones hoped to punish Rome for violating its diplomatic neutrality in Etruria. The Senones marched to Rome without harming the surrounding countryside; once they had sacked the city, the Senones withdrew from Rome. Brennus was defeated by the dictator
Furius Camillus at
Tusculum soon afterwards. After that, Rome hastily rebuilt its buildings and went on the offensive, conquering the Etruscans and seizing territory from the Gauls in the north. After 345 BC, Rome pushed south against other Latins. Their main enemy in this quadrant were the fierce
Samnites, who outsmarted and trapped the legions in 321 BC at the
Battle of Caudine Forks. In spite of these and other temporary setbacks, the Romans advanced steadily. By 290 BC, Rome controlled over half of the Italian peninsula. In the 3rd century BC, Rome brought the Greek
poleis in the south under its control as well. from 500 BC to 218 BC through the
Latin War (light red),
Samnite Wars (pink/orange),
Pyrrhic War (beige), and
First and
Second Punic War (yellow and green).
Cisalpine Gaul (238–146 BC) and
Alpine valleys (16–7 BC) were later added. The
Roman Republic in 500 BC is marked with dark red. Amidst the never-ending wars (from the beginning of the Republic up to the Principate, the doors of the temple of
Janus were closed only twice—when they were open it meant that Rome was at war), Rome had to face a severe major social crisis, the
Conflict of the Orders, a political struggle between the
Plebeians (commoners) and
Patricians (aristocrats) of the ancient
Roman Republic, in which the Plebeians sought political equality with the Patricians. It played a major role in the development of the
Constitution of the Roman Republic. It began in 494 BC, when, while Rome was at war with two neighbouring tribes, the Plebeians all left the city (the first
Plebeian Secession). The result of this first secession was the creation of the office of
Plebeian Tribune, and with it the first acquisition of real power by the Plebeians. According to tradition, Rome became a
republic in 509 BC. However, it took a few centuries for Rome to become the great city of popular imagination. By the 3rd century BC, Rome had become the pre-eminent city of the Italian peninsula. During the
Punic Wars between Rome and the great Mediterranean empire of Carthage (264–146 BC), Rome's stature increased further as it became the capital of an overseas empire for the first time. Beginning in the 2nd century BC, Rome went through a significant population expansion as Italian farmers, driven from their ancestral farmlands by the advent of massive, slave-operated farms called
latifundia, flocked to the city in great numbers. The victory over Carthage in the
First Punic War brought the first two provinces outside the Italian peninsula,
Sicily and
Sardinia. Parts of
Spain (
Hispania) followed, and in the beginning of the 2nd century the Romans got involved in the affairs of the Greek world. By then all Hellenistic kingdoms and the Greek city-states were in decline, exhausted from endless civil wars and relying on mercenary troops. The Romans looked upon the Greek civilisation with great admiration. The Greeks saw Rome as a useful ally in their civil strifes, and it was not long before the Roman legions were invited to intervene in Greece. In less than 50 years the whole of mainland Greece was subdued. The Roman legions crushed the Macedonian phalanx twice, in 197 and 168 BC; in 146 BC the Roman consul
Lucius Mummius razed
Corinth, marking the end of free Greece. The same year
Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the son of
Scipio Africanus, destroyed the city of
Carthage, making it a Roman province. In the following years, Rome continued its conquests in Spain with
Tiberius Gracchus, and it set foot in Asia, when the last king of
Pergamum gave his kingdom to the Roman people. The end of the 2nd century brought another threat, when a great host of
Germanic peoples, namely
Cimbri and
Teutones, crossed the river Rhone and moved to Italy.
Gaius Marius was consul five consecutive times (seven total), and won two decisive battles in 102 and 101 BC. He also reformed the Roman army, giving it such a good reorganisation that it remained unchanged for centuries. The first thirty years of the last century BC were characterised by serious internal problems that threatened the existence of the Republic. The
Social War, between Rome and its allies, and the
Servile Wars (slave uprisings) were hard conflicts, all within Italy, and forced the Romans to change their policy with regards to their allies and subjects. By then Rome had become an extensive power, with great wealth which derived from the conquered people (as tribute, food or manpower, i.e. slaves). The allies of Rome felt bitter since they had fought by the side of the Romans, and yet they were not citizens and shared little in the rewards. Although they lost the war, they finally got what they asked, and by the beginning of the 1st century AD practically all free inhabitants of Italy were Roman citizens. However, the growth of the Imperium Romanum (Roman power) created new problems, and new demands, that the old political system of the Republic, with its annually elected magistrates and its sharing of power, could not solve.
