Earliest history

There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from at least 14,000 years, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.[5] Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to at least 10,000 years of human presence. The power of the well known tale of Rome's legendary foundation tends also to deflect attention from its actual, and much more ancient, origins.
[edit]Legend of Rome


Capitoline Wolf suckles the infant twins Romulus and Remus.
The origin of the city's name is thought to be that of the reputed founder and first ruler, the legendary Romulus.[6] It is said that Romulus and his twin brother Remus, orphans who were suckled and raised by a she-wolf, decided to build a city. After an argument, Romulus killed Remus and named the city Rome, after himself. After founding and naming (as the story goes) Rome, he permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen without distinction.[7] To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighboring tribes to a festival in Rome where he abducted the young women from amongst them (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.[8] Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the Roman senate as an advisory council to the king. These men he called patres, and their descendants became the patricians. He created three centuries of equites named Ramnes (meaning Romans), Tities (after the Sabine king) and a third called 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.[9]
More recently, attempts have been made to find a linguistic root for the name Rome. Possibilities include derivation from the Greek Ῥώμη, meaning bravery, courage;[10] possibly the connection is with a root *rum-, "teat", with a theoretical reference to the totem wolf that adopted and suckled the cognately-named twins. The Etruscan name of the city seems to have been Ruma.[11] Compare also Rumon, former name of the Tiber River. Its further etymology, as with that of most Etruscan words, remains unknown. The Basque scholar Manuel de Larramendi thought that the origin could be related to the Basque language word orma (modern Basque kirreal), "wall". Thomas G. Tucker's Concise Etymological Dictionary of Latin (1931) suggests the name is most probably from *urobsma (cf. urbs, robur) and otherwise, "but less likely" from *urosma "hill" (cf. Skt. varsman- "height, point," Old Slavonic врьхъ / vr'h" - "top, summit", Russ. верхом / verkhom - "in the upper area; on horseback", Lith. virsus "upper").