Latins in the context of "Legacy of the Roman Empire"

Italy has been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic. During antiquity, there were many peoples in the Italian peninsula, including Etruscans, Latins, Samnites, Umbri, Cisalpine Gauls, Greeks in Magna Graecia and others. Most significantly, Italy was the cradle of the Roman civilization. Rome was founded as a kingdom in 753 BC and became a republic in 509 BC. The Roman Republic then unified Italy forming a confederation of the Italic peoples and rose to dominate Western Europe, Northern Africa, and the Near East. The Roman Empire, established in 27 BC, ruled the Mediterranean region for centuries, contributing to the development of Western culture, philosophy, science and art.

During the early Middle Ages, Italy experienced the succession in power of Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Longobards and the Holy Roman Empire and fragmented into numerous city-states and regional polities, a situation that would remain until the unification of the country. These polities and the maritime republics, in particular Venice and Genoa, rose to prosperity. Eventually, the Italian Renaissance emerged and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, and art with the start of the modern era. In the medieval and early modern era, Southern Italy was ruled by the Norman, Swabian and Angevin dynasties and the Aragonese, French and Spanish crowns. Central Italy was largely part of the Papal States.

Tyrrhenians (Attic Greek: Τυῤῥηνοί Turrhēnoi) or Tyrsenians (Ionic: Τυρσηνοί Tursēnoi; Doric: Τυρσανοί Tursānoi) was the name used by the ancient Greeks to refer, in a generic sense, to non-Greek people, in particular pirates. While ancient sources have been interpreted in a variety of ways, the Greeks always called the Etruscans Tyrsenoi, although not all Tyrsenians were Etruscans. The term "Tyrrhenians" was sometimes used by ancient writers to refer to other ethnic groups in central-western Italy, such as the Latins. Dionysius of Halicarnassus stated that the Greeks once called Latins, Umbrians, Ausonians, and others "Tyrrhenians," and that Rome was called a Tyrrhenian city.

Furthermore the languages of Etruscan, Rhaetian and Lemnian cultures have been grouped together as the Tyrsenian languages, based on their strong similarities.

Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis was an ancient Roman who, according to Livy, was Roman dictator in 498 or 496 BC, when he conquered the Latins in the great Battle of Lake Regillus and subsequently celebrated a triumph. Many of the coins of the Postumii Albi commemorate this victory of their ancestor, as in the one pictured. Roman folklore related that Castor and Pollux were seen fighting in this battle on the side of the Romans, whence the dictator afterwards promised a temple to Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum.

He was consul in 496 BC, in which year some of the annals, according to Livy, placed the battle of Lake Regillus; and it is to this year that Dionysius assigns it. The name "Regillensis" is usually supposed to have been derived from this battle; but Niebuhr thinks that it was taken from a place of residence, just as the Claudii bore the same name, and that the later annalists only spoke of Postumius as commander in consequence of the name. Livy states expressly that Scipio Africanus was the first Roman who obtained a surname from his conquests. In 495 BC, Postumius was chosen at short notice by the Romans to lead the cavalry to victory against a Sabine invading force. In 493 BC Postumius was one of the ten envoys sent by the senate to treat with the plebeian leaders during the first secessio plebis.

Śuri (Etruscan: 𐌉𐌛𐌖𐌑, lit. 'black'), Latinized as Soranus, was an ancient Etruscan infernal, volcanic and solar fire god, also venerated by other Italic peoples – among them Capenates, Faliscans, Latins and Sabines – and later adopted into ancient Roman religion.

Cures was an ancient Sabine town in the Tiber Valley in central Italy, about 26 miles (42 km) from Rome, between the left bank of the Tiber and the Via Salaria. Its remains are located in the modern commune of Fara Sabina. According to legend, it was from Cures that Titus Tatius led to the Quirinal the Sabine settlers, from whom, after their union with the settlers on the Palatine, the whole Roman people took the name Quirites. Another legend, related by Dionysius, connects the foundation of Cures with the worship of the Sabine god Quirinus, whence Quirites.

It was also renowned as the birthplace of Ancient Rome's second king Numa Pompilius. According to Livy, Numa Pompilius resided in Cures immediately prior to his election as king.