In the 8th century BC, during the reign of Rome's first king, Romulus, the Fidenates (an Etruscan people) decided to suppress Rome as a future threat and began to lay waste to its territory, in opposition to which Romulus marched on Fidenae and camped a mile from it.
In the second war with Fidenae and Veii in the 7th century (see below), Livy describes Fidenae as a Roman colony.