Editing Founding of Rome (section)

=== Eighth and seventh centuries&nbsp;BC ===
[[File:Maquette de la Rome archaïque (musée de la civilisation romaine, Rome) (5917668745).jpg|thumb|right|Model of archaic Rome, 6th century BC]]

By this time, four major settlements emerged in Rome. The nuclei appeared on the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Quirinal and Viminal, and the Caelian, Oppian, and Velia.{{sfn|Lomas|2018|p=41}} There is, however, no evidence linking any settlement on the Quirinal hill with the Sabines, as is alleged by some ancient accounts.<ref>{{harvnb|Momigliano|1989|pp=86–87|ps=. "So far no archaeological support has been found for the self-assured Roman tradition that the Latins of Romulus soon combined with the Sabines... [or] that the Sabine settlement was on the Quirinal". Momigliano also notes a linguistic contradiction: {{lang|la|Quirinal}} should in Oscan be ''Pirinal''. }}</ref>

The area of the Forum also was converted at this time into a public space. Burials there discontinued and portions of it were paved over. Votive offerings appear in the ''[[comitium]]'' in the eighth century, indicating a more central religious cult, and other public buildings appear to have been erected around that time. One of those buildings was the [[Domus Publica|''domus publica'']] (the official residence of the ''[[pontifex maximus]]''), which is now believed to have been constructed between 750 and 700&nbsp;BC.{{sfn|Lomas|2018|pp=41–42}} Religious activity started also in this period on the Capitoline hill, suggesting a connection to the ancient cult of [[Jupiter Feretrius]]. Other offerings discovered indicate Rome's connections outside Latium, with imported Greek pottery from [[Euboea]] and [[Corinth]].{{sfn|Lomas|2018|p=42}}

The first evidence of a wall appears in the middle or late eighth century on the Palatine, dated between 730 and 720&nbsp;BC.{{sfn|Lomas|2018|p=42}} It is possible that the circuit of the wall marked out what later Romans believed to be the original [[pomerium]] (sacred boundary) of the city.{{sfn|Lomas|2018|p=43}} The discovery of gates and streets connected to the wall, with the remains of various huts, suggest that Rome had by this time:

{{quote|
acquired a defined boundary ... [and] a more sophisticated level of social and political organisation ... the use of the Forum as a public space point[s] to the development of [a] shared civil and ritual space[] for the inhabitants of all communities, demonstrating an increasing level of centralisation.{{sfn|Lomas|2018|p=44}} }}

Like other Villanovan proto-urban centres, this archaic Rome was likely organised around clans that guarded their own areas, but by the later eighth century had confederated.{{sfn|Lomas|2018|p=44}} The development of city-states was likely a Greek innovation that spread through the Mediterranean from 850 to 750&nbsp;BC.{{sfnm|Momigliano|1989|1p=53|Forsythe|2005|2pp=92–93}} The earliest votive deposits are found in the early seventh century on the Capitoline and Quirinal hills, suggesting that by that time a city had formed with monumental architecture and public religious sanctuaries.{{sfn|Forsythe|2005|p=88}} Certainly, by 600&nbsp;BC,<!-- end of the seventh century --> a process of {{lang|grc|synoikismos}} was complete and a unified Rome – reflected in the production of a central forum area, public monumental architecture, and civic structures – had by then been formed.{{sfnm|Forsythe|2005|1p=92|Cornell|1995|2pp=102–103}}