even Hills, included the three isolated eminences of the
Capitoline, Palatine and Aventine, and the spurs of the adjoining plateau,
called the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian. Other ground, also
on the left bank of the river, and likewise part of Mount Janiculum,
across the Tiber, were included in the city. But this extent was only
attained after a long period of growth, and early Rome was a town of much
smaller area.

*The growth of the city.* Late Roman historians placed the founding of
Rome about the year 753 B. C., and used this date as a basis for Roman
chronology. However, it is absolutely impossible to assign anything like a
definite date for the establishment of the city. Excavations have revealed
that in the early Iron Age several distinct settlements were perched upon
the Roman hills, separated from one another by low, marshy ground, flooded
by the Tiber at high water. These were probably typical Latin walled
villages (_oppida_).

At a very early date some of these villages formed a religious union
commemorated in the festival of the Septimontium or Seven Mounts. These
_montes_ were crests of the Palatine, Esquiline and Caelian hills, perhaps
each the site of a separate settlement.

But the earliest city to which we can with certainty give the name of Rome
is of later date than the establishment of the Septimontium. It is the
Rome of the Four Regions--the Palatina, Esquilina, Collina and Sucusana
(later Suburana)--which included the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian
and Palatine hills, as well as the intervening low ground. Within the
boundary of this city, but not included in the four regions, was the
Capitoline, which had separate fortifications and served as the citadel
(_arx_). It may be that the organization of this city of the Four Regions
was effected by Etruscan conquerors, for the name Roma seems to be of
Etruscan origin, and, for the Romans, an _urbs_, as they called Rome, was
merely an _oppidum_ of which the limits had been marked out according to
Etruscan ritual. The consecrated boundary line drawn in this manner was
called the _pomerium_.

The Aventine Hill, as well as the part of the plateau back of the
Esquiline, was only brought within the city walls in the fourth century,
and remained outside the _pomerium_ until the time of Claudius.

The location of Rome, on the Tiber at a point where navigation for
sea-going vessels terminated and where an island made easy the passage
fro