Hi, I'm new here . I'm trying to write my first story in a while. I love anything to do with the supernatural e.g. Werewolves,Vampires etc. I also love the ancient world like Ancient Rome. I want to set my story in the ancient Rome and have it about a young girl who is working to provide for her family when he village is attacked by a werewolf. I've been doing non-stop research about Ancient Rome and the Werewolf legends, there are so many legends and myths and don't really know where to start. I'm trying to find out the layout of how Rome was back then so I can describe it in my story but I also want to know how the werewolves affected Ancient Rome back then. I'm just so confused and don't know where to start?
werewolves didn't effect ancient Rome because they are fictional that aside i usually start with a character and an idea of what they need to do ... e.g may be your basic premise is that an ex centurion needs to save his love interest from a werewolf clan... what happens, how does he achieve that or may be your legionary actually is a werewolf but has to hide that from his colleagues or may be the whole century are werewolves who perform special missions for the emperor or, or, or write a bunch down and pick one also decide what period of anicient rome you are writing in, there's a big difference between the roman republic before julius caesar, and say the disintegrating western empire under honorius
Do what moose mentioned. Then, you need to scale down massively. Historical research is an endless rabbit hole if you keep diving down. You think you need to know that much more to delve into perfection, but what happens is a trap where your story doesn't get written because you peaked and burned out mid-research. As was said, pick a specific few areas, and a one very specific time period. Also, is it the city of Rome, or somewhere in the Roman empire? The people only partially assimilated in each area. A town in ancient Gaul or Germania will be a perfect area for a werewolf. Lots of dense French and German woods in an area taken over by Rome. But then the towns will be farther down the barbaric path, with an animalistic religion based on the natural world. So basically get some fine specific details, then try to specify your research there. Also, don't lose sight of your writing quality, plotline, and characters for the sake of setting authenticity. Your reader is going to only marginally care about the specifics in the setting anyways, and the writing ability is what will make or break it overall. You may even want to make up your own town. Then you can design whatever way is most convenient within the realm if logic.
If you want to expand on the myth of the She Wolf that raised Remus and Romulus, thats the only Roman wolf story I know. Maybe look into that myth and do some sort of back story on the She-Wolf. Like, what if the She-Wolf was a part of a clan of wolf people (early werewolves), and she committed the ultimate no-no by raising 2 human babies and was exiled. Or, what if the Wolf clan was at war with the humans and the She-Wolf saw these two human babies in the wild, but couldnt find it in her heart to kill them and raised them. You can completely nix the Remus and Romulus aspect of it, and just focus on the wolves. Focusing on that myth would kind of give you a jumping off point. in terms of vampires, the Roman goddess Bellona was the goddess of war and bloodlust. She actually had a holiday where people sacrificed people and spilled their own blood as tribute to her. According to Wikipedia, "Her priests were known as Bellonarii and used to wound their own arms or legs as a blood sacrifice to her" You can do an alternate history and make the Bellonarii vampires, and a Roman warrior finds out that these priests aren't human at all. There is HUGE potential with the topics that you've brought up if you dig into the myths of Ancient Rome. I already knew about the She-Wolf and Remus and Romulus, but Bellona, all I did was type in "Ancient Rome and Blood Sacrifice" (Because a lot of vampire myths center around blood sacrifice or blood as immortality and youth). So maybe search general terms and then spiral down the rabbit hole of myths and legends
I echo what moose said. "Ancient Rome" is a vast topic and covers timescale of many centuries. When are you setting it? The early Roman Republic? Late Republic? Early Imperial period? Crisis of the Third Century? Tetrachy? Rome's layout changed over time. And your character? What social class is she? Is she a plebian, a patrician? By narrowing down these choices, you will narrow down what you need to research. As for werewolf legends, apart from the above she-wolf of Rome legend, here's an early Greek legend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_of_Arcadia Greek mythology was adapted into Roman myth, so Greek legends may be a fruitful source for you.
I definitely like @EFMingo's idea of setting the story somewhere within the Roman empire, but maybe someplace where werewolf legends also came from. There really isn't any need to actually go to Rome, is there? Decide how much Roman politics and influence is actually going to figure in your story. While it's good to have background knowledge, do keep in mind that remote areas WERE remote, and what happened in Rome didn't directly affect people right away, if they lived on the fringes of the Empire. While wolf legends were important to Rome and wolves were revered in many circles (connected to the Romulus/Remus legend) the werewolf thing doesn't seem to be. (Werewolves=people who change into wolves, then back again.) The she-wolf that supposedly nursed Romulus and Remus was actually a wolf, not a shape-shifting half-human creature. I think you probably need to go north, to encounter 'werewolves.' Also keep in mind, as @big soft moose pointed out ...werewolves don't exist and never did. They have always been creatures of the imagination. So trying to 'set' them firmly in Rome during a particular period isn't really necessary, except to make your background material believable.
