The area around the Forum Romanum contained a number of places linked to rites and activities that Roman historians later associated with kingship. Around 625 AC, the Regia was constructed along the same general pattern as the “palaces” at Murlo and Acquarossa, with small chambers surrounding a central courtyard. The building had a clear religious function. In it, shrines to Mars and Ops Consiva, the gods of war and of wealth, served as the focus of a range of sacred tasks performed by the kings and their priestly successors. In the sixth century, the Regia probably formed part of a larger complex that included the temple of Vesta, containing the sacred hearth of the city, and the domus publica, later the house of the leader of an important college of priests and quite possibly the sixth-century dwelling of the kings.From the middle of the fourth century, they clearly began to develop and elaborate the political system of the classical Roman Republic, which would govern the city and eventually much of the Mediterranean world for cen-turies. It was the same period, too, which saw Rome’s domination of Italy firmly established, as well as the formation of those institutions and practices that would ensure its leadership not only there, but also in due course likewise across the Mediterranean.
Early in the fourth century, a Roman victory made the city preeminent in its region. Around 396, the Romans succeeded in capturing the Etruscan city of Veii after a siege. Veii, about ten miles (16 km) from Rome, was a wealthy and powerful city state, which, like Rome, dominated some of its smaller neighbors. In the fifth century, Rome and Veii had fought over land and over the leadership of smaller cities, without either gaining a distinct advantage. The Romans marked their victory by eliminating Veii as an autonomous city-state. Veii’s land became Roman territory, and some of its citizens became Roman citizens. Rome also enslaved or expelled the remainder of the population, and Roman officials settled some Roman citizens on parts of Veii’s territory that were made vacant as a result. Although the site of the city itself remained inhabited, it no longer possessed a full range of civic institutions, and functioned instead as a center for Romans dwelling nearby.
Rome’s victory was matched by a defeat. Around 387, a large army of Gauls that had been plundering in the upper Tiber Valley moved down the river toward Rome, defeated a Roman army, and entered the city. In the opening decades of the fourth century, Gauls dominated the valley of the Po River and the northern por¬tion of the plains along the eastern coast of the Italian peninsula. Their origins lie across the Alps in central Europe, and their advance into northern Italy formed part of a larger movement that would carry Gallic tribes to the margins of the Greek world, and even (in the third century) into Asia Minor. By the end of the fifth century, the Etruscan cities north of the Apennines were hard-pressed by Gauls, and some may already have been wiped out.
The Gauls did not have an urban culture and the social and political organization that went with it. Instead, their political life centered on aristocratic families and their armed retainers. Prominent leaders could assemble large forces, and they faced relatively few communal restraints on their actions. Gallic warbands, some apparently fairly large, would raid across the Apennines for centuries. Cities of northeast Etruria and the upper Tiber Valley were especially vulnerable to them, but their southern neighbors were not immune either. Such Gallic raids would persist, with decreasing frequency, well into the third century. Greeks and Romans would long continue to regard Gauls as uncivilized, warlike, predatory, and expansionistic. The Gallic sack of Rome did not have as long-lasting effects as the Roman capture of Veii, but it did leave its mark, and reports of Gallic invasions could lead to panic in Rome for centuries thereafter.
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