History of Roman history

[rgprice]

I'm looking for some good resources on the "history of Roman history". Specifically the development of Roman historical narratives from the 5th century BBCE up through the first century.

Topics of interest:
Understanding the development of Roman historical narratives from prior to Roman contact with Greek colonies in southern Italy and after.
Understanding why Romans adopted Greek narratives.
Comparison of actual history to Roman historical narratives, understanding the difference between real the history of Roman and narratives that dominated Roman culture.

[MrMacSon]

Subsequently, from another thread:

I've recently been studying the history of Roman history and have been struck by quite a few things.

#1) The writing of Roman history as we know it began in the Hellenistic era, around the 3rd century BCE.
#2) Early Roman historians wrote in Greek and patterned their work on Greek sources.
#3) The "pre-history" of Rome was essentially constructed from Greeks mythology, including the stories of Aeneas and Romulus and Remus.
#4) Roman pre-history was written moralistically, used to frame the moral ideals of the Romans who were writing the accounts.

Now, it seems to me that a Hellenistic development of the Pentateuch fits right in with this model. Indeed, what we find is that this was an era when many histories were produced in Greek.

The first Roman to write history in prose was the senator Q. Fabius Pictor who, late in the third century BCE, wrote an account of Roman history from the beginnings to the Second Punic War. He wrote in Greek, for there was as yet little literary prose in Latin, and Greek was the lingua franca for peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. The Babylonian priest Berossus and the Egyptian priest Manetho both wrote histories of their own people in Greek and, in third-century BCE Egypt, a Jewish scholar named Demetrius wrote a biblical history in Greek. A large team of Jewish scholars in Alexandria also translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek (Septuagint).
-Mellor, Ronald. The Roman Historians1 (p. 16), Taylor and Francis

Of course, Mellor is here passing on the conventional claim regarding the Hebrew Bible. Yet there are so many parallels between all of these works. We know that this was a period in which many groups were writing national histories in Greek. We know that many of these were were influenced by Greek writers. We know that Roman pre-history is largely a literary construct developed from Greek literary sources.

So when we look at a civilization like that of the Romans and historians can easily conclude that the widely accepted accounts of Roman origins are largely or entirely fabricated from Greek literary sources, it really makes no sense to conclude that the same is not probable for accounts like those of the Jews. In other words, postulating a Hellenistic origin of the Jewish scriptures is merely suggesting that accounts of Jewish history developed in much the same way as those of other civilizations, such as the Romans.

1. 1st edition 1999 (ebook 2002). A 2012 3rd edition was titled, The Historians of Ancient Rome. An Anthology of the Major Writings

[MrMacSon]

Also from Taylor and Francis,

by Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland:

• Ancient Rome: Social and Historical Documents from the Early Republic to the Death of Augustus, 2015

• The Ancient Romans: History and Society from the Early Republic to the Death of Augustus, 2021

by Celia E. Schultz, Allen M. Ward, F. M. Heichelheim, C. A. Yeo:

• A History of the Roman People, 2019

[rgprice]

Yeah, a lot of that deals with stuff from 300 BCE on. I guess I'm most interested in accounts of the founding of Rome, etc.

[MrMacSon]

I recently started looking at the history of Roman religion/s. It's history is likely tied to the founding myths of Rome and of the Roman Kingdom and vice versa.

fwiw (preliminary: derived from Wikipedia),

The traditional chronology and versions of earliest Roman history, which comes late, principally through Fabius Pictor (c. 270 – c. 200 BC), Varro (116 BC – 27 BC), Livy (64 or 59 BC – AD 12 or 17), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (c. 60 BC – after 7 BC) and Plutarch (46–120), recounts that a series of seven kings formed and ruled a Roman Kingdom in Rome's first centuries, after the city's founding c. 753 BC by Romulus & Remus with settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber in central Italy. The traditional chronology, as codified by Pictor and Varro, allowed 243 years for their combined reigns, an average of almost 35 years, but, since the work of Barthold Georg Niebuhr, modern scholarship has generally discounted this chronological schema.

The Roman Kingdom is said to have ended with the overthrow of the last king, Tarquinius Superbus, and establishment of the Republic c.509 BC.

The Gauls destroyed many of Rome's historical records when they sacked the city after the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC (according to Varro; according to Polybius the battle occurred in 387–6), and what remained eventually fell prey to time or theft [likely both].

So, with no good surviving/extant records of the Roman Kingdom, and few inscriptions, all accounts of the Roman kings are thought largely to be based on 'oral tradition,' so must be carefully questioned; as for accounts of the early Republic.

