W
ith the rise and triumph of Rome, a single government ruled, for the first time in history, from the
Strait of Gibraltar to the Nile, from the Tigris and Euphrates to the Rhine, Danube, Thames and
beyond (MAP10-1). Within the Roman Empire’s borders lived millions of people of numerous races,
religions, tongues, and cultures: Britons and Gauls, Greeks and Egyptians, Africans and Syrians, Jews and
Christians, to name but a few. Of all the ancient civilizations, the Roman most closely approximated
today’s world in its multicultural character.
Roman monuments of art and architecture, spread throughout the vast territory the Romans gov-
erned, are the most conspicuous and numerous of all the remains of ancient civilization. In Europe, the
Middle East, and Africa today, Roman temples and basilicas have an afterlife as churches. The powerful
concrete vaults of ancient Roman buildings form the cores of modern houses, stores, restaurants, factories,
and museums. Bullfights, sports events, operas, and rock concerts are staged in Roman amphitheaters.
Ships dock in what were once Roman ports, and Western Europe’s highway system still closely follows the
routes of Roman roads.
Ancient Rome also lives on in the Western world in concepts of law and government, in languages, in
the calendar—even in the coins used daily. Roman art speaks in a language almost every Western viewer
can readily understand. Its diversity and eclecticism foreshadowed the modern world. The Roman use of
art, especially portraits and narrative reliefs, to manipulate public opinion is similar to the carefully crafted
imagery of contemporary political campaigns. And the Roman mastery of concrete construction began
an architectural revolution still felt today.
The center of the far-flung Roman Empire was the city on the Tiber River that, according to legend,
Romulus and his twin brother Remus founded on April 21, 753 BCE. Their Rome consisted only of small
huts clustered together on the Palatine Hill (FIG. 10-2,no. 3) overlooking what was then uninhabited
marshland. In the Archaic period, Rome was essentially an Etruscan city, both politically and culturally.
Its greatest shrine, the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Best and Greatest) on the Capitoline Hill, was
built by an Etruscan king, designed by an Etruscan architect, made of wood and mud brick in the Etruscan
manner, and decorated with terracotta statuary created by an Etruscan sculptor (see “Etruscan Artists in
Rome,” Chapter 9, page 226).10