Early Rome: Myth or History?

Transcription

1 Early Rome: Myth or History? The Activity Early Rome is the subject of history, not myth. Do you agree? The Lupa Capitolina : a bronze statuette of a she-wolf dating to the sixth century B.C. The twins were probably not added until the fifteenth century. The question of the value and authenticity of our knowledge about Rome s earliest history is hotly debated by modern scholars. Some argue that later Romans like Livy who wrote about their own past had access to a wide range of early records and a reliable oral tradition that was passed down from generation to generation, and that the archaeological record for the period is sufficient to fill in the gaps (for such an interpretation, see T.J. Cornell s The Beginnings of Rome (1995), at Others have argued that early Rome was the stuff of legend, rather like England of King Arthur, and that little of historical value can be weaned from it (for a good example, see T.P. Wiseman s The Myths of Rome (2004): see the review at For this activity, it will be best to restrict yourself to Regal Rome (that is Rome from its foundation down to the expulsion of the last king in 509 B.C.). This is the period covered by book one of Livy s History of Rome, so it would be a good idea to begin this activity by reading what Livy has to say about early Rome. As you do this, ask yourself whether or not Livy himself seems to believe everything he writes about. The question of the historicity of early Rome is still very much open for debate, and it is up to you, once you ve surveyed some of the evidence available, to decide where you stand. You may wish to play the lawyer and argue one case as hard as you can, perhaps as part of a classroom debate. Or you may wish to sit on the fence and draw up two lists under the headings of myth and history. That is up to you. But before you begin, however, it would be sensible to identify what you think you mean by myth, and what you mean by history. The articles on Wikipedia (look up Mythology and History ) should give you some useful starting points. Again, there is no simple answer to this question, so don t be afraid to approach the definition of myth and history creatively. Below, I have outlined several themes or episodes that may help you to focus your ideas. These are not prescriptive: whole books have been devoted to the question explored by this activity, so select the areas that interest you most. 1

2 Foundation Silver denarius issued by Julius Caesar showing his proclaimed ancestor Aeneas escaping from the sack of Troy According to T.P. Wiseman, there were no fewer than 61 different versions of the foundation of Rome. Some imagined that Rome had been founded by Aeneas, the mythical Trojan prince who escaped from the burning embers of Troy, in the same year that the city of Carthage was founded by Dido. Others thought that the city had been founded by Hercules, or Odysseus, or the sons of Odysseus and Circe. This list of possibilities is mind-boggling. A sixth-century B.C. statue group showing Minerva escorting Hercules up to Olympus, discovered in the old centre of Rome 2

3 But the foundation story that eventually became standard has Rome founded by the twins Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of a Latin princess who had been raped by Mars (Livy sceptically comments that she probably made this up to cover up her adultery). In any case, her uncle the king exposed the twin babies to die, but they were rescued against all odds by a shewolf (or, Livy speculates, a prostitute, depending on how you translate lupa ), and then brought up by a shepherd and his wife. It is difficult for us to see these stories as the province of history (although Romans themselves clearly believed that these events had happened, even if they had been embellished). This story is up there in the domain of myth with the exposure and rescue of Moses, or Paris, who was exposed at birth and rescued by a bear, or Oedipus, whose early story was not dissimilar. But if, as Livy encourages us to do, we strip away all the fantastical elements, are we left with a credible story? What do you think? P. Da Cortona, Rape of the Sabine Women (1627-9), Capitoline Museum, Rome. A likely story? You could also go on to ask the same questions about Romulus collection of runaway slaves and criminals for the creation of his new city, his brutal murder of his brother who taunted the height of his walls by jumping over them, the rape of the Sabine women in order to procure women for the new community. How likely are these? If they are pure fiction, why would Romans create and believe them? You may find it helpful to look up the word aetiology and think about its relevance to this question. For example, there was an old Roman law that prescribed capital punishment for anyone who climbed over the walls of a Roman town; how do you think this law relates to the story of Romulus murder of his brother? Seven Kings According to established tradition, Rome was ruled by seven kings from B.C. If this is the case, each of them reigned on average for about 33 years. This, you will see, cannot be taken seriously. It is without historical parallel: even the most stable monarchies rarely attain an average length of reign of more than twenty years: the average for the British monarchy since the start of the seventeenth century is just over 21 years. The absurdity of the Roman king list has long been recognised, and was systematically exposed in a thesis by Sir Isaac Newton as long ago as Now the tradition of seven kings was evidently a well-established one; where this number came from we can t be sure but it was clearly proverbial from a very early stage, just like Rome s seven hills. What one early historian did was translate this tradition of seven kings into seven 3