Sulla's civil war and his later dictatorship, the extraordinary commands of
Pompey Magnus, and the first
triumvirate made that clear. In January 49 BC,
Julius Caesar the conqueror of Gaul,
crossed the Rubicon with his legions, occupying Rome and beginning a
civil war with Pompey. In the following years, he vanquished his opponents, and ruled Rome for four years. After his assassination in 44 BC, the Senate tried to reestablish the Republic, but its champions,
Marcus Junius Brutus (descendant of the founder of the republic) and
Gaius Cassius Longinus were defeated by Caesar's lieutenant
Marcus Antonius and Caesar's nephew,
Octavian. The years 44–31 BC mark the struggle for power between Marcus Antonius and Octavian (later known as Augustus). Finally, on 2 September 31 BC, in the Greek promontory of
Actium, the final battle took place in the sea. Octavian was victorious, and became the sole ruler of Rome (and its empire). That date marks the end of the Republic and the beginning of the
Principate.
Roman Empire Early Empire By the end of the Republic, the city of Rome had achieved a grandeur befitting the capital of an empire dominating the whole of the
Mediterranean. It was, at the time, the largest city in the world. Estimates of its peak population range from 450,000 to over 3.5 million people with estimates of 1 to 2 million being most popular with historians. This grandeur increased under
Augustus, who completed Caesar's projects and added many of his own, such as the
Forum of Augustus and the
Ara Pacis. He is said to have remarked that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble (). Augustus's successors sought to emulate his success in part by adding their own contributions to the city. In AD 64, during the reign of
Nero, the
Great Fire of Rome left much of the city destroyed, but in many ways it was used as an excuse for new development. Rome was a subsidised city at the time, with roughly 15 to 25 percent of its grain supply being paid by the central government. Commerce and industry played a smaller role compared to that of other cities like
Alexandria. This meant that Rome had to depend upon goods and production from other parts of the Empire to sustain such a large population. This was mostly paid by taxes that were levied by the Roman government. If it had not been subsidised, Rome would have been significantly smaller. is one of the few monuments of ancient Rome from the 3rd century, and was a gate in the Servian Wall. Two side gates were destroyed in 1447. Rome's population declined after its apex in the 2nd century. At the end of that century, during the reign of
Marcus Aurelius, the
Antonine Plague killed 2,000 people a day. Marcus Aurelius died in 180, his reign being the last of the "
Five Good Emperors" and
Pax Romana. His son
Commodus, who had been co-emperor since AD 177, assumed full imperial power, which is generally associated with the beginning of the decline of the Western Roman Empire. Rome's population was only a fraction of its peak when the
Aurelian Wall was completed in AD 273 (in that year its population was only around 500,000).
Crisis of the third century Starting in the early 3rd century, matters changed. The "
Crisis of the Third Century" defines the disasters and political troubles for the Empire, which nearly collapsed. The new feeling of danger and the menace of barbarian invasions was clearly shown by the decision of Emperor
Aurelian, who at year 273 finished encircling the capital itself with a massive
wall which had a perimeter that measured close to . Rome formally remained capital of the
empire, but emperors spent less and less time there. At the end of 3rd century
Diocletian's political reforms, Rome was deprived of its traditional role of administrative capital of the Empire. Later,
western emperors ruled from
Milan or
Ravenna, or cities in
Gaul. In 330,
Constantine I established a second capital at
Constantinople.
Christianisation Christianity reached Rome during the 1st century AD. For the first two centuries of the
Christian era, Imperial authorities largely viewed Christianity simply as a Jewish sect rather than a distinct religion. No emperor issued general laws against the faith or its Church, and persecutions, such as they were, were carried out under the authority of local government officials. A surviving letter from
Pliny the Younger, governor of Bythinia, to the emperor
Trajan describes his persecution and executions of Christians; Trajan notably responded that Pliny should not seek out Christians nor heed anonymous denunciations, but only punish open Christians who refused to recant.
Suetonius mentions in passing that during the reign of
Nero "punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous
superstition" (). He gives no reason for the punishment.
Tacitus reports that after the
Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, some among the population held Nero responsible and that the emperor attempted to deflect blame onto the Christians. The war against the Jews during Nero's reign, which so destabilised the empire that it led to civil war and Nero's suicide, provided an additional rationale for suppression of this 'Jewish' sect.
Diocletian undertook what was to be the
most severe and last major persecution of Christians, lasting from 303 to 311. Christianity had become too widespread to suppress, and in 313, the
Edict of Milan made tolerance the official policy.
Constantine I (sole ruler 324–337) became the first Christian emperor, and in 380
Theodosius I established Christianity as the official religion.
