It is common for people to say that “Rome wasn’t built in a day” as a quote of encouragement, yet many people do not understand fully how true this saying is. The Roman Empire took centuries to build and went through periods of kingships, republics, and emperors throughout those years. In The Myth of Romulus it is said that two brothers decided to create their own city after defeating the cruel king of Alba, but fought over where to build it. Eventually this led to an argument and Romulus ended up killing Remus, building the city, and naming it Rome. This ushered in two centuries of cruel kingship filled with rape, corruption, and horrible tyrants. This period ended when the last king was overthrown due to a rape his son committed. After this, the elite created the Republic and they prided themselves for this system of shared power (Hunt, pg. 148). After the very corrupt beginnings started with Romulus, the Romans distributed the political power by having a system in which no man had single authority, but always had another person or group in place to check them in order to keep from developing another era of tyrants. The myth of Romulus…show more content… This can first be seen in The Myth of Romulus as Romulus started his reign with murder, kidnapping, and rape. Those that succeeded him continued these actions, which eventually led to their own downfall. From this the republic was formed with both the elites and the common people being sure to create a system in which no one person could gain enough power to become a tyrant. They did this by creating multiple offices in which there was always someone who could challenge them with equal authority. They also made it so that each year new officials were elected in order to stop anyone person from staying in power for too long. The Romans spent decades building this system in order to make sure that the Roman Empire would not fall under tyranny
