The early history of Rome, such as it can be reconstructed from the legends recounted notably by Livy, a historian of the Augustan period, divides into two periods, the first under the rule of four Latin kings (ca. 753—600 BC), the second under the rule of three Etruscan kings (ca. 600—509 BC). According to legend, Rome was founded by Romulus and his twin brother Remus on April 21, 753 BC. As happened to such other leaders as Moses and Telephos (the mythical founder of Pergamon), Romulus and Remus, grandsons of a deposed king of Alba Longa and potential threats to the usurper, were set adrift in a basket into the river. Instead of overturning and drowning, the babies were rescued and reared to a glorious destiny. In this case, the rescuer was a she-wolf, who nursed the boys at her own breasts until a herdsman and his wife took the children under their care. From the early third century BC the Romans maintained a statue of a she-wolf to commemorate the miraculous event, and indeed kept wolves in cages on the Capitoline hill. In adulthood, Romulus and Remus restored their grandfather to his throne, then founded a new city nearby: Rome (Roma, in Latin). Romulus killed his brother in an argument, but went on to rule. In the fabrication of the legend, the names of the city and its founder have mingled; which came first, Roma or Romulus, is not known.
Archaeology contributes an architectural and topographical reality to this mythological picture of early Rome. The earliest known settlement was on the Palatine hill. Foundations of huts have been discovered, with holes to support the posts of the simple houses cut into the rock. Houses were simple: one room, with walls of wattle-and-daub and vertical poles supporting a thatched roof. They recall the houses of Iron Age Greece, and fit well with our picture of other Iron Age villages in central Italy. Further evidence for the appearance of these houses comes from hut urns, small pots in the shape of huts that held the ashes of a cremated body (such as Figure 19.8). The steeply sloped roofs of these urns include a hole for the evacuation of smoke, and suggest that the roofing material was straw or thatch. Such a hut stood on the slope of the Palatine in later centuries. Carefully maintained until the fourth century AD, often restored, the Casa Romuli (House of Romulus) provided a conscious reminder of the humble origins of the city.
Figure 20.1 City plan, Rome, Republican period
The area at the foot of the north slope of the Palatine Hill was destined to be the site of the Roman Forum. In earliest times, however, this low-lying, swampy terrain served as a burial ground. In the eighth century BC, cremation was practiced. The ashes of the deceased were placed inside hut urns or small pots; these were in turn put in a larger pot, itself set inside a circular pit dug from the ground.
Changes in the town’s material culture occurred in the sixth century BC, the century of Etruscan rule. The Etruscans, noted for their skills at regulating water, drained the swamps and channeled the streams that fed them, especially in the area that would become the center of the town, the Forum Romanum. Above, on the Capitoline hill that lies adjacent to the Palatine, they built their citadel and their principal temple, dedicated to the god Jupiter. The possible remains of this early Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, or Jupiter Optimus Maximus, have been discovered under the Renaissance Palazzo dei Conservatori and the adjacent Palazzo Caf-farelli on the south side of the Campido-glio, the square designed by Michelangelo for the twin summits of the Capitoline Hill. Because the ruins are scanty, the appearance of the temple cannot be reconstructed with certainty (Figure 20.2). We do know it had three cellas in typical Etruscan fashion, with Jupiter housed in the center, Juno and Minerva on either side. These three became the chief divinities of the Roman state. An Etruscan artist, Vulca of Veii, was commissioned during the reign of Tarquin the Proud (530—509 bc) to make a terracotta cult statue of a standing Jupiter, painted red, wielding a thunderbolt. This cult statue has vanished, but the terracotta figures from the Portonaccio Sanctuary at Veii (see Figures 19.11 and 19.12 ), roughly contemporaneous, give some idea of its appearance. The temple would later burn twice, in 83 BC and AD 80, to be rebuilt magnificently each time, with the original layout piously preserved.
Figure 20.2 Plan (reconstruction), Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Rome
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