Under Theodosius, visits to the pagan temples were forbidden, the
eternal fire in the Temple of
Vesta in the
Roman Forum extinguished, the
Vestal Virgins disbanded,
auspices and
witchcraft punished. Theodosius refused to restore the
Altar of Victory in the Senate House, as asked by remaining pagan Senators. The Empire's conversion to Christianity made the
Bishop of Rome (later called the Pope) the senior religious figure in the Western Empire, as officially stated in 380 by the
Edict of Thessalonica. In spite of its increasingly marginal role in the Empire, Rome retained its historic prestige, and this period saw the last wave of construction activity: Constantine's predecessor
Maxentius built buildings such as its basilica in the
Forum, Constantine himself erected the
Arch of Constantine to celebrate his victory over Maxentius, and
Diocletian built the greatest
baths of all. Constantine was also the first patron of official Christian buildings in the city. He donated the
Lateran Palace to the Pope, and built the first great basilica, the
old St. Peter's Basilica.
Germanic invasions and collapse of the Western Empire , outside the walls, was built directly over the tomb of the people's favourite Roman martyr. Still Rome remained one of the strongholds of paganism, led by the aristocrats and senators. However, the new walls did not stop the city being sacked first by
Alaric on 24 August 410, by
Geiseric on 2 June 455, and even by general
Ricimer's unpaid Roman troops (largely composed of barbarians) on 11 July 472. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to an enemy. The previous
sack of Rome had been accomplished by the
Gauls under their leader
Brennus in 387 BC. The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the
decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire.
St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote that "The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken." These sackings of the city astonished all the Roman world. In any case, the damage caused by the sackings may have been overestimated. The population already started to decline from the late 4th century onward, although around the middle of the fifth century it seems that Rome continued to be the most populous city of the two parts of the Empire, with a population of no fewer than 650,000 inhabitants. The decline greatly accelerated following the capture of
Africa Proconsularis by the
Vandals. Many inhabitants now fled as the city no longer could be supplied with grain from Africa from the mid-5th century onward. At the end of the 6th century Rome's population had reduced to around 30,000. Many monuments were being destroyed by the citizens themselves, who stripped stones from closed temples and other precious buildings, and even burned statues to make lime for their personal use. In addition, most of the increasing number of churches were built in this way. For example, the
first Saint Peter's Basilica was erected using spoils from the abandoned
Circus of Nero. This architectural cannibalism was a constant feature of Roman life until the
Renaissance. From the 4th century, imperial edicts against stripping of stones and especially marble were common, but the need for their repetition shows that they were ineffective. Sometimes new churches were created by simply taking advantage of early Pagan temples, while sometimes changing the Pagan god or hero to a corresponding Christian saint or martyr. In this way, the Temple of Romulus and Remus became the basilica of the twin saints
Cosmas and Damian. Later, the
Pantheon, Temple of All Gods, became the church of All Martyrs.
Eastern Roman (Byzantine) restoration , a gate in the
Aurelian Walls, built between AD 271 and AD 275. During the
Gothic Wars of the mid-6th century, Rome was besieged several times by Eastern Roman and Ostrogoth armies. Ostrogoths of Totila entered through this gate in 549, because of the treason of the
Isaurian garrison. , last imperial monument in the
Roman Forum In 480, the last claimant to the title of Western Roman emperor,
Julius Nepos, was murdered and a Roman general of barbarian origin,
Odoacer, declared allegiance to Eastern Roman emperor
Zeno. Despite owing nominal allegiance to
Constantinople, Odoacer and later the
Ostrogoths continued, like the last emperors, to rule Italy as a virtually independent realm from
Ravenna. Meanwhile, the Senate, even though long since stripped of wider powers, continued to administer Rome itself, with the Pope usually coming from a senatorial family. This situation continued until
Theodahad murdered
Amalasuntha, a pro-imperial Gothic queen, and usurped the power in 535. The
Eastern Roman emperor,
Justinian I (reigned 527–565), used this as a pretext to send forces to Italy under his famed general
Belisarius, recapturing the city next year, on 9 December AD 536. In 537–538, the Eastern Romans successfully defended the city in a
year-long siege against the Ostrogothic army, and eventually took Ravenna, too. Belisarius soon recovered the city, but the Ostrogoths retook it in 549. Belisarius was replaced by
Narses, who captured Rome from the Ostrogoths for good in 552, ending the so-called
Gothic Wars which had devastated much of Italy. The continual war around Rome in the 530s and 540s left it in a state of total disrepair – near-abandoned and desolate with much of its lower-lying parts turned into unhealthy marshes as the drainage systems were neglected and the Tiber's embankments fell into disrepair in the course of the latter half of the 6th century. Here,
