THE history of Rome is in many respects similar to that of the nations that had gone before. With Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Greece the power and influence appeared to emanate principally from one dominant center, usually, of course, a city, such as Babylon, Persepolis, or Athens. Indeed, in ancient times the power of a nation was not so much associated with the territorial extent of its country as with the concentrated force of the military power attached to the capital city: and it was exactly thus with Rome.
Six or seven hundred years before the Christian era the peoples who occupied the remarkable peninsula which projects so far from Southern Europe into the Mediterranean Sea, were made up of various strangely-differing types: (1) the Gauls in the north: (2) the Ligurians in the western division of the land: (3) the Etruscans, who occupied territory which was bounded on the south and on the east by the River Tiber.
It is not our purpose to write at any length concerning the races that occupied the peninsula, but we would say that the study of the early history of the Etruscans is full of the deepest interest, and tends, in our belief, to explain the wonderful progress in civilization of the nation that eventually exercised such a mighty influence in the world. The manners and customs of the Etruscans were totally different from the rest of the various tribes by which they were surrounded: and it is surely worthy of note that even when Rome itself was scarcely known as a city these people were governed upon perfectly equitable and civilized principles, and there is no doubt that the great influence of the Etruscans in matters of religion, and in the ordinary civil administration of the State, the Romans were much indebted to these early inhabitants, and, indeed, also to the Greeks, who had planted many colonies all along the coast of Southern Italy.
There were various tribes, such as the Umbrians, the Volscians, the Samnites, the Latins, and, indeed, other bodies, all being governed quite independently, and very frequently being in open hostility to each other, and at the period of which we are writing, about 550 B.C., the Latins, who became the dominant power, were really quite an insignificant race, whereas the Etruscan power was the foremost and the most influential in every respect.
Such, briefly stated, was the position of the Italian peninsula about the time when any reliable history concerning the people begins.
The origin of the great empires of the world has more or less been enshrouded in legend and uncertainty, and it was so with Rome. We can pass over the stories connected with the childhood of Romulus and Remus, but no doubt there is truth in the tradition that they became the first kings. Anyway, it is pretty clear that Ascanius built a city and called it Alba Longa, that is, “the Long White City,” but Romulus and Remus loved the Tiber, on which river it was said they had been placed in a cradle, and were carried by the current to the foot of the Palatine Hill: on this spot, therefore, they determined to found a city, and if there is any truth in all that has been told in song and story, this was the real starting point in its marvelous history.