Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - 3000 Years of Rome

Starting point is 00:00:00 Rome has been called the eternal city, but its history has had enormous ups and downs. It went from being the largest and most important city in the world to being a small backwater town and then made a remarkable turnaround becoming once again the most important city in Italy. It's been a center of power, religion, and commerce, and it's also been used as a quarry for people seeking materials for their villas. Learn more about the 3,000-year history of Rome and its dramatic comeback on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster.

Starting point is 00:00:51 If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever. you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:01:24 That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster. As a podcaster, I'm often asked what podcasts I listen to. One of the shows I subscribe to and listen to every week is The Jordan Harbinger Show. The Jordan Harbinger Show is the top podcast that was named Best of Apple in 2018. One of my recent favorite episodes from this summer was the interview he did with Atasa Araksa Abrahemian, who explained how wealthy people can buy second passports overseas. on the show Jordan dives into the minds of fascinating people including everyone from athletes, authors, scientists, mobsters, spies, and hostage negotiators.

Starting point is 00:02:06 If you like this podcast, you'll probably like the variety and in-depth interviews on the Jordan Harbinger Show. You can't go wrong with adding The Jordan Harbinger Show to your rotation. It's incredibly interesting and there's never a dull show. Search for The Jordan Harbinger Show. That's H-A-R, B as in Boy, I-N- as-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-Y-R on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Rome has been one of the world's most important cities for close to 3,000 years. While it has remained important, the city's fortunes have risen and fallen dramatically over that period. The traditional founding date of Rome is 753 BC, specifically April 21st, according to

Starting point is 00:02:51 Roman tradition. While that exact date may or may not be accurate, it's an oddly specific date for a city's founding. The familiar legend tells of the twins, Romulus and Remus, sons of the god Mars and the priestess, Rea Sylvia, who were abandoned beside the Tiber River, suckled by a she-wolf, and eventually founded a settlement. After a dispute, Romulus killed Remus and became Rome's first king. The archaeological picture broadly supports the idea of a settlement forming in the 8th century BC. Communities had existed on and around each of Rome's seven historic hills before that time. During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, these settlements gradually coalesced into a single urban community. Rome's location was favorable considering the conditions

Starting point is 00:03:38 on the Italian peninsula at the time of its founding. It sat near a convenient crossing of the Tyber River, and it was located roughly 25 kilometers inland from the sea. It controlled a trade route connecting northern and southern Italy, and was positioned between the cultural zones of the Etruscans to the north and the Greek colonies to the south. The low ground between the hills of Rome were originally marshes. Drainage projects traditionally associated with the early monarchs and especially the Kloaca Maxima, its famous sewer, helped transform the valley into the Roman Forum, which became the city's civic, political, commercial, and religious center. Around 550 BC, Rome may have already contained roughly 30 to 40,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest urban settlements in the

Starting point is 00:04:24 Italian Peninsula. Roman tradition says Rome was ruled by seven kings between 753 and 509 BC. The later kings were strongly associated with the Etruscans, and under them, Rome acquired major temples, fortifications, and a more developed political and religious organization. According to this tradition, the last king, Lucius Tarkinius Superbus, was expelled in 509 after the rape of Lucretia by his son, Sextus Tarkinius. The monarchy was replaced by a public governed by annually elected magistrates. During the early Republic, Rome was still primarily an Italian city-state rather than the capital of an empire. Rome's population grew as the Republic conquered neighboring communities and absorbed people from throughout Italy. By around 300 BC,

Starting point is 00:05:12 the city may have contained perhaps 100 to 150,000 people. And while it was far from its peak population, it was already an enormous city for antiquity. After Rome, it was a city for antiquity. After Rome, defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars and began expanding throughout the Mediterranean, the city's character changed dramatically. Between roughly 200 to 30 BC, enormous quantities of wealth, slaves, grain, and migrants poured into Rome. Victorious generals displayed captured treasure and built temples and monuments. Aristocrats competed to construct increasingly lavish houses. Hundreds of thousands of slaves were imported into Italy, many eventually becoming freedmen and Roman citizens. Rome also developed enormous working-class neighborhoods dominated by insulae,

Starting point is 00:06:00 multi-story apartment buildings. Fires collapses over crowding, sanitation problems, and traffic became chronic urban issues. By the first century BC, estimates generally placed Rome somewhere between 500,000 to 1 million inhabitants. Starting in 83 BC and continuing for several decades, Rome experienced a series of civil wars. Octavian was the last man standing and later became Augustus in 27 BC, and the Roman Republic had become the Roman Empire. The imperial period saw dramatic changes to the city. Augustus famously claimed that he had found Rome built of brick and left it clothed in marble.

