 Due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, Italy has historically been home to myriad peoples and cultures.In addition to the various ancient peoples dispersed throughout what is now modern-day Italy, the most predominant being the Indo-European Italic peoples who gave the peninsula its name, beginning from the classical era, Phoenicians and Carthaginians founded colonies mostly in insular Italy, Greeks established settlements in the so-called "Magna Graecia" of Southern Italy, while Etruscans and Celts inhabited central and northern Italy respectively.An Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which eventually became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People.