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Ancient Rome: from the founding to the fall

Ancient Rome from its legendary founding in 753 BCE through the kings, the Republic and the Empire, to the deposition of the last western emperor in 476 CE, with the Eastern Empire to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as an epilogue: its eras, dynasties and major reigns, its wars and battles, its laws, buildings, roads and aqueducts, and the writers we know it from. A sample timeline built from the sources cited on each moment. **How to read it.** Chapter headings mark the eras. Eras are navy bands, the legendary kings light grey, dynasties grey, reigns ochre, wars brick, political struggles green and the Eastern Empire purple; everything else is a moment, linked to the article it draws on. Related things (a battle and the war it ended, a law and the law it led to) are linked. The tag `legend` marks what we know only from tradition. **Dates.** The line is the Gregorian calendar extended back. Years before about 300 BCE are the traditional (Varronian) ones, and the kings' reigns are legend. Before 45 BCE, days are dates in the old Roman calendar, which had drifted from the seasons (by about two and a half months in 168 BCE); their Julian equivalent is mostly unknown, so they are placed as if they were Julian. From 45 BCE days are Julian: the Gregorian line shows them one or two days earlier before 200 CE, on the same day in the 3rd century, and one to nine days later after it (the fall of Constantinople, 29 May 1453, reads 7 June). Either way, the source's date is kept under **Historical dates**, and each moment's **Date precision** says how it is dated. A date known only to its year sits at mid-year (1 July).

133 moments · 0753-01-01T00:00:00Z BCE – 1453-06-07T00:00:00Z CE · by @athan · @athan

Moments

  1. The kings
  2. Founding of Rome
  3. Iron Age huts on the Palatine
  4. Cloaca Maxima
  5. Lapis Niger inscription
  6. The early Republic
  7. The last king expelled
  8. The first consuls
  9. Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol
  10. Battle of Lake Regillus
  11. First secession of the plebs
  12. The Twelve Tables
  13. Lex Canuleia
  14. Veii captured
  15. Gauls sack Rome
  16. Servian Wall
  17. Licinian–Sextian laws
  18. Caudine Forks
  19. Via Appia begun
  20. Aqua Appia
  21. Battle of Sentinum
  22. Lex Hortensia
  23. Battle of Asculum
  24. Battle of Beneventum
  25. Rome against Carthage
  26. Battle of Mylae
  27. Battle of the Aegates
  28. The first Latin play
  29. Via Flaminia
  30. Hannibal takes Saguntum
  31. Hannibal crosses the Alps
  32. Battle of Lake Trasimene
  33. Battle of Cannae
  34. Syracuse falls; Archimedes killed
  35. Battle of the Metaurus
  36. Battle of Zama
  37. Battle of Cynoscephalae
  38. Battle of Pydna
  39. Carthage destroyed
  40. Corinth destroyed
  41. Aqua Marcia
  42. The Republic in crisis
  43. Tiberius Gracchus killed
  44. Gaius Gracchus killed
  45. Marius consul
  46. Battle of Vercellae
  47. Citizenship for the Italians
  48. Sulla marches on Rome
  49. Sulla dictator
  50. Spartacus defeated