Starting point is 00:06:43 The statement was rhetorical, but it reflected a genuine transformation. Ancient documents record hundreds of thousands of people receiving grain distributions or cash gifts. Extrapolating from these numbers has led many historians to estimate approximately 750,000 to 1 million inhabitants under Augustus and under early emperors in the first century. Modern scholarship often still uses a figure closer to or slightly over 1 million. Successive emperors reshaped Rome. Under the Giulio Claudians came enormous palaces on the Palantine.

Starting point is 00:07:19 After the Great Fire of the year 64, nearer, constructed his extraordinary Domus Aurea or Golden House. Following Nero's fall, the Flavian emperors built the Coliseum, completed around the year 80, partly over Nero's former palace complex. Trajan created perhaps the most spectacular imperial forum, including the form of Trajan, Trajan's markets, and Trajan's column. Hadrian rebuilt the Pantheon in approximately its present form, and constructed the massive mausoleum, now known as Castle San Angelo.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Caracalla and Diocletian constructed enormous public bath complexes. By the second century, Rome contained aqueducts, theaters, amphitheaters, circuses, baths, fountains, temples, apartment blocks, and palaces on a scale that were unmatched anywhere in the world. Many of these things have been covered individually in previous episodes. Some scholarship places Rome's maximum ancient population in the second century at perhaps as many as one 1.5 million people. The second century was peak Rome in the ancient world. During the third century, however, several long-term changes weakened the city.

Starting point is 00:08:33 The empire suffered civil wars, invasions, epidemics, and political instability. Emperors increasingly spent their time near frontier armies rather than in Rome. The Aurean walls constructed beginning around 271 reflected Rome's changing circumstances. For centuries, the city had been so secure. that major fortifications were unnecessary, but now invasion had become conceivable. The walls enclosed roughly 14 square kilometers and remained Rome's principal defenses for more than 1,500 years. The event that accelerated Rome's decline was the rise of Emperor Constantine. After defeating Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in 312, Constantine became increasingly associated

Starting point is 00:09:16 with Christianity. He sponsored enormous Christian basilicas, including the original St. Peter's Basilica. But Constantine also founded a new imperial capital at Constantinople in 330. This marked a major shift as the empire's political focus moved away from Rome. Rome remained enormously prestigious, but the emperor no longer normally lived there. The city's population probably declined gradually. One estimate still puts fourth century Rome at about 500,000 inhabitants. The exact number isn't known, but the population clearly declined. Rome's decline was similar to how Ernest Hemingway described going bankrupt, gradually, then suddenly. In 410, the Visigoths under Alaric entered and sacked Rome. It was the first time the city had fallen to a foreign enemy in roughly eight

Starting point is 00:10:10 centuries. The symbolic shock was enormous. In 455, the Vandals sacked Rome again. The imperial government in the West increasingly operated from Rivenna rather than Rome. In 476, the German commander Odoacker deposed the young emperor Romulus Augustulus, and conventionally, this marked the end of the Western Roman Empire. The Austrogothic king Theodore the Great, who ruled Italy beginning in 493, attempted to preserve Roman institutions and repair monuments, but it was a shell of what it once was. By the end of the 5th century, the population had crashed, from 500,000 to 1,000, to 100,000. The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian attempted to reconquer Italy from the Ostrogoths beginning in 535. Rome changed hand several times between Byzantine and Gothic forces. Seges damaged aqueducts,

Starting point is 00:11:02 disrupted the grain supply, destroyed neighborhoods, and drove inhabitants away. Large areas inside the Aurelian walls became fields, vineyards, ruins, and pasture land. The population started to collapse even further. A city that had perhaps contained close to a million people several centuries earlier may have fallen to something like 30 to 50,000 people by the 6th century. Whatever you think of ancient Rome, medieval Rome was absolutely nothing like it. From roughly the 7th through the 14th centuries, Rome was a completely different city. Its ancient walls enclosed an area far larger than the population required. Settlements concentrated near the Tiber River and around important churches. Ancient buildings were reused in almost every conceivable way. Temples became churches,

Starting point is 00:11:55 mausoleums became fortresses, theaters and bathhouses became quarries. Marble was stripped from ancient structures and either reused in new buildings or literally burned to produce lime. The Coliseum itself became partly a fortified complex and later a source of building stone, which is the reason why so much of it is missing today. While Rome's population crashed, it never became completely irrelevant because of the papacy, and also because Rome contained what Christians believed were the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul, so it drew pilgrims from across Europe. When the Lombards threatened Rome, the popes increasingly sought protection from Frankish kings. In the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, emperor, in St. Peter's Basilica. Rome thereby became

