Rome's history spans more than two and a half thousand years. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe.[5] The city's early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and Sabines. Eventually, the city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republicand the Roman Empire, and is regarded as one of the birthplaces of Western civilization and by some as the first ever metropolis.[6] It is referred to as "Roma Aeterna" (The Eternal City) [7] and "Caput Mundi" (Capital of the World), two central notions in ancient Roman culture.
