A Little City Become Empire
Roman civilization started with the foundation of the city of Rome in 753 BC. Rome was on the Tiber River in the Italian Peninsula. At that time this territory was inhabited by different peoples, as you can see in the map below.
The history of the Roman origin is mixed with legend, as we will see in the next section. The only truth we know is that in the middle of the eighth century BC some tribes of Latin origin settled around the hills near the Tiber River.
The growth of the Roman Empire was a long process. Rome conquered the entire Italian Peninsula between 500 and 250 BC.
Think about it
Between the 1st and 2nd
centuries AD, Roman territories stretched north to south from the British Isles
to the Sahara Desert, and east to west from Mesopotamia to the Iberian
Peninsula. The Roman Empire included people of many different ethnic groups and was organised into provinces, which had to pay taxes to Rome.
Activity
Complete this puzzle to get familiar with the Roman Empire Geography.