The Roman Empire was perhaps the most significant political entity in the history of the Western world prior to the nineteenth century, and possibly ever. It included all of Western Europe, from present-day Scotland to Gibraltar and from the Rhineland to the Black Sea, Turkey and all of North Africa, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sahara Desert. In fact, every shore upon which the Mediterranean waters lapped was Roman territory.
Roman political organization, Roman literature and even the Roman alphabet, greatly influenced the succeeding cultures of Europe and the Americas, and these influences can still be seen today. Yet, before there was a Roman Empire, there was Rome, a city on the western side of the Italian peninsula. Legend has long held that Rome was founded in 753 BC, a fact confirmed by archaeological evidence.
According to legend, there were two brothers, Amulius (a-myoo'le-os) and his brother Ascanius (as-kan'-g-os), who was the king of Lavinicum (lo-vt nt-cum) (now central Italy). Amulius killed his brother and his brother's sons and claimed the throne. This plan succeeded until Ascanius' daughter, Rhea Silvia, had twin sons. Amulius ordered her jailed and the twins thrown into the Tiber River. They survived, however, and came to be nursed by a she-wolf. A herdsmen found the boys and "rescued" them from the wolf. He and his wife named them Romulus and Remus, and raised them to adulthood. In, or about, 753 BC, the two brothers founded a new city on the Palatine Hill, now located in modern Rome. However, they had many quarrels, which ultimately led to Romulus killing his brother.
The city, now named Rome after Romulus, grew in importance, and Romulus undertook a policy of empire-building that involved annexing adjacent lands by coercion or conquest. This was the beginning of an empire that would last a thousand years.
According to legend, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were nursed as children by a female wolf.