Rome (United States)

Rome 1 City (1990 pop. 30,326), seat of Floyd co., NW Ga., where the Etowah and Oostanaula rivers meet to form the Coosa, in a farm, timber, and quarry area; inc. 1847. The city was first established as cotton market and an industrial center, with textile and lumber mills, clothing factories, and foundries, and has become a manufacturing center that produces concrete and crushed stone, transportation and electrical equipment, plastics, tires, and metal and food products. Rome was settled (1834) on the site of a Cherokee village. It was captured by Union forces in the Civil War; Sherman burned the city in Nov., 1864. Shorter College is there, and Berry College is nearby. The tall clock tower (1871) atop one of the city's hills is Rome's famous landmark.

2 Industrial city (1990 pop. 44,350), Oneida co., central N.Y., on the Mohawk River and the Erie Canal; laid out c.1786 on the site of Fort Stanwix, inc. as a city 1870. It became recognized for its copper and brass manufactures and was dubbed the "Copper City." Cooking utensils, machine tools, and strip steel are some of the products now manufactured. Nearby is the Rome Development Center as well as state parks. Rome is situated on Wood Creek, .5 mi (.8 km) from the Mohawk River. Because of its location, the city was a busy portage point, and it had great strategic importance during the French and Indian Wars and in the American Revolution. The Six Nation Treaty of 1768 was concluded at Fort Stanwix there. The unsuccessful British siege of the fort in the American Revolution led to the battle of Oriskany (see Saratoga campaign ). Construction on the Erie Canal began (1817) in Rome.

Rome, Italy, USA 1. Italy: Italian Roma. According to the famous legend, Romulus and his twin brother Remus, sons of the war god Mars and Rhea Silvia, resolved to found a new settlement on the hills above the river where their lives had been saved in 753 bc by a she‐wolf. They could not agree as to who should be the governor. As Romulus was building the wall to surround the city—rather a hut village—Remus disobeyed the order not to cross it and was killed. Named after Romulus, the city was founded on the Palatine, the chief hill of Rome, and began to increase its population by offering asylum to refugees and providing wives by arranging the abduction (or rape as the legend has it) of the Sabine women. However, this is no more than a romantic story; Romulus and Remus were mythical figures. The city's name may come from an Etruscan or Greek word—possibly from the Greek rhome ‘strong’. Alternatively the name may come from Rumo, Ruma, or Roma, one of the ancient names of the River Tiber on which the city lies. It was the capital of the Roman Republic in 509–44 bc and of the Roman Empire in 31 bc–ad 402. Commodus (161–92), Roman emperor (180–92), had it called Colonia Commodiana ‘Colony of Commodus’ until he was strangled. Sacked and occupied by a succession of invaders, it was under absolute papal rule between 1420 and 1870 when it joined the Kingdom of Italy and became its capital. It has given its name to the Romance group of European languages (mainly French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish), all derived from Latin, as a result of the Roman occupation of Western Europe and Romania. The English word is derived from the Old French romanz from Latin Romanicus to mean the speech of the people, i.e. the vernacular as opposed to classical Latin. A ‘romance’ was originally a novel written in the vernacular before the meaning changed to indicate the type of work rather than the language.2. USA (Georgia): built on seven hills like its counterpart in Italy; hence the name.3. USA (New York): the Native American name was De‐O‐Wain‐Sta ‘The Carrying Place’. This referred to the fact that it was on the only practical water route south of the St Lawrence River which connected the Great Lakes and the Hudson River. Although fortified by the British in 1725, it was not until 1758 that Fort Stanwix was built. In 1786 it was renamed Lynchville after Dominic Lynch who surveyed it. It assumed the name Rome in 1819, when it became a village, in recognition of its defence of the Republic. That was a reference to the Battle of Oriskany, called ‘the bloodiest battle of the Revolution’, when the British were stopped in their tracks a few miles away on 6 August 1777.