Rome Information
Who hasn't heard about Rome Italy~The Eternal City? Who hasn't thought about the history of the city and the many lives that lived throughout its history?
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The following information taken in part from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome
Location
Rome is in the Lazio region of Central Italy at the confluence of the Aniene and Tiber (Italian: Tevere) rivers. Although the city center is about 24 kilometers inland from the Tyrrhenian Sea, the city territory extends to the very shore, where the south-western Ostia district is located. The altitude of the central part of Rome ranges from 13 m (43 ft) above sea level (in Piazza del Popolo) to 120 m (394 ft) above sea level (the peak of Monte Mario).[citation needed] The comune of Rome covers an overall area of about 1,285 km² (496 sq mi), including many green areas.
From founding to Empire
According to a legend, the city of Rome was founded by the twins Romulus and Remus[10] on April 21, 753 BC, and archaeological evidence supports the theory that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built in the area of the future Roman Forum, coalescing into a city in the 8th century BC. The city developed into the capital of the Roman Kingdom (ruled by a succession of seven kings, according to tradition), Roman Republic (from 510 BC, governed by the Senate), but finally the Roman Empire (from 27 BC, ruled by an Emperor); this success depended on military conquest, commercial predominance, as well as selective assimilation of neighboring civilizations, most notably the Etruscans and Greeks.
The Pantheon
From the foundation of Rome in 753 BC, the City of Rome was undefeated militarily (though losing occasional battles), until 386 BC, when Rome was occupied by the Celts (one of the three main Gallic tribes), and then recovered by Romans in the same year. Livy, Book 5. According to the history, the Gauls offered to deliver Rome back to its people for a thousand pounds of gold, but the Romans refused, preferring to take back their city by force of arms rather than ever admitting defeat.
The Trevi Fountain
From founding to Empire
With the reign of Constantine I, the Bishop of Rome gained political as well as religious importance, eventually becoming known as the Pope and establishing Rome as the center of the Catholic Church. After the Sack of Rome in AD 410 by Alaric I and the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, Rome alternated between Byzantine and plundering by Germanic barbarians. Its population declined to a mere 20,000 during the Early Middle Ages, reducing the sprawling city to groups of inhabited buildings interspersed among large areas of ruins and vegetation. Rome remained nominally part of the Byzantine Empire rule until AD 751 when the Lombards finally abolished the Exarchate of Ravenna. In 756, Pepin the Short gave the pope temporal jurisdiction over Rome and surrounding areas, thus creating the Papal States.
The Roman Forum and The Colosseum
St. Peter's Basilica & The Vatican
20th century Rome
After a victorious World War I, Rome witnessed the rise to power of Italian fascism guided by Benito Mussolini, who marched on the city in 1922, eventually declared a new Empire and allied Italy with Nazi Germany. This was a period of rapid growth in population, from the 212,000 people at the time of unification to more than 1,000,000, but this trend was halted by World War II, during which Rome was damaged by both Allied forces bombing and Nazi occupation; after the execution of Mussolini and the end of the war, a 1946 referendum abolished the monarchy in favor of the Italian Republic.
Monument of St. Peter atop Vatican Square
Fountain at the Piazza Navona
Present Day Rome
Rome grew momentously after the war, as one of the driving forces behind the "Italian economic miracle" of post-war reconstruction and modernization. It became a fashionable city in the 1950s and early 1960s, the years of la dolce vita ("the sweet life"), and a new rising trend in population continued till the mid-1980s, when the comune had more than 2,800,000 residents; after that, population started to slowly decline as more residents moved to nearby comuni; this has been attributed to their perceiving a decrease in the quality of life, especially because of the continuously jammed traffic and the worsening pollution it brings about. In recent years the trend has changed again and the population is increasing again, thanks also to the cultural and economic dynamism of the city and immigration from many different countries.
John with Marforio (c. 2AD) at Museo Capitolini