The kings (excluding Romulus, who, according to legend, held office by virtue of being the city's founder along with his twin Remus), were all said to be elected by the people of Rome to serve for life, with none of the kings relying on military force to gain or keep the throne. He was invested with supreme military, executive, and judicial authority through the use of imperium, formally granted to the king by the Curiate Assembly with the passing of the Lex curiata de imperio at the beginning of each king's reign.

As the sole owner of 'imperium' in Rome at the time, the king possessed ultimate executive power and unchecked military authority as the commander-in-chief of all of the Roman legions; and was protected from ever being brought to trial for his actions.

The king alone possessed the right to the augury on behalf of Rome as its chief augur, and no public business could be performed without the will of the gods made known through auspices. The people knew the king as a mediator between them and the gods (cf. Latin pontifex, "bridge-builder", in this sense, between men and the gods) and thus viewed the king with religious awe. This made the king the head of the national religion and its chief executive. Having the power to control the Roman calendar, he conducted all religious ceremonies and appointed lower religious offices and officers.

It is said that Romulus himself instituted the augurs and was believed to have been the best augur of all. Likewise, King Numa Pompilius instituted the pontiffs and through them developed the foundations of the religious dogma of Rome.

The Pontifex Maximus was said to be the head of Roman state religion, but not the highest office.

The king had the power to either appoint or nominate all officials to offices. He would appoint a tribunus celerum to serve as both the tribune of the Ramnes tribe in Rome and as the commander of the king's personal bodyguard, the celeres. The king was required to appoint the tribune upon entering office and the tribune left office upon the king's death. The tribune was second in rank to the king and also possessed the power to convene the Curiate Assembly and lay legislation before it.

Another officer appointed by the king was the praefectus urbi, who acted as the warden of the city. When the king was absent from the city, the prefect held all of the king's powers and abilities, even to the point of being bestowed with imperium while inside the city.

The king had the right to be the only person to appoint patricians to the Senate from the ruling class families derived from the city fathers, the patres.

The social structure of ancient Rome revolved around the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians. Though the relevance of the patricians waned after the Conflict of the Orders (494 BC to 287 BC (ie. from within 15 yrs of the start of the Republic). By the time of the late Republic and early Empire, membership in the patriciate was of only nominal significance.

The highest senatorial priests, the ordo sacerdotum, came from the the patricians. Being the most prestigious priest, the Rex Sacrorum, chosen by the Pontifex Maximus from a list from the Collete of Pontiffs (even though the PM was a lower rank to the rex sacrorum), did not confer any real political gain or advantage and was not a highly coveted position. The Rex Sacrorum had to be born from parents married through the ritual of confarreatio, which was also the form of marriage he himself had to enter. His wife, the Regina Sacrorum, also performed religious duties specific to her role. Marriage was thus such a fundamental part of the priesthood that if the regina died, the rex had to resign. The rex sacrorum was based in the Regia.

A flamen (plural flamines) was a priest of the ancient Roman religion who was assigned to one of eighteen deities with official cults during the Roman Republic. The most important of these were the three flamines maiores ('major priests'), who served the important Roman gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus:^a (named Flamen Dialis, Flamen Martialis and Flamen Quirinalis). The remaining twelve flamines were the flamines minores ('lesser priests').

1. The name Quirīnus probably stems from Latin quirīs [or Quirītis], the name of Roman citizens in their peacetime function.ⁱ Since both quirīs and Quirīnus are connected with Sabellic immigrants into Rome in ancient legends, it may be a loanword. Ancient etymologies derived the term from the Sabine word for "spear", or from the Sabine capitol of Cures, after the Sabine people were assimilated early in Roman history.
   
   
   
   History

   ---

   Quirinus most likely was originally a Sabine war god. The Sabines had a settlement near the eventual site of Rome, and erected an altar to Quirinus on the Collis Quirinalis Quirinal Hill, one of the Seven hills of Rome. When the Romans settled in the area, the cult of Quirinus became part of their early belief system. This [likely] occurred before the later influences from classical Greek culture.
   
