According to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC on the banks of the Tiber about from the sea at
Ostia.
Tiber Island, in the center of the river between
Trastevere and the ancient city center, was the site of an important ancient
ford and was later bridged. Legend says Rome's founders, the twin brothers
Romulus and Remus, were abandoned on its waters, where they were rescued by the she-wolf, Lupa. The river marked the boundary between the lands of the
Etruscans to the west, the
Sabines to the east and the
Latins to the south.
Benito Mussolini, born in
Romagna, adjusted the boundary between
Tuscany and
Emilia-Romagna, so that the springs of the Tiber would lie in Romagna. The Tiber was critically important to Roman trade and commerce, as ships could reach as far as upriver; some evidence indicates that it was used to ship grain from the Val Teverina as long ago as the fifth century BC. These may have been sold and developed about a century later. The heavy sedimentation of the river made maintaining Ostia difficult, prompting the emperors
Claudius and
Trajan to establish a new port on the Fiumicino in the first century AD. They built a new road, the
Via Portuensis, to connect Rome with Fiumicino, leaving the city by
Porta Portese (the port gate). Both ports were eventually abandoned due to silting. Several
popes attempted to improve navigation on the Tiber in the 17th and 18th centuries, with extensive dredging continuing into the 19th century. Trade was boosted for a while, but by the 20th century, silting had resulted in the river only being navigable as far as Rome. The river is now confined between high stone embankments, which were begun in 1876. Within the city, the riverbanks are lined by boulevards known as
lungoteveri, streets "along the Tiber". Because the river is identified with Rome, the terms "swimming the Tiber" or "crossing the Tiber" have come to be the shorthand term for converting to
Roman Catholicism. A Catholic who converts to Protestantism, in particular Anglicanism, is referred to as "swimming the
Thames" or "crossing the Thames". In ancient Rome,
executed criminals were thrown into the Tiber. People executed at the
Gemonian stairs were thrown in the Tiber during the later part of the reign of the emperor
Tiberius. This practice continued over the centuries. For example, the corpse of
Pope Formosus was thrown into the Tiber after the infamous
Cadaver Synod held in 897. ==Bridges==