ANCIENT ROMAN CIVILIZATION

ANCIENT ROMAN CIVILIZATION

HANDOUT PACKAGE FALL 2009 HISTORY 4322/6322 Dr. Peter J. Brand

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MOST ANCIENT ROME: ORIGINS AND BEGINNINGS

Legend of Trojan origins: dates back at least to 5th century BCE, when Greek historian Hellanicus refers to it. Trojan hero Aeneas, in flight from Troy, lands on Italian coast and intermarries with Latin ruling family. His descendants are Romulus and Remus. Aeneas himself was worshipped in Rome under the label Iuppiter Indiges ("native Jupiter").

She-Wolf Legend: current in Italy by late 5th or earlier 4th century, though not clearly with reference to Rome. A statue of babies Romulus and Remus with she-wolf is known to have been set up in Rome as early as 296 BCE.

"Latial"/ "Villanovan" settlement on Palatine Hill, which Romans regarded as site of Romulus' original settlement

Sabine component of Roman population: (1) early inhabitants of Quirinal Hill (2) Term for people "Quirites," originally referring to Sabines, later used for Romans as group. (3) Legend of Sabine women probably is ex-post-facto explanation of Sabine component in Roman makeup.

Foundation of Rome: traditionally agreed as being April 21, 753; Roman time-reckoning was generally in terms of so many years "since the founding of the city" (ab urbe condita, abbreviated AUC)

Etruscan kings of Rome: Tarquinius Priscus (# 5) and Tarquin the Proud (# 7). The traditional date of his expulsion is

509 BCE. The Republic was believed to have begun immediately afterwards, but this is complicated by

Lars Porsenna (of Clusium): attacked, and probably took Rome after Tarquin the Proud was expelled, but did not reinstall him.

Supposed sources for Roman history:

(1) "Whiteboards" (tabulae dealbatae) posted by Pontifex Maximus every year until c. 130 BCE. Thereafter compiled into Annales Maximi, which had reached a length of 80 books by the time of the Emperor Augustus. (2) Fasti Capitolini: lists of chief government officials

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Etruscan influences on later Roman practices include: (1) Requirement that consuls take "auspices" (=omens to ensure that the day is not unfavorable for business) (2) Priestly colleges: Augurs, Flamens, Pontiffs. (3) Blood sacrifices and gladiatorial games.

Early Burial Urn shaped like a wood and wattle hut

Reconstruction of a prehistoric settlement on the site of Rome 3

Prehistoric Settlements at the site of Rome 4

"THE ETRUSCAN PROBLEM" REVISITED

(A) Tradition

Believed by many Greek writers to have emigrated from the eastern Mediterranean area: identified with Tyrsenoi, which could be a hellenized version of Tiwresh (name of one of the groups of "Sea Peoples" that attacked Egypt c. 1205 BCE). A plausible etymology can be worked out from Turs to Tursci ("those of Turs") ending up with the name Etursci/Etrusci. Trouble is, all this might be ex-post-facto theorizing, to account for a people entrenched in North Italy who were so different from their neighbors in language (non-Indo-European) and culture.

Herodotus (I 94) says the Etruscans were brought to Italy from Asia Minor by a Lydian named Tyrrhenus, and that they adopted the name "Tyrrhenians" in his honor. This sounds suspiciously like other stories which trace a people back to an ancestor who brought the stock from somewhere else (like Aeneas for Rome) and obviously it cannot be verified. It is reflected, however, in the name "Tyrrhenian Sea" which was later given to that part of the Mediterranean which lies between Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the west coast of Italy.

The Etruscans called themselves "Rasenna" and told the historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (middle-to-late first century BCE) that they had always been native to Etruria.

(B) Archaeology

There appears to be a cultural continuity between the Late Bronze Age culture in Etruria (called "Proto-Villanovan," 12th to 10th centuries BCE) and the Iron Age "Villanovan" culture (9th-8th centuries) which is definitely the precursor of "Etruscan" civilization. While this would support Dionysius' theory of a native Etruscan people, the evidence might be compatible (or not, depending on whom you read) with a foreign takeover between the "proto" and "full" Villanovan periods, c. 900 BCE -- but to make that work you have to assume that these immigrants brought in very little that was distinctively new and that they adopted many customs, particularly burial customs, of the "proto-Villanovans" whom they replaced: such evidence seems to me inconclusive. Similarly dicy is the theory that the (Proto) Villanovans were taken over by a tiny ruling elite from the east who brought the distinctive "orientalizing" features of later Etruscan culture but otherwise didn't disturb the mainstream culture which they found: this solution may "save" the tradition but it has its own problems -- both logistical (how would such a tiny elite have won?) and evidentiary (where's the positive proof?). Most scholars today tend to regard Villanovan culture, at least, as the early Iron Age precursor of fully developed Etruscan civilization. Etruscan "orientalizing" (c. 720-580) may have happened through the Greeks with whom the Etruscans were in contact, or possibly through Carthage -- or maybe these features are just peculiar to the native culture and only resemble comparanda further east.

Prof. Africa points to a tombstone on Lemnos, opposite the Troad in Asia Minor, written in a non-Indo-European language which resembles Etruscan: this, he thinks, might lend credence to the idea that the original Etruscan stock came from the eastern Mediterranean. Since he wrote this,

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however, the language has been more conclusively identified as a form of Etruscan; and since the stela is late (perhaps earlier 5th century according to the recent CAH, as opposed to 7th or 6th century by others) it could reflect, not a pocket of proto-Etruscan speakers on Lemnos, but an isolated Etruscan mercenary from one of the fringe communities of Etruria. In conclusion, right now there seems to be no convincing reason to honor the "ancient model" for a proto-Etruscan migration into Italy, and rather more reason to believe the just-as-ancient model which makes the Etruscans native to Italian soil.

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Topographical & Regional Map of Italy 7

Central Italy

South Italy & Islands of Corsica, Sardinia & Sicily 8

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