   Deified Romulus
   By the end of the 1st century BCE, Quirinus would be considered to be the deified legendary first king, Romulus
   
   Brelich's argument for split deification
   Historian Angelo Brelich argued that Quirinus and Romulus were originally the same divine entity which was split into a founder hero and a god when Roman religion became demythicised. To support this, he points to the association of both Romulus and Quirinus with the grain spelt, through the Fornacalia or Stultorum Feriae, according to Ovid's Fasti
   
   Over time, Quirinus became less significant, and he was absent from the later, more widely known triad (he and Mars had been replaced by Juno and Minerva). Varro mentions the Capitolium Vetus, an earlier cult site on the Quirinal, devoted to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, among whom Martial makes a distinction between the "old Jupiter" and the "new"
   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirinus#History
   
   
   
   
   1. populus Romanus quirites (or quiritium) denotes the individual citizen as contrasted with the community
      ius quiritium is, in Roman law, full Roman citizenship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirites

With a flamen being a sacred position within Roman society, they were not permitted to run or hold a political office or lead or command an army. Hence, the role/s could be and were used for political purposes: certain people could be and were appointed flamen to stop them from gaining power.

The obscurity of some of the deities assigned a flamen (for example Falacer, Palatua, Quirinus and Volturnus) suggests that the office dated back to Archaic Rome. Many scholars assume that the flamines existed at least from the time of the early Roman kings, prior to the establishment of the Republic. The Romans themselves credited the foundation of the priesthood to Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. According to Livy, Numa created the offices of the three flamines maiores and assigned them each a fine robe of office and a curule chair. The flamines were 'circumscribed by many taboos.'

---

The Roman Imperial Cult was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents. Augustus's reforms transformed Rome's Republican system of government to a de facto monarchy, couched in traditional Roman practices and Republican values eg. the cult of a deified emperor (divus) also had a flamen.
.

[MrMacSon]

End of the Republic

In the last decades of the Roman Republic, its leaders regularly assumed extra-constitutional powers. The mos majorum had required that magistrates hold office collectively, and for short periods; there were two consuls; even colonies were founded by boards of three men; but these new leaders held power by themselves, and often for years.

The same men were often given extraordinary honors. Triumphs grew ever more splendid; Marius and Sulla, the rival leaders in Rome's first civil war, each founded cities, which they named after themselves; Sulla had annual games in his honor, at Rome itself, bearing his name; the unofficial worship of Marius is above.* In the next generation, Pompey was allowed to wear his triumphal ornaments whenever he went to the Games at the Circus. Such men also claimed a special relationship to the gods: Sulla's patron was Venus Felix, and at the height of his power, he added Felix to his own name; his opponent Marius believed he had a destiny, and that no ordinary man might kill him. Pompey also claimed Venus' personal favour, and built her a temple. But the first Roman to become a god, as part of aiming at monarchy, was Julius Caesar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_imp ... e_Republic

* After Gaius Marius defeated the Teutones, private citizens would offer food and drink to him alongside their household gods; he was called the third founder of Rome after Romulus and Camillus. In 86 BC, offerings of incense and wine were made at crossroad shrines to statues of the still-living Marius Gratidianus, the nephew of the elder Marius, who was wildly popular in his own right, in large part for monetary reforms that eased an economic crisis in Rome during his praetorship.

[MrMacSon]

---

The Roman Imperial Cult was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents. Augustus's reforms transformed Rome's Republican system of government to a de facto monarchy, couched in traditional Roman practices and Republican values ...

The granting of state divinity - divus - status (by a vote in the Senate) to a deceased emperor would have elevated religious, political and moral judgments by such divi; and it allowed living emperors to associate themselves with a well-regarded lineage of Imperial divi from which unpopular or unworthy predecessors were excluded eg. Vespasian's establishment of the Flavian Imperial Dynasty following the death of Nero and civil war, and Septimius's consolidation of the Severan dynasty after the assassination of Commodus.

The office of rex sacrorum seems to have been revived in the empire, [perhaps] by Augustus, as there was mention of it during the empire (until it was probably abolished by Theodosius I).

The cult of a deified emperor (a divus) also had a flamen (dunno whether they would universally have been flamen maiores (ie. major priests), like the flamines who served the major Roman gods Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus during the Kingdom (and probably during the early Republic, at least); or whether they universally were flamines minores ("lesser priests"); or whether a divi's flamen's status varied from divus to divus).

---

nb. cultus = worship:

1. a particular tradition of worship or veneration of deities, ancestors, guardians or saints (via https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cultus), or
2. the act of honoring or worshipping, reverence, adoration, veneration; loyalty (via https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cultus#Etymology_2_2)

Etymology

---

Cicero defined religio as cultus deorum, "the cultivation of the gods" [De Natura Deorum 2.8 and 1.117.]. The "cultivation" necessary to maintain a specific deity was that god's cultus, "cult," and required "the knowledge of giving the gods their due" (scientia colendorum deorum). The noun cultus originates from the past participle of the verb colo, colere, colui, cultus, "to tend, take care of, cultivate," originally meaning "to dwell in, inhabit" and thus "to tend, cultivate land (ager); to practice agriculture," an activity fundamental to Roman identity even when Rome as a political center had become fully urbanized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_(religious_practice)

[MrMacSon]

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (from Ancient Greek: Αἰνείας, romanized: Aineíās) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Dardanian prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus) ... Aineíās receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil's Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse god Víðarr of the Æsir.

