According to legend, it was the first king, Romulus, who organized the city by the Curiae. The Ramnes were divided into ten Curiae, the Tities were divided into ten Curiae, and the Luceres were divided into ten Curiae. In an attempt to add a level of organization to the city, these Patrician families were divided into units called " Curia". The families that belonged to one of these ethnic groups were the original " Patrician" families. The origins of the third group, the Luceres, was as unknown to ancient historians as it is to us today, although it may have represented Etruscan settlements. The second group was called the Tities, and probably represented a Sabine settlement that was integrated into the larger community. This group, what we know of as the Latins, inhabited the original hill settlements. By tradition, the first group was called the Ramnes. The early Romans were divided into three ethnic groups. The city fought several wars of conquest, the port of Ostia was founded, and the Tiber River was bridged. During this time, the political foundations of the city were laid, the city was organized into " Curia", the religious institutions were established, and the senate and the assemblies evolved into formal institutions. The first legendary epoch saw the reigns of the first four legendary kings. It is likely that, before the founding of the republic, Rome actually had been ruled by a succession of kings. While the specific legends were probably not true, they were likely based on historical fact. ![]() ![]() The period of the kingdom can be divided into two epochs based on the legends. Īeneas, whom the Romans believed Romulus and Remus descended from, fleeing from the burning city of Troy Around this date, there was probably expansion to the south of the city, and along the left bank of the Tiber to its mouth. At a very early date, these settlements fused to form the city of Rome. At the top of each hill stood a citadel, which was used for the protection of the inhabitants. The first independent settlement was probably on the Palatine hill, while independent settlements also formed on the Quirinal, Esquiline, Capitoline, and Caelian hills. The original Roman settlement was probably located on the left bank of the Tiber River, about fifteen miles (24 km) from the mouth of the river. At some point, however, the seat of this confederacy shifted from Alba Longa to Rome. Long before the traditional founding of the city of Rome, a group of pagi had aggregated into a confederacy, with the city of Alba Longa constituting their common meeting place. Each pagi was either purely democratic, or purely aristocratic. The simplest Indo-European political community consisted of a small number of clans known as a pagi, which aggregated together around a fortified point known as an arx. Each clan governed itself either democratically, where each member was entitled to a vote, or aristocratically, where a group of clan elders decided matters. Each clan was a self-governing unit, and each member of a particular clan shared the same rights, and had the same responsibilities, as did the other members. Each clan was an aggregation of families under a common living male patriarch, called a Patre (Latin: "father"). The early Romans were organized by hereditary divisions called gens, or "clans", and until a very late date, these divisions were common to most Indo-Europeans. ![]() Thus, the superstructure of the Roman constitution was ultimately of Greek origin. These settlers carried Greek ideals with them, and often kept in contact with the Greek mainland. In the centuries before the legendary founding of the city of Rome, Greek settlers had colonized much of the Mediterranean world. These Greek constitutional principles probably came to Rome through the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in southern Italy. The arrangement was similar to the constitutional arrangements found in contemporary Greek city-states (such as Athens or Sparta). The king did have two rudimentary checks on his authority, which took the form of a board of elders (the " Roman Senate") and a popular assembly (the " Curiate Assembly"). The constitution of the Roman Kingdom vested the sovereign power in the King of Rome. The history of the Constitution of the Roman Kingdom is a study of the ancient Roman Kingdom that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the city of Rome in 753 BC to the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom in 510 BC.
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