1. FROM THE FOUNDATION OF ROME TO THE END OF REPUBLIC (VII sec. b.C. - 27 b.C.)

The legends about the foundation of Rome are several, but here it is convenient to recall the most important, that is to say the legends which have created an image of Rome perceptible through the art and the literature, the Roman monuments, and not less thought the political propaganda of that time. The legends we refer are three:

a) According to some greek writers, the Greek Evandro founded Rome before the war of Troy (XII century b.C.)
b) According to other sources, Rome has been founded by the Trojan Enea, which had run away from the defeat of his city (1193-1154 b.C.). This myth obtained a great popularity thanks to the "Eneide" written by Virgilio.
c) The famous tale of Romolo and Remo which, brought up by the she-wolf, founded the city on the Palatino hill. This legend established the hypothetical date of the foundation of the city: the 21^th April 754/753 AD

Beyond the legends the foundation of Rome had no exact date, it was rather a long process which can be hardly reconstructed. But surely the city started its process of modernization thanks to the Etruscan monarchies, which went down in history thanks to the myth (the seven Kings of Rome).
The Etruscan domination allowed Rome to have a new efficient political, cultural and religious system, a new urbanistic order, a new agricultural and military technologies. This situation continued until the Romans found their identity which allowed them not to have foreign kings and to fond their political regime: the Republic.

The Romans called Res Publica (literally "the public thing") an organisation based on the wealth, which was strongly oligarchic and hierarchic.
Thanks to this new political, cultural and social system Rome began soon to enlarge their interests, first in the regional territory, than in the national one, and at last in the European one.

Rome began its expansion fighting with other populations which occupied the Italian peninsula: in the South against the Samniti (IV-III century b.C.), and against the Greek colonies (III century b.C.); in the North against the Etruscans and the Gauls (V-IV century b.C.).
We remind. for example, the foundation (or as the Romans said "Deduzione") of some importan colonies for the strategic control of the peninsula: the couple of colonies Cremona-Placentia (Piacenza) has been founded in in 218 b.C.; Parma-Mutina (Modena) has been founded in 183 b.C..

During this frenetic expansion Rome fought farther and farther enemies so, after the conquest of a great part of the Italian peninsula the Romans began to clash Carthage; the Romans undertook with it three wars (the punic wars 264-146 b.C.).
These wars (together with the Greek and the Macedonian one, of III-II centuries b.C.) upset the pre-existent Roman administrative system: Rome was no more the main city of a little region, but an hegemonic power in the Mediterranean sea, moreover the Italics, had hardly supported the strains of the Roman state, now asked for their retribution.

Stages of the expansion of Roman Republic

2. THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND ITS APOGEE (27 a.C - 235 d.C.)

The Roman Empire

3. CRISIS AND DECLINE OF ROMAN EMPIRE (235- 476 AD)

Until the IV century the Roman Empire went through a period of political and military crisis, since the III century the Roman expansionism stopped and the wars began to be defences rather than conquests. This brought, in long time, to the crisis of a politic totally based on war and expansionism.

After this period of crisis, in which a lot of emperors followed one another without a dynastic continuity, there was a partial resumption thanks to the administrative reform of Diocletian: in the IV century he divided the Empire in four regions (the so-called "Tetrarchy") governed by two Caesars and two Augustus. In this period Milan took on the role of Capital (together with Nicomedia, Sirmium Treviri).

The model of Diocletian didn't last longer than his deposition; the power was, in fact, reunified by Constantine, who however, after his death, settled  a split healed never again between Western Empire and Eastern Empire.

The Western Empire finished its history in 476, when Odoacre, the king of Eruli,  deposed the last Roman emperor, Romolo Augustolo, and sent his insignias to Constantinople.
The Eastern Empire undertook very soon a process of assimilation to East (it was called Byzantium) and finished its history in 1453, when Mohammed II rushed into the city and changed it in Istanbul.

The date of the fall of Western Empire could be moved later, if we consider that, after 476, the Easter Emperor Zenone engaged the Ostrogoths of Teoderic to drive out Odoacre from Italy. During the Ostrogothic domination the city of Ravenna acquired a great importance, because it became the capital of the Empire.

The Ostrogothic domination was fought and defeated by Justinian, who undertook the bloody Greek-Gothic wars (535-553), but the Byzantine domination didn't last longer than Justinian's death, after whom other Germanic populations (the Longobards) invaded the peninsula.