Aineías is first introduced in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite when Aphrodite gives him his name from the adjective αὶνóν (ainon, "terrible"), for the "terrible grief" (αὶνóν ἄχος) he has caused her by being born a mortal who will age and die. It is a popular etymology for the name, apparently exploited by Homer in the Iliad.

In imitation of the Iliad, Virgil borrows epithets of Homer [and] gives Aeneas two epithets of his own, in the Aeneid: pater and pius. The epithets applied by Virgil are an example of an attitude different from that of Homer; for, whilst Odysseus is poikilios ("wily"), Aeneas is described as pius ("pious"), which conveys a strong moral tone. The purpose of these epithets seems to enforce the notion of Aeneas' divine hand as father and founder of the Roman race, and their use seems circumstantial: when Aeneas is praying he refers to himself as pius, and is referred to as such by the author only when the character is acting on behalf of the gods to fulfil his divine mission. Likewise, Aeneas is called pater when acting in the interest of his men

Other sources
The Roman mythographer Gaius Julius Hyginus (c. 64 BCE – CE 17) in his Fabulae credits Aeneas with killing 28 enemies in the Trojan War. Aeneas also appears in the Trojan narratives attributed to Dares Phrygius and Dictys of Crete.

One influential source was the account of Rome's founding in Cato the Elder's lost work Origines¹ (its fragments in other works have been collected and translated) [Cato the Elder = Marcus Porcius Cato 234–149 BC].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas

---

¹ Written to teach Romans what it means to be Roman, and used to teach his own son how to read, Cato the Elder wrote it ab urbe condita (from the founding of the city). The early history is filled with legends illustrating Roman virtues ... It was a source for Virgil's Aeneid and is referenced by other writers including Cicero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Elder#Writings

[MrMacSon]

"Roman religion as we know it is largely the product of the middle and late Republic, the period roughly between the victory of Rome over its Latin allies in 338 BCE and the attempt of Italian peoples in the Social War to stop Roman domination, resulting in the victory of Rome over all of Italy in 89."

Jörg Rüpke (2012) Religion in Republican Rome: Rationalization and Ritual Change, University of Pennsylvania Press

[MrMacSon]

Roman religion of the Late Republic and Imperial Age had a long history. It had emerged against a background of constant cultural exchange with the Etruscan states and cultures of Central Italy and the Greek-speaking Hellenistic world, in a process that can by no means be portrayed as peaceful. Rome was part of a world characterized by what Arthur Eckstein recently described as ‘interstate anarchy’, the process of its development marked by constant exchanges of goods and populations by plunder and enslavement, the building of alliances, competition, and demarcation. Religion has a distinctive face under these conditions. Measured against modern European conceptions, the religion of that time and place was astonishingly heterogeneous, local, and individual: an aspect upon which much too little light has been shed by research.

This same religion was, however, also an instrument of political and social cohesion, especially among the elite, and it set store by control, centralization, and personal presence. ‘Public’ rituals (sacra publica) were led by magistrates, priesthoods were filled by members of the senatorial elite, and military and economic successes memorialized in rituals and sacral architecture. At the same time, the gods invoked by the endowment of statues and temples defied control, announced their displeasure by portents, destroyed their own temples with lightning, and refused to move when the construction of a new temple was planned.

Priests were elected, but only from a select minority of the population, and political conflicts were made more acute by mutually contradictory auguries. Precisely because religion was not entirely subject to political control, it provided ruling elites with an important source of legitimation by constituting a ‘third authority’ (Georg Simmel). Neither the publicly financed cult, in the form of the sacra publica, nor its ‘pantheon’—the sum result of individual decisions to import and innovate—provides an adequate basis for characterizing such a religion. There were also no codified religious traditions.

The idea of codifying religion as a branch of knowledge did not occur in Rome until the Late Republic, and, according to Harriet Flower’s chronology, finds written expression only in texts originating after the end of the Republic: Cicero’s second book De Legibus at the end of the 50s bce, and Varro’s (mostly lost) Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum a few years later. Both works remained largely without influence. Only when religious groups that had emerged outside established political boundaries or cultural categories sought perpetuation do we see the successful emergence of canons based on ancient textual traditions: thus the initiatives of self-invention and mutual differentiation undertaken by ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’.

