LEGENDS OF ROME
According to Roman legend, these twin brothers were abandoned as infants, rescued by a she-wolf, and became central to Rome’s founding story.
Who were Romulus and Remus?
This region around Rome and its people provided the language from which Latin developed.
What is Latium?
This governing council of elite elders advised Rome’s kings and survived to become one of the Republic’s most important institutions.
What is the Senate?
This form of government replaced the monarchy and was based on elected officials rather than hereditary kings.
What is a republic?
This king of the Roman gods was the Roman equivalent of the Greek Zeus.
Who was Jupiter?
According to Roman tradition, this brother killed Remus and became the first king and namesake of Rome.
Who was Romulus?
This powerful civilization north of Rome strongly influenced early Roman religion, architecture, engineering, and government.
Who were the Etruscans?
This final king of Rome was expelled after his family’s abuses helped provoke a rebellion against monarchy.
Who was Tarquin the Proud?
These two annually elected officials served as Rome’s highest regular magistrates and shared executive authority.
Who were the consuls?
This goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare was the Roman counterpart of Athena.
Who was Minerva?
This Trojan hero escaped the destruction of Troy and eventually reached Italy, where Roman tradition made him an ancestor of the Roman people.
Who was Aeneas?
Greek Colonists established colonies in southern Italy and on Sicily, a region which developed this Latin name.
What was Magna Graecia?
The overthrow of Rome’s monarchy traditionally occurred in this year, marking the beginning of the Roman Republic.
What is 509 BCE?
These wealthy aristocratic families dominated the early Republic’s political institutions.
Who were the patricians?
This god of war was especially important to Romans and was traditionally regarded as the father of Romulus and Remus.
Who was Mars?
This Roman epic by Virgil tells the story of Aeneas’s escape from Troy and his journey toward Italy.
What is the Aeneid?
This mountain range running up the Italian penninsula gave protection while allowing easier movement and political unification than the rugged landscape of Greece.
What are the Apennine Mountains?
The rape and suicide of this Roman noblewoman became the legendary spark for the revolt that expelled the Tarquin monarchy.
Who was Lucretia?
This first written collection of Roman laws was publicly displayed so citizens could know the rules under which they were governed.
What were the Twelve Tables?
These priestesses of Vesta were sworn to guard Rome’s sacred flame, which was believed to symbolize the safety and continuity of the Roman state.
Who were the Vestal Virgins?
Aeneas abandons this queen of Carthage after the gods remind him of his destiny in Italy, creating a legendary explanation for later hatred between Rome and Carthage.
Who was Dido?
Romans adopted and greatly expanded this Etruscan architectural technique, later using it extensively in bridges, aqueducts, gates, and monumental buildings.
What is the Etruscan arch?
In 390 BCE, warriors led by Brennus defeated the Romans and captured much of the city in this traumatic event that haunted Roman memory for centuries.
What was the Gallic Sack of Rome?
When negotiating the financial terms of the Romans' surrender during the Gallic Sack of 390 BCE, Gallic commander Brennus laid his sword on the scale that was weighing their gold, exclaiming "Vae Victus!" This Latin phrase can be translated to:
Woe to the Vanquished!
Roman families honored these protective household spirits at small shrines inside the home, especially as guardians of the family and household.
Who were the Lares?