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Rome saw seven kings until 509BC when the last king was overthrown and the Roman Republic was formed. It was then ruled by two elected officials – a Senate made up of wealthy aristocrats and a lower assembly made up of the common people.
Although this format worked well for a while Rome expanded beyond a mere city state and took authority over Italy and overseas as well. By the 1st century BC Spartacus, a slave, led the common people in revolt against the rule of the aristocrats although the rebellion was curbed it later led to the Republic dissolving into a series of military dictatorships which ended up with the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Julius Caesar’s nephew Octaviou eventually seized power and declared himself Emperor Augustus and the Roman Empire was born. For the next two hundred years Rome thrived and ruled over a vast territory.
This peace time ended in 180AD which the death of Marcus Aurelius and a combination of economic problems, domestic instability and territorial rebellions resulted in a gradual decline of Rome.
According to legend
Romewas founded in 753BC by Romulus and Remus, twin brotherswho
claimed to be the sons ofwar god
Mars. Apparently Romuluswanted
Rome to inherit the mantle of ancient
city Troy andwhen Remus laughed at the notion, Romulus
killed his brother and declared himself king of Rome.
By the end of the 4th century AD the Roman Empire was split into two – the east based out of the newly built capital of Constantinople (now Turkey) which thrived whilst capital of the west Tome continued to decline.
For the next thousand years Italy became a patchwork of city states during a period known as the Dark Ages and prosperity did not return until the 14th century when states such as Florence, Milan, Pisa and Genoa and Venice became trade centres and transformed the country into a centre of culture.
Italy became vulnerable to conquest by Spain, France and Austria and was controlled through proxy by various European powers until the 19th century when the King of Savoy (Piedmont, Liguria and Sardinia) Vittorio Emanuel II started from Turin to conquer various other regions in the North. At the same time he was sending Garibaldi on a mission from the south with only 1000 men (the famous team of “Mille”). The majority of Italy was conquerd with the support of the rebelling population. In 1861 Vittorio Emanule II was declared the first king of Italy
After World War I a small national fascist party, led by Benito Mussolini, was set up
and in 1922 he seized power and spent the next 20 years consolidating power and formed a dictatorship whilst dreaming of leading a new Roman Empire. In the 1930s he invaded Ethiopia and Albania.
When the second world war broke out Italy remained neutral at first but later Mussolini joined Hitler in the war effort which backfired as he lost control of North Africa, Mediterranean and eventually his own country. Mussolini fled Rome and was eventually captured and executed.
After the war Italy abolished the monarchy and the King was forced into exile. In 1946 Italy declared itself a republic and rebuilt its economy through loans from the Marshall Plan and became a strong supporter of the European Union.
From the late 1960s to the late 1980s the country experienced a hard economic crisis with periods of social conflicts and terrorists acts.
From 1992 to 2009 Italy then faced a series of challenges as voters became disenchanted with past political paralysis, government debts and corruption and they demanded political reforms. Media magnate Silvio Berlusconi became Prime Minister for the third time in 2008.
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