4 generations. In Rome, a generation or saeculum was often measured at a third of a century, that is 33 or sometimes 34 years. A bit of maths: 7 X 34 = 238 years. Romans always knew from public records that the monarchy was overthrown and the Republic founded in 509 B.C., and so: 509 B.C. 238 years = 747 B.C. This, the historians argued, was when Rome was founded. They continued to offer various alternative foundation dates around this year, until Varro, writing at the end of the Republic, persuaded everyone that the real date was 753 B.C. In fact, some scholars have argued, Livy s account of the seven kings represent them as symbolic shorthand for different phases or themes in the development of Rome. Below, then, I have collected key passages of Livy which encapsulate what each of the kings stood for in the literary tradition. (i) Romulus ( B.C.) Name = Little Roman? Raw foundations of Rome/ creation of earliest institutions. Livy 1.15: Such is the story of Rome s military and political achievements during the reign of Romulus. All of them chime well enough with the belief in his divine birth and the divinity ascribed to him after his death. One need but recall the vigour he displayed in recovering his ancestral throne; his wisdom in founding Rome and bringing her to strength by the arts of both war and peace. It was to him and no-one else that she owed the power which enabled her to enjoy untroubled tranquillity for the next forty years. (ii) Numa Pompilius ( B.C.) Creator of major religious and legal institutions. Livy 1.19: Rome had originally been founded by force of arms; the new king now prepared to give the community a second beginning, this time on the solid basis of law and religious observance. Livy 1.21: The grandest achievement of his reign was, that throughout its course, he remained the jealous guardian of peace even more than of power. Thus two successive kings each, though in opposite ways, added strength to the growing city: Romulus by war, Numa by peace. Romulus reigned thirty seven years, Numa forty three. When Numa died, Rome by the twin disciplines of peace and war was as eminent for self-mastery as for military power. (iii) Tullus Hostilius ( B.C.) Military development and early expansion Livy 1.22: Tullus Hostilius proved a very different man from his predecessor; indeed, in his lust for action he surpassed Romulus himself In his view, Rome had been allowed to lapse into senility, and his one object was to find cause for renewed military adventure. 4

