Rome's 2000 year history is one filled with war, adventure, slavery, cultural and religious advancement. They grew from a group of small villages on the Palatine Hill to a monarchy,  an oligarchic, a republic and then finally to an empire that stretched from northern England, across North Africa to the edge of the Persian Empire. Experts at adapting and assimilating other cultures and innovations, their powerful armies marched on Roman built roads and controlled conquered civilizations with brutal force. The world holds a debt of gratitude for their civilizing of Western Europe. Rome influenced our language, religion, culture, and government. The pressures of empire, war, and greed gradually wore the Romans down and they were forced to divide the realm into two divisions. Finally the Persians threatened them from the east and the Barbarians from the north weakened its power and the empire collapsed first in the west and finally in the east in 1453.