Starting point is 00:12:44 intimately connected to the concept of the Holy Roman Empire, even though Holy Roman emperors rarely controlled the city effectively. Political power within Rome was often fragmented among the popes, aristocratic families, popular factions, and occasionally emperors. The Evignan papacy began in 1309 when the popes resided in southern France rather than Rome. For over 70 years, Rome wasn't even the seat of the Bishop of Rome. The Black Death and other epidemics worsened the city's demographic problems. Around the year 1400,

Starting point is 00:13:19 Rome may have only had about 17 to 20,000 inhabitants. This was probably Rome's lowest population since just after its founding. A stunning collapse for what was 1,400 years earlier, the largest city in the world. The return of the papacy to Rome permanently in the 15th, century initiated a remarkable revival. Popes began transforming Rome into a capital worthy of the Catholic Church. Nicholas V, Sixtus the Fourth, Julius II, and Leo X, and other Renaissance popes

Starting point is 00:13:52 sponsored enormous artistic and architectural projects. Streets were rebuilt, aqueducts were restored, and palaces and churches appeared. The Vatican became one of Europe's great artistic centers. Under Julius II, work began in the year 1506 on the new St. Peter, Basilica. And by 1527, a census recorded roughly 54 to 55,000 inhabitants. Rome was slowly starting to grow again, but that growth hit a snag. In May of 1527, mutinous troops from Emperor Charles V stormed Rome. For months, they looted, murdered, raped, and extorted the inhabitants. Pope Clement the 7th had to flee to Castle San Angelo. Rome's population may have dropped from about 55,000 to somewhere around 30,000 or even lower in the immediate aftermath. But the decline was

Starting point is 00:14:45 temporary. During the later 16th and 17th centuries, Rome became one of Europe's great artistic capitals. By the year 1600, Rome's population had recovered to more than 90,000. During the 17th century, architects and artists such as Bernini and Boromini created much of the cityscape now associated with central Rome. St. Peter's Basilica was completed, and Bernan, needy created St. Peter Square. Fountains, churches, palaces, and public spaces turned Rome into the great showcase of the Counter-Refurbation. By the year 1700, Rome probably had around 130 to 150,000 inhabitants. During the 18th century, Rome was still the capital of the papal states, but its political importance was much smaller than during antiquity. Its cultural importance,

Starting point is 00:15:33 however, remained enormous. The city became one of the principal destinations of the Grand Tour. wealthy British, French, German, and Northern European travelers came to study classical antiquity and Renaissance art. By the year 1800, the population had increased slightly to 170,000. During the 19th century, the movement for Italian unification increasingly focused on Rome. Nationalists argued that no other city could legitimately serve as the capital of United Italy. Italy finally unified under King Victor Emmanuel II in 1861, but Rome remained. outside the new kingdom because French troops protected the Pope. When the Franco-Prussian war forced Napoleon III to withdraw his troops in 1870,

Starting point is 00:16:17 the Italian army moved against Rome. On September 20th, 1870, the Italian troops breached the Aurelian walls near Portapeia. Rome was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy and became the national capital in 1871. When Rome became the capital of a unified Italy, its population was about 220,000. The transformation of Rome after 1870 was explosive. The new Italian government needed ministries, parliament buildings, bureaucratic offices, and infrastructure. Neighborhoods expanded outside the traditional inhabited areas. Ancient villas and gardens disappeared beneath new streets.

Starting point is 00:16:57 Government buildings and apartment blocks rapidly rose. The city's population approximately doubled between 1870 and 1900. The 20th century saw the greatest increase of, Rome's population in its entire history. Sometime in the 1930s, Rome once again surpassed its population at the height of the Roman Empire. Benito Mussolini built monuments and completely rebuilt new neighborhoods. He also recognized Vatican City as a separate independent state. After World War II, Rome's population exploded once again, and by the early 1980s,

Starting point is 00:17:32 it reached just under 3 million people, where it roughly stands today. Rome's long history is unlike that of any other city in the world. It went from a village on the Tiber to the most important city on the globe, back down to an almost insignificant regional town, and then back again to a major world city and the capital of a unified Italy. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show for on Patreon.

Starting point is 00:18:08 your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast. And links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you two can have it read in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - 3000 Years of Rome

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