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In the movie Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine tells Anakin: "Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy" right after Anakin turns to the dark side and becomes Vader.
When and how did the Sith rule before, and did it always have two Sith lords even when it was in power previously, or was there an order similar to the Jedi's?
What was the original rule, the republic or the Sith?
The Sith may have never outright ruled the Galaxy Far Far Away prior to the Republic, but they certainly ruled large portions of it on multiple occasions. The term Sith Empire refers to many attempts by Sith Lords to establish their dominion over the GFFA, from the original empire established by the Sith in the Unknown Regions - which came to encompass much of the Republic during the Great Hyperspace War - to the empires of Exar Kun, Revan, and eventually the empire of Darth Krayt.
None of these polities, nor the small Dark Jedib kingdom that sprung up during the Hundred-Year Darkness, however, seem to pre-date the establishment of the Galactic Republic after the Unification Wars (there is very little detail on these, and they end up being retconned out of existence along the line), nor did the Sith even succeed in toppling the Republic until Palpatine cleverly destroyed it from within. It is possible that Mace Windu was simply referring to the Sith ruling a large empire, rather than over the territory of the Republic itself.
To answer your second question, the Rule of Two is a relatively recent Sith invention. Prior to its establishment following the New Sith Wars, the Sith had an order, much like the Jedi.
In the recently released book Tarkin by James Luceno, there is mention of a Sith Shrine that was built on Coruscant, and that the actual Jedi Temple we see in the prequels was built on top of said shrine in a veiled attempt to conceal/weaken its dark side aura. It is also mentioned in the book that the presence of this shrine beneath the jedi temple actually contributed to the clouding of the Jedi's vision during the clone wars.
If a place of such power were constructed on Coruscant, a world long regarded as the Galactic capital throughout history, and if this shrine were built before the jedi temple, it would be reasonable to conclude that the Sith at one time may have controlled Coruscant, and by extension, had a strong grip on the galaxy at large.
To add to James' answer, this could also be referring to Rakatan Empire, who - while not Sith - based their rule on technologies based on Dark Side of the Force and whose inventions were sought after by the Sith later on (the Forge, etc...)
Unless there is canon I'm unaware of, the only two times a Sith ruled the universe (or at least, the major power of the time) was Palpatine during the time of the movies and then later Krayt during Star Wars: Legacy. Prior to that, the only ones who came close were Revan and Exar Kun, but they were both stopped during their respective wars, before they could actually rule anything.
Star Wars canon can be a little wonky, especially considering Episodes 7,8,9 in the next few years will probably re-write it all again like the prequels did.