5 (iv) Ancus Marcius ( B.C.) Epitomy of balanced ruler (known as Ancus the Good ). Livy 1.35: Ancus reigned twenty four years. His fame as both soldier and administrator was unsurpassed by a previous occupant of the throne. (v) Lucius Tarquinius Priscus ( B.C.) Part Etruscan credited with Etruscanisation of Rome. Livy: successful warrior, constitutional innovator and civic benefactor. Manipulative? Livy 1.35: In most ways he was a man of outstanding character and ability; nevertheless after his accession he employed the same sort of means of assuring his position as he employed to gain it [he has sent Ancus Marcius two sons out on a hunting expedition and seized power for himself while they were away]. He was always something of a schemer, and it was as much to strengthen his own hold upon the throne as to increase the political influence of the Senate that he now added to that body a hundred new members (vi) Servius Tullius ( B.C.) Slavish? Reorganisation of citizen body, construction of temples/public buildings/fortifications, international diplomacy. Livy 1.48: The reign of Servius Tullius lasted forty four years. It was a good reign, and even the best and most moderate successor would not easily have emulated it. One of its most notable marks was the fact that with Servius true kingship came to an end; never again was a Roman king to rule in accordance with humanity and justice. Nevertheless, however mild and moderate his rule he intended, according to some writers, to abdicate in favour of a republican government, simply because he disapproved in principle of monarchy. (vii) Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud : B.C.) Tyranny, cruelty, militaristic expansion. Livy 1.49: Now began the reign of Tarquinius Superbus Tarquin the Proud. His conduct merited the name. In spite of the ties of kin, he refused Servius the rite of burial, saying, in brutal jest, that Romulus body had not been buried either. He executed the leading senators who he thought had supported Servius Without hope of his subjects affection, he could only rule by fear. Seven kings offers: a) Simple developmental framework for formation of Roman state/ value system b) Symbolic models of autocracy. Look again at this king list, and decide which kings you think are likely to be historical figures, and which belong purely to the realm of myth. Scholars have argued that the last four kings in particular are likely to be grounded in historical reality: from reading Livy, why do you think this is? 5

6 Expulsion of Tarquin Titian, The Rape of Lucretia ( ) According to Livy, the last king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud (Tarquinius Superbus) was driven from Rome in 509 B.C. after his son took advantage of his regal status and forced himself upon a Roman noblewoman called Lucretia. Lucretia committed suicide and her outraged relatives led a group of aristocrats to rid the city of kings once and for all. How likely do you think this story is? Do political revolutions happen as the result of a private affair such as this one? Is the rape of Lucretia likely to have happened at all? Look up Lucretia on Google and Wikipedia, and think about how this figure and the events surrounding her have been mythicised in subsequent literature, drama and art. Archaeology The archaeological evidence for early Rome is very fragmentary and can be confusing, although some scholars have used it constructively to corroborate the literary record, or to build up a coherent picture of early Roman society, politics and culture. For example, an early wall has been discovered on the Palatine Hill which dates to about the eighth century B.C. 6

7 Is this evidence for the Wall of Romulus (as the discovery has sometimes been christened), which Romulus is described building around his settlement on the Palatine Hill in 753 B.C.? How likely is this? If it is not evidence for the foundation of Rome by Romulus, what is it evidence for? Similarly, the foundations of small huts dating to around the same time have been discovered on the Palatine. We know that Augustus, who also discovered the same foundations, believed that he had found Romulus hut. But, given that Augustus himself lived on the Palatine Hill, he may have had a vested interest in this early piece of archaeological speculation. What do you believe? Another famous piece of archaeological evidence, which was used at the turn of the twentiethcentury to prove that early Rome had kings, and to argue against sceptical scholars who believed that Roman kings never existed and were really old gods, is the so-called Lapis Niger (the Black Stone ). This was part of an early shrine containing a boundary stone with an early Latin inscription dating to about 500 B.C. This inscription is fragmentary and rather hard to follow, but and this is the feature that stirred the most excitement it appears to contain the Latin word RECEI ( king ), which you can see written backwards on the image below. Evidence for the existence of kings? Again - you decide. 7

8 Going further The Tyrannicides, Roman copy of a Greek original set up in Athens in the early years of Athenian democracy. Harmodius and his lover Aristogeiton led a rebellion against the tyrants of Athens after one of the tyrants sought the sexual favours of Harmodius. It may seem a striking coincidence that at almost exactly the same time that the last king was expelled from Rome as the result of the rape of Lucretia, across the Adriatic the last tyrant of Athens, Hippias, was expelled from the city as the result of another sexual indiscretion. Can we believe that these two events, which had so much in common, really happened at the same time. Have a think about possible reasons for these similarities between events in early Rome and events in Athens. Is it likely that Romans were aware of what was happening in the Greek world, and were following suit? Or do you think later historians of Rome were trying to align events in early Roman history to those in Greece? And, if the latter, why would they do so? 8