From Wikipedia

Rome And Pompeii

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. In its centuries of existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy to an oligarchic republic to an increasingly autocratic empire which came to dominate South-Western Europe, South-Eastern Europe/Balkans and the Mediterranean region through conquest and assimilation.

The Western Roman Empire went into decline and disappeared in the 5th century AD. The Eastern Roman Empire, survived this crisis and lived on for another millennium - that stage of the Empire is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire by historians, and is considered to have succeeded Ancient Rome.

Roman civilization is often grouped into "classical antiquity" with ancient Greece, a civilization that inspired much of the culture of ancient Rome. Ancient Rome contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology and language in the Western world, and its history continues to have a major influence on the world today.

Julius Caesar