Anthony Everitt: The Rise of Rome

On the horizon, Gallic villages were on fire, reddening the dark sky with baleful bursts of flame. In the distance the trumpeting of elephants could be heard, and there, under a bridge, leaning with his back against an arch, Hannibal was listening, thoughtful and exultant, to the muffled tread of legions on the march.

Cicero’s wonderful letters allow us insight into the quality of life in the late Roman Republic.

1 “I am coming to hope…” Cic Fam 175 (9 1).

2 Eventually, a young man Plut Sull 31 1–2.

3 “What a disaster!” Plut Sull 31 6.

4 “And look at the man himself” Cic Rosc Am 46 135.

5 “Only let us be firm on one point” Cic Fam 177 (9 2).

6 a handbook on agriculture Var Rust De re rustica.

7 “If I have leisure to visit Tusculum” Cic Fam 179 (9 5).

8 “If you don’t come to me” Op. cit., 180 (9 4).

9 “These days you are now spending” Op. cit., 181 (9 6).

10 “To every man” Macaulay, Horatius stanza 27.

Variants of the Aeneas story were current. I have mostly depended on Virgil’s canonical account, his epic poem the Aeneid , but have also made use of a somewhat different version of events in Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

1 (some said) the celebrated Palladium According to other traditions, the Palladium had been stolen by Ulysses and the Greek hero Diomedes, and ended up variously at Athens, Sparta, or Rome.

2 According to another narrative Dio of H 1 46.

3 Aeneas looked wonderingly Virg Aen 1 421–25.

4 “Now this second Paris” Ibid., 4 215–17.

5 Aeneas the True Virg Aen passim.

6 “So stop upsetting yourself” Op. cit., 4 360–61.

7 Neither love nor compact Ibid., 4 624–29.

8 a memorial was still standing Dio of H 1 64 4–5.

9 Seven years had passed Ibid., 1 65 1.

The story of the birth and early days of Romulus and Remus is drawn from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, and Livy. The basic story is unchallenged, but the details vary and were hotly debated.

1 “Hercules, who was the greatest commander” Dio of H 1 41 1.

2 They were on friendly terms Plut Rom 6 3.

3 an ancient festival The appearance of the Lupercalia in the story is attributed to Cicero’s friend the historian Aelius Tubero. Dio of H 1 80 1.

4 “nothing bordering on legend” Dio of H 1 84 1.

5 A river enables the city Cic Rep 2 5 10.

6 Faustulus’s grave Dio of H 1 87 2.

7 Eteocles and Polynices See, for example, Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus.

8 Cain murdered Abel Genesis 4:9–16.

9 was conceived in his mother’s womb Plut Rom 12 2–6.

10 little more than three thousand Latins Dio of H 1 87 2.

11 Consus, the god of good advice Originally a god of the granary.

12 “I have chosen you” Dio 1 5 11.

13 He presented himself Ioann. Laur. Lyd., De magistr. rei publ. Rom. 1 7.

14 “the shrewd device” and “my Rome” Livy 1 16 5–7.

15 one of Rome’s earliest historians Fabius Pictor.

16 “great inclination to the invention” Cic Rep 2 10.

17 a new comet Suet Caes 88.

18 He wanted the proper performance Cic op. cit., 2 14.

19 a sacrifice was conducted thirty times Plut Cor 25 3.

20 “So perish all women” For the story of Horatius, see Livy 1 26

21 The timber is still to be seen Livy ibid.

22 “Every building, public and private” Op. cit., 1 29 6.

23 Pons Sublicius See Richardson under heading.

24 “Hear me, Jupiter” Livy 1 32 6.

Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus are the main literary sources, with useful commentary from Cicero’s Republic .

1 on a par with the name of Hecuba’s mother This was Theodor Mommsen’s view. See Mommsen 1 9, p. 121, referring to Suet Tib 70 3. Hecuba was the wife of King Priam of Troy.

2 “deeply learned as they were” Livy 5 1 6.

3 “rules concerning the founding” Festus 358 L.

4 Inside every ordinary object This paragraph is indebted to Heurgon, 224–25.

5 gold ornaments Heurgon, p. 152 (citing Raniero Mengarelli).

6 Theopompus, has left a frank Cited in Ath 12 14 517d. It is hard to know what weight to place on this testimony. It receives some confirmation from Posidonius via Diodorus Siculus 5 40. Posidonius puts this decadent behavior down to Etruscan weakness in the centuries following the Roman conquest. But sexual promiscuity is not in itself inconsistent with military prowess.

7 between about 620 and 610 The traditional date is 657 B.C., but recent scholarship has pushed the date of Cypselus’s accession further forward. See Cornell, p. 124.

8 the geographer Strabo Strabo 8 c. 378.

9 “It was indeed no little rivulet” Cic Rep 2 19 (34).

10 Genial, well-informed Ibid., 2 19 34.

11 “This statue remained” Dio of H 3 71.

12 “not a Roman, but some newcomer” Ibid., 3 72 5.

13 This was Servius Tullius The emperor Claudius (first century A.D.) was an Etruscan expert and tells a completely different and probably more historical story about Servius’s rise to power. According to him, Servius was an Etruscan adventurer who came to Rome at the head of an army. See a speech by Claudius preserved in an inscription. Table of Lyons ILS 212 1 8–27.

14 son of a slave woman Some ancient historians felt that for a Roman king to have been a slave’s offspring was infra dignitatem , and suggested that she had originally been a noblewoman before being captured in a war. See Livy 1 39.

15 Though he was brought up as a slave Cic Rep 2 21 (37).

16 “The king has been stunned” Livy 1 41 5.

17 believed devoutly in his luck For example, Sulla and Julius Caesar in the first century B.C.

18 special relationship with Fortuna See Cornell, p. 146.

19 “[The king] put into effect the principle” Cic Rep 2 22 39–40.

20 about 80,000 citizens Livy 1 44 2. The number given by Dio of H 4 22 2 is 84,700.

21 a population of about 35,000 On Rome’s population, see Cornell, pp. 204–08.

22 base-born himself Livy 1 47 11.

23 At the top of Cyprus Street Ibid., 1 47 6–7.

24 the Sibyl used to sit in a bottle . Pet 48.

25 discovered by a modern archaeologist Amedeo Mauri in 1932.

26 understand “the regular curving path” Cic Rep 2 25 45.

27 Tarquin was no delegator For this paragraph, see Dio 2 11 6.

28 “In the sweetness of private gain” Livy 1 54 10.

29 “through country which Roman feet” Ibid., 1 56 6.

30 “difficult even for an active man” Paus 10 5 5.

31 Bronze Charioteer Now in the Delphi Archaeological Museum.

32 The Pythia was a local woman In fact, there were three of them, two who alternated and the third being a reserve. The Delphic oracle was a cottage industry.

33 a sex scandal I follow Livy’s more composed, even theatrical version of events (1 57–59), rather than that of Dionysius, who moves the key personalities to and fro between Ardea and Rome, to no great purpose, except for a veneer of verisimilitude.