Against this background, it seems appropriate neither to consider ‘religion’ primarily as a form of organization, nor to investigate it primarily on the basis of its signs (although these are certainly of central importance); instead, we should see it as a form of communicative action. People endeavour to make contact with their ‘gods’; they communicate with them, and then with one another about their communication with the gods. Such a definition is neither in the narrow sense substantialist, nor functionalist; it inquires into actions that assume the social presence of superhuman interlocutors as given; it is not concerned with variable cultural forms that seek to encode contingency, or to legitimate rule. Only in this way is it possible to understand the change in the functional spectrum of ‘religion’ that appears to me a distinguishing characteristic of the Imperial Age.

---

Jörg Rüpke (2014) From Jupiter to Christ: On the History of Religion in the Roman Imperial Period (translated by David M.B. Richardson), OUP

Rüpke comments on when Minucius Felix in his Octavius argued

"that the success of the Roman Empire [was] due to the piety of the Romans [and] casts an analytic eye back before the time of Empire, interpret[ing] all the gods of those individual nations euhemeristically* (20.5–6)."

* presumably as deified men or thought to have been based on deified men

It's notable that when Miniscus Felix lived and wrote is not secure ie. he's dated 150 to 250-270 AD/CE. Octavius is a dialogue on Christianity between a pagan, Caecilius Natalis,^a and a Christian, Octavius Januarius.^b The arguments in it are borrowed chiefly from Cicero, especially his De natura deorum ("Concerning the Nature of the Gods"), and Christian material, said to be mainly from the Greek Apologists. Cyprian's Quod idola dei non-sint is said to borrow from it (but one might well wonder which direction the 'borrowing' took, or if they were written in close proximity timewise).

^a The name Caecilius Natalis contains the nomen Caecilius and cognomen Natalis, which may refer to the gens Caecilia, a plebeian family at Rome.

^b The name Octavius Januarius contains the nomen Octavius and cognomen Januarius, which may refer to the gens Octavia – the family name of Emperor Augustus.

The name of Marcus Minucius Felix indicates association with the gens Minucia. Jerome's De Viris Illustribus No. 58 speaks of him as "Romae insignis causidicus" (one of Rome's notable solicitors), but in that he is probably only improving on the expression of Lactantius who speaks of him as "non-ignobilis inter causidicos loci" (not unknown among solicitors): Lactantius, Institutionum divinarum v. 1.


Rüpke then notes,

That nations should make cult figures of their own founders may seem acceptable, but that the Romans should worship all these figures—this is the conclusion of [an] argument [in Octavius] with regard to Isis and Osiris—then appears all the more absurd: Nonne ridiculum est vel lugere quod colas vel colere quod lugeas? haec tamen Aegyptia quondam, nunc et sacra Romana sunt (22.1: ‘Is it not ridiculous to lament what you worship, or to worship what you lament? These were in truth formerly Egyptian rites; now they are also Roman’).

Here is the—normally overlooked—focus of the section. The Romans (those of the city of Rome), in their eclectic folly, do not flinch even before the greatest of absurdities: even the ass in the cults of Epona and Isis finds a welcome in Rome (28.7).

It is only some time later that Octavius directly addresses the argument of imperial expansion, and on different premises (25.1ff.): the history of Rome is marked throughout by impious acts and outrages; not only foreign nations were defeated, but also foreign gods. In a new line of attack, taken directly from Tertullian, he now cites ridiculous figures among Rome’s own gods, such as Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus, Cloacina, and Febris (the original list is longer), who can scarcely have been the source of Rome’s supremacy. But the foreign gods of the defeated too can have been of no help to the Romans. Even Roman priests—Octavius’ concentration on this particular group is unconvincingly motivated—were depraved: other empires had managed without them.

I have focused on this selective paraphrase of the Octavius dialogue so as to more clearly demonstrate the influence of Tertullian. At the same time, I wish to show the extent of Minucius’ evident knowledge of cults in the city of Rome, and the use to which he puts that knowledge. Apart from the historic examples of divination and its failures presented by Cicero, and such instances as could be found in poetry or historiography (Romulus, Marcus Curtius, the devotion of the Decians), information on Roman religious practice is used sparingly, and to serve particular arguments. It must also be emphasized that attention is given to the geographical aspect: Rome’s religion is a trans-regional conglomerate, and this is by no means the least significant cause of its having become self-contradictory. [pp.217-8]

"Rome’s religion is a trans-regional conglomerate [which had] become self-contradictory"