The Kings of Rome - 753 BCE - 509 BCE

Initially, Rome was ruled by kings. Roman history tells of seven kings starting with Romulus in 753 BCE. Each king was elected by the people for life. The king was very powerful and acted as the leader of both the government and the Roman religion. Under the king was a group of men called the senate. Senators had little real power during the Kingdom of Rome. They served more as advisors to the king and helped him to run the government.

Romulus

• In 753 BCE, Romulus began building the city upon the Palatine Hill. 

• After founding and naming Rome, as the story goes, he permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen, without distinction. 

• To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighbouring tribes to a festival in Rome where he abducted the young women amongst them (this is known as The Rape of the Sabine Women). 

After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romulus shared the kingship with the Sabine king, Titus Tatius. 

Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the Roman Senate as an advisory council to the king. These men were called patres (from pater: father, head), and their descendants became the patricians. 

He also established voting, and class structures that would define sociopolitical proceedings throughout the Roman Republic and Empire.

Each king of Rome is credited either with establishing a key Roman tradition, or constructing an important building. None of the seven kings were known to be dynasts, and no reference is made to the hereditary nature of kingdom until after the fifth king, Tarquinius Priscus.

The kingdom of Rome is considered an absolute monarchy because the king of Rome possessed absolute power over the people, and the Senate provided only a weak, oligarchic counterbalance to his power, primarily exercising only minor administrative powers. 

Despite this, Roman kings, with the exception of Romulus, were elected by citizens of Rome who occupied the Curiate Assembly. There, members would vote on candidates that had been nominated by a chosen member of the Senate, called an interrex. Candidates could be chosen from any source.

During the Republican period of Rome, political offices and institutions were designed to prevent any one man from becoming too powerful. These systems began to break down in the first century BCE.

Augustus established an autocratic form of government, where he was the sole ruler and made all important decisions. Although we refer to him as Rome’s first emperor, Augustus never took the title of king or emperor, nor did his successors; they preferred to call themselves princeps, first citizen. This choice of title maintained the appearance of limited power that had been so important under the Republic.

Augustus and his successors worked hard to maintain much of the image of the Republic while, in practice, they exercised something close to absolute power. Under the Republic, power was shared among many officeholders and limited to short terms. Augustus altered this system by taking many of the offices and their powers for himself while maintaining the idea that these were still separate offices that could, at least in theory, be transferred to someone else.

The importance of roads to the Roman Empire

During the glory days of the Roman Empire, roads from all over Europe led to Rome. These roads allowed the emperor to spread Roman ideas and laws throughout the vast empire. With the system of roads, the emperor could send messengers to carry instructions to the regional governors. Roads also allowed goods and taxes to travel across the empire into Rome. These goods and taxes kept the powerful Roman Empire running. More important, perhaps, was that Roman soldiers used the roads. Their job was to enforce the law and put down any rebellions or attacks on the empire.

Decline of the Roman Empire

While the roads helped hold the Roman Empire together, they also played a role in its decline. Other armies could use these roads, too. The same roads that carried the Roman army out of Rome made it easy for outside invaders to march into the city. Beginning around 200 CE, some non-Roman groups of people wanted to do just that.

At this time, Rome was still a vast and powerful empire, but it faced some serious problems. Powerful Roman generals were fighting each other. Each general wanted to gain enough power to become emperor. This conflict was harmful for the health and well-being of the empire. The Roman government's main purpose was to provide law and order so that people could conduct business and live in safety. However, the fights among the generals undermined Roman law and order. The warring interrupted business, trade, and government.

In addition, this large empire needed money to build roads, bridges, and buildings, as well as to pay administrators and soldiers. Over time, it became impossible to pay for everything. Managing the Roman Empire well became impossible.

People on the Move

The Roman Empire grew weak enough in the 200s and 300s that it began to attract the attention of various groups that lived on the edges of the empire, or outside its boundaries. Rome had conquered some of these groups of people and had sent armies to guard the borders against others.

The Romans, who mostly spoke Greek and Latin, looked down on these people who spoke different languages and had different cultures. They labelled them "barbarians." The word barbarian comes from a Greek word meaning foreigner. The Romans dismissed these non-Greek- and non-Latin-speaking barbarians as primitive, uncultured, and inferior. However, many barbarian groups were not uncivilized. For example, many had skilled metal workers who created beautiful art, jewellery and coins.

The Romans referred to a number of groups as barbarians, including the Angles, the Saxons, the Huns, the Vandals, and the Goths (including the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths). Several of these groups of people were Germanic. They lived in northern Europe. The Angles and the Saxons lived in what is now Denmark and northern Germany. They eventually drove the Romans out of England. The Goths and Vandals attacked and eventually sacked the city of Rome itself. From the Roman point of view, the Vandals caused so much destruction that, even today, we still use the word vandalism to describe acts of destruction.

However, the barbarians who left the longest memory of fear and destruction were not Germanic people. They were a nomadic people from central Asia called the Huns. The Huns lived on the steppe, a flat, grassy, treeless area that stretched across what is now Ukraine, southern Russia, and Kazakhstan.

The Huns raised sheep, cattle, and horses on the steppe. As the seasons changed, and the available grasses dried up, the groups moved in search of new grazing lands for their livestock. The Huns were skilled horsemen and experts with bows and arrows. As young children, they learned to ride horses. So good was their horsemanship that one Roman historian described the Huns this way: "They are unable to put their feet on the ground. They live and sleep on their horses." In the 300s, the Huns, tired of trying to survive on the steppe, began to move westward across Europe. Thanks to their skill in warfare and their excellent horsemanship, the Huns easily conquered other groups of people and moved onto their land.

The End of the Roman Empire

Eventually, the Roman Empire was split into two parts-the Western Roman Empire centred in Rome and the Eastern Roman Empire ruled from Constantinople. Finally, in 476, a German king named Odoacer (/oe*doh*ae*ser/) attacked Rome and killed the emperor. Since no new emperor was named, the date 476 is sometimes used to mark the end of the Western Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire, which was not conquered, lasted for almost another thousand years.