Ancient Rome spans from the city’s legendary founding in the 8th century BC to the fall of the Western Empire in AD 476, and the survival of its Eastern half until 1453. It evolved from monarchy to republic to autocratic empire, expanding from the Italian peninsula to dominate the Mediterranean and much of Europe and the Middle East. Rome professionalised war, invented durable political and legal forms, and achieved striking feats of engineering, urbanism, and culture. Internal conflict, economic strain, disease, and external invasions fractured the West, but Roman law, language, religion, architecture, and ideas remained foundations of later European civilisation.