According to the Roman foundation myth, Titus Tatius, also called Tatius Sabinus, was king of the Sabines from Cures and joint-ruler of the Kingdom of Rome for several years.
Jacques-Louis David: The Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1799; Titus Tatius at left
Tatius Sabinus, after engraved sard
Image: L. Titurius L.f. Sabinus. denarius, 89 BC, RRC 344 1a (cropped obverse)
Image: L. Titurius L.f. Sabinus. denarius, 89 BC, RRC 344 2c (cropped obverse)
The founding of Rome was a prehistoric event or process later greatly embellished by Roman historians and poets. Archaeological evidence indicates that Rome developed from the gradual union of several hilltop villages during the Final Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Prehistoric habitation of the Italian Peninsula occurred by 48,000 years ago, with the area of Rome being settled by around 1600 BC. Some evidence on the Capitoline Hill possibly dates as early as c. 1700 BC and the nearby valley that later housed the Roman Forum had a developed necropolis by at least 1000 BC. The combination of the hilltop settlements into a single polity by the later 8th century BC was probably influenced by the trend for city-state formation emerging from ancient Greece.
Capitoline Wolf, sculpture of the she-wolf feeding the twins Romulus and Remus, the most famous image associated with the founding of Rome. According to Livy, it was erected in 296 BC.
Romulus and Remus on the House of the She-wolf at the Grand Place of Brussels
Funerary urn of the Villanovan culture, precursor to Etruscan civilization
Model of archaic Rome, 6th century BC
