The foundation of Rome: Archaeology and Tradition

The problem: If history is the study of causes, and if the understanding of those causes can be generalized to provide guidance to understanding our current dilemmas, then surely the insight gained will be limited by the quality of the available evidence. Standards of truth vary: explanations about the past that are acceptable one generation may not be so to later ones. Plausibility is important, but also truths may be accepted as such because they [the truths] serve the needs of the present (i.e., the provide justification; legitimation). What we want to do here is to look at the nature of the surviving evidence and examine how historians (Roman and later) interpreted, ordered and shaped their past to create a coherent whole. Even then the coherent truth about Early Rome changed as Rome itself evolved.

Discussion Point: What do the terms myth and legend mean? Note also the variant, namely national myth (e.g., of our founding fathers/mothers)

Overview of the chronology

  1. On sources: It may appear self-evident, but what we can know about the ancient world depends upon or is limited by the nature of what survives of the material culture as well as by what the ancients themselves thought worthy of remembering and transmitting [first orally, then in writing??).
    1. Categories of sources
      1. Primary and secondary; written and monumental: inscriptions, coins, buildings, records of sales, etc.
      2. Oral tradition in a marginally literate society
    2. Discussion Point: What factors shape the development of a historical consciousness? What are the constraints on interpreting the physical evidence.
  2. The Foundation of Rome: The history of this period consists of colorful legends around a legitimate historical core. Archaeologists, linguists and other scholars have to a certain degree separated the facts from the fantasy. Even Livy had his doubts (RC pp. 1-9, esp. 8).
    1. The stories of Rome's foundation, as recorded in especially in Vergil's Aeneid and Livy's History of Rome (both date to the period of Augustus --seven centuries after the events are full of inconsistencies.  
    2. This coherent account is the amalgamation of several traditional tales supplemented ('fleshed out') by recognized narrative techniques.
      1. The traditional and native Roman legend has Rome being founded in the 8th century and perhaps too from nearby Alba. Archaeological evidence tends to support a very close connection (material culture) between the two sites in the relevant period. A king, his virgin daughter, an evil brother, a god, and their progeny! Faustulus
      2. The Greek version made Aeneas (11th Century BC) the founder of Rome and was politically and culturally important because the story placed Rome within the very important Greek tradition; Rome could present herself to the world as every bit as 'Greek' as Athens or Sparta (we will see how important this was later...barbarian or not? Still there was a major problem: three hundred years, and how to bridge the gap. Other artistic versions of Aeneas/Anchises story one, two, three; Aeneas and Dido; Aeneas and Ascanius
        1. Troy as the beginning; source of prestige, enhanced Roman reputation, puts Rome within tradition known to Greeks, importance of Greek public opinion.
        2. Note: it matters not whether this is true, but it did matter to both Greeks and Romans later (2nd cent) that Rome was within the Greek "orbit".
      3. Alternate tales claimed that the founder of Rome was Romulus (' --ulus' ending = 'founder of...'); probably the Latin original; that Rhomos was the son of Odysseus and Circe and the founder of Rome; that he had a twin brother probably derives from the variations in the spelling of the same name in Greek. Note: nothing is discarded! If there are variations in the name, it must mean that there were two individuals.
    3. Significance: It does not matter whether these stories are true or not; what does matter is how the Romans later used the stories, for example to legitimize their ascendancy. So Julius Caesar claimed to be a direct descendant Ascanius and of Aeneas of Venus,and could claim then to have divine parentage.

The Major Players in Italy in the first half of the first millennium BC.

  1. Italic peoples and languages (alphabets): known under various names (Samnites, Lucanians, etc.). Pastoral, semi nomadic peoples, primitive kingship/warrior bands (note the story of Romulus and early Romans).
  2. Etruscans: because the language appears to be a non Indo-European one, it has long been believed that the Etruscans migrated to Italy at some time, but from where? Herodotus suggests it was from Asia Minor (note tale of Tuscus). Whatever the origins the culture blossomed in Italy and was profoundly affected by artistic styles of the Aegean. In terms of urban planning, the Etruscans had a profound and lasting effect on Roman civilization (ritual, language, architecture and urban planning).   Wall paintings from Tarquinia (1.); (2.); (3.); (5.); (7.); (8.)
  3. The Greeks. Traders arrived first seeking especially the iron and copper of Etruria. Contact as far back as the Bronze Age, but with increasing intensity in the 8th Cent., leading eventually to formal colonies (primarily interested in agricultural land) in Italy (near Naples=Neapolis) in about 700. By 500, the various Greek colonies controlled all the important harbors and agricultural areas along the southern coast of Italy. Romans first encountered Greek culture through the Etruscans, but by 500 had established their own contacts.  Paestum (1.); (2.). Influence: religion and myth, urbanization, historical consciousness)
  1. The Regal Period
    1. Earliest habitation on Palatine and Aventine hills (Romulus and Remus) with Capitol as 'Fluchtburg'; the death of Remus - fratricide!
    2. Growth through asylum and incorporation; the rape of the Sabine women; rape2; rape3. Significance: Romans did not view themselves as a pure racial group with descent from a common ancestor, but saw their early history as a reflection of the world they knew, namely that they were a mongrel race, one that was born in violence.
    3. Stories of regal period center around
      1. the figures of the kings --as in other Indo-European societies, it was an 'elected' monarchy-- and
      2. on the development of political and religious institutions
      3. on the expansion of the state against Etruscans and the Sabines
  2. The significance of the legends
    1. The Romans had only a vague recollection of their most distant past. This uncertainty left ample opportunity for creative invention based on recognized principles of narrative/storytelling.
    2. The Romans were themselves skeptical of this semi-historical tradition, but preserved it for patriotic and didactic purposes
    3. The historical core
      1. The very names of the kings and the stories about the Sabine women (Livy I 7ff.) and Etruscans confirm the fact of the 'racial' mixture" of these three elements in early Rome. To be found in the archaeological record
      2. There is good reason to believe that there was constant warfare (of the border raid variety) during this period. There was surely tension between the increasingly agrarian Romans and their more pastoral neighbors in the surrounding hills. Rape story
      3. Internal violence. The tension between king and aristocracy (death of Romulus; death of Remus) is duplicated in many Indo-European communities in the Mediterranean at this time. Note Livy I 15-6.
    4. The Romans also found it useful to preserve (and even to refine) their legends; to make them work as part of the progaganda of political controversies.   Aristocrats felt they must live up and even to surpass to the achievements of their legendary ancestors; Augustus. For example, felt that his Julian past, with the connection to Aeneas, Mars and Romulus provided justification for his unusual authority.

Classroom Exercise: What kinds of evidence can be used to reconstruct the history of very early Rome? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

Please open this link to the Classroom Reporting Tool, and work in groups of three to respond.