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( Roman Kingdom)
The Roman Kingdom (Latin Regnum Romanum) was the monarchical government of the city of Rome and its territories. Little is certain about the history of the Roman Kingdom, as no written records from that time survive, and the histories about it were written during the Republic and Empire and are largely based on legend. However, the history of the Roman Kingdom began with the city's founding, traditionally dated to 753 BC, and ended with the overthrow of the kings and the establishment of the Republic in about 509 BC. What eventually became the Roman Empire began as settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber in Central Italy. The river was navigable up to that place. The site also had a ford where the Tiber could be crossed. The Palatine Hill and hills surrounding it presented easily defensible positions in the wide fertile plain surrounding them. All these features contributed to the success of the city. The traditional account of Roman history, which has come down to us through Livy, Plutarch, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others, is that in Rome's first centuries, it was ruled by a succession of seven kings. The traditional chronology, as codified by Varro, allots 243 years for their reigns, an extraordinary average of almost 35 years (much longer than any historically documented dynasty), which, since the work of Barthold Georg Niebuhr, has been generally discounted by modern scholarship. The Gauls destroyed all of Rome's historical records when they sacked the city after the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC (Varronian, according to Polybius the battle occurred in 387/6), so no contemporary records of the kingdom exist, and all accounts of the kings must be carefully questioned.[1] Archaeological evidence does, however, support that a settlement was founded in Rome around the middle of the 8th century BC. Early Rome was a monarchy governed by kings (Latin rex). The kings, excluding the legendary Romulus who held office by virtue of being the city's founder,[citation needed] were all elected by the people of Rome to serve for life, with none of the kings relying on military force to gain the throne. Though no reference is made to the hereditary principle in the election of the first four kings, beginning with the fifth king Tarquinius Priscus, the royal inheritance flowed through the royal females of the deceased king. Consequently, the ancient historians state that the king was chosen on account of his virtues and not his descent.
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