malaria developed. The
aqueducts, except for one, were not repaired. The population, without imports of grain and oil from Sicily, shrank to less than 50,000 concentrated near the
Tiber and around the
Campus Martius, abandoning those districts without water supply. There is a legend, significant though untrue, that there was a moment where no one remained living in Rome. Justinian I provided grants for the maintenance of public buildings, aqueducts and bridges—though, being mostly drawn from an
Italy dramatically impoverished by the recent wars, these were not always sufficient. He also styled himself the patron of its remaining
scholars,
orators,
physicians and
lawyers in the stated hope that eventually more youths would seek a better
education. After the wars, the Senate was theoretically restored, but under the supervision of the
urban prefect and other officials appointed by, and responsible to, the Eastern Roman authorities in
Ravenna. However, the Pope was now one of the leading religious figures in the entire Byzantine Roman Empire and effectively more powerful locally than either the remaining senators or local Eastern Roman (Byzantine) officials. In practice, local power in Rome devolved to the Pope and, over the next few decades, both much of the remaining possessions of the senatorial aristocracy and the local Byzantine Roman administration in Rome were absorbed by the
Church. The reign of Justinian's nephew and successor
Justin II (reigned 565–578) was marked from the
Italian point of view by the invasion of the
Lombards under
Alboin (568). In capturing the regions of
Benevento,
Lombardy,
Piedmont,
Spoleto and
Tuscany, the invaders effectively restricted Imperial authority to small islands of land surrounding a number of coastal cities, including
Ravenna,
Naples,
Rome and the area of the future
Venice. The one inland city continuing under Eastern Roman control was
Perugia, which provided a repeatedly threatened overland link between Rome and Ravenna. In 578 and again in 580, the Senate, in some of its last recorded acts, had to ask for the support of
Tiberius II Constantine (reigned 578–582) against the approaching Dukes,
Faroald I of Spoleto and
Zotto of
Benevento.
Maurice (reigned 582–602) added a new factor in the continuing conflict by creating an alliance with
Childebert II of Austrasia (reigned 575–595). The armies of the
Frankish King invaded the Lombard territories in 584, 585, 588 and 590. Rome had suffered badly from a disastrous flood of the Tiber in 589, described by Paul the Deacon as a "swarm of snakes." This was followed by a plague in 590, which was notable for the
legend of the
angel seen, while the newly elected
Pope Gregory I (term 590–604) was passing in procession by
Hadrian's Tomb, to hover over the building and to sheathe his flaming sword as a sign that the pestilence was about to cease. The city was safe from capture at least.
Agilulf, however, the new Lombard King (reigned 591 to c. 616), managed to secure peace with
Childebert, reorganised his territories and resumed activities against both Naples and Rome by 592. With the Emperor preoccupied with wars in the eastern borders and the various succeeding
Exarchs unable to secure Rome from invasion, Gregory took personal initiative in starting negotiations for a
peace treaty. This was completed in the autumn of 598—later recognised by Maurice—lasting until the end of his reign. The position of the
Bishop of Rome was further strengthened under the usurper
Phocas (reigned 602–610). Phocas recognised his primacy over that of the
Patriarch of Constantinople and even decreed
Pope Boniface III (607) to be "the head of all the
Churches". Phocas's reign saw the erection of the last imperial monument in the
Roman Forum, the
column bearing his name. He also gave the Pope the
Pantheon, at the time closed for centuries, and thus probably saved it from destruction. During the 7th century, an influx of both Byzantine Roman officials and churchmen from elsewhere in the empire made both the local lay aristocracy and Church leadership largely Greek speaking. The population of Rome, a magnet for pilgrims, may have increased to 90,000. Eleven of thirteen popes between 678 and 752 were of Greek or Syrian descent. However, the strong Byzantine Roman cultural influence did not always lead to political harmony between Rome and Constantinople. In the controversy over
Monothelitism, popes found themselves under severe pressure (sometimes amounting to physical force) when they failed to keep in step with Constantinople's shifting theological positions. In 653,
Pope Martin I was deported to Constantinople and, after a show trial, exiled to the Crimea, where he died. Then, in 663, Rome had its first imperial visit for two centuries, by
Constans II—its worst disaster since the Gothic Wars when the Emperor proceeded to strip Rome of metal, including that from buildings and statues, to provide armament materials for use against the
Saracens. However, for the next half century, despite further tensions, Rome and the Papacy continued to prefer continued Byzantine Roman rule: in part because the alternative was Lombard rule, and in part because Rome's food was largely coming from Papal estates elsewhere in the Empire, particularly
Sicily. ==Medieval Rome==