A HISTORY OF
ROME
DOWN TO THE REIGN OF CONSTANTINE
M. CARY, D.Litt.
Late Emeritus Professor of Ancient History in the University of London
and
H. H. SCULLARD, F.B.A.
Emeritus Professor of Ancient History in the University of London
THIRD EDITION
ISBN 978-0-333-17440-1 ISBN 978-1-349-02415-5 (eBook) DOT 10.1007/978-1-349-02415-5
@ The representatives of the estate of the late M. Cary and H. H. Scullard 1975
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission
First Edition 1934 Reprinted 1938, 1945, 1947, 1949, 1951
Second Edition 1954 Reprinted 1957, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1967, 1970, 1974
Third Edition 1975 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingsioke Associated companies in New York Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras Additional material to this book can be downloaded from http://extras.springer.com
SBN 333 17440 2
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Preface to the Third Edition
Professor Cary’s History of Rome has now been widely used both in this country and the United States for nearly forty years in virtually its original form, since the revision in the second edition of 1954 was for practical reasons very limited in scope. The time has therefore come for more radical change and I greatly welcomed the suggestion made by Messrs Macmillan and Mrs Cary that I should undertake this work. That I should attempt this would, I like to think, have been in line with his wishes, since he left a few jottings for revision in an envelope addressed to me; I can only hope that the result has not fallen too far short of what he would have wished.
As the opportunity has arisen for a complete recasting of the format of the book, together with new illustrations and maps, J have taken the chance to rewrite freely where advances in knowledge seem to require fresher treatment: apart from constant minor changes throughout I have rewritten perhaps something like one- third of the book. It has not seemed necessary to attempt to differentiate the contribution of the two authors: since, if anyone were so im- probably curious as to wish to try, he could easily pursue this rather fruitless exercise merely by comparing this version with the original work. In general I have written more extensively in the early parts, where archaeo- logical evidence has been accumulating over the years; I have also expanded somewhat near the end in the period of Diocletian and Constantine. Besides making a few changes in the arrangement of some chapters, in places I have added a certain amount of resumptive material: this necessarily involves a little repetition, which may not be bad in itself ina
textbook and indeed is perhaps almost inevit- able in face of perennial problems such as how far the history of the Empire is to be described under reigns or by topics.
I should like to record my personal gratitude to Professor Cary for friendship, constant help and encouragement to me for over thirty years, first as his postgraduate student and then as colleague and co-editor. My great debt to other fellow historians will I hope be made clear in the bibliographical references in the revised Notes of this book and can scarcely be spelled out in detail here. Among these references [ have occasionally included a recent article which, though not necessarily of outstanding importance, provides a useful discussion of the evidence and an up-to-date bibliography of the topic involved. I have also added chronological tables, a general bibliography, some stemmata and the like.
The illustrations of coins have been repro- duced at approximately the same size, irrespec- tive of the size of the original coin: it has not been considered necessary in a non-numismatic book to record the degree of enlargement in each case.
All the maps and plans have been redrawn, and many new ones added; for the care with which this has been done my thanks are due to Messrs Lovell Johns. To Mr Rex Allen of Macmillan I owe a very great debt for sharing in the toil of proof-reading and indexing, as well as for his general oversight and care in this complicated task of revision and resetting. Other members of the staff also have been most helpful.
December 1974 H. H. S.
Preface to the Second Edition
The object of this book is to provide a com- prehensive survey of Roman History down to the dawn of the Middle Ages within the com- pass of one volume. Its subject is a political system and a civilisation which lasted a thousand years and eventually comprised the whole Mediterranean area and western Europe. Research in this vast field of study is now being conducted more intensively than ever, and our knowledge of it is still being amplified or modified at innumerable points. To write a general history of Rome is therefore to invite criticism on multitudinous matters of detail. But the chief requirement in a work of this kind is not that it should be meticulously exact and up to date in all its facts, but that it should arrange and evaluate the facts in due order and proportion. Its purpose cannot be better stated than in the words of Polybius, the foremost Greek writer on Rome, who declared that his task was to present Roman History ‘as an organic whole’, so that its mean- ing and function in world history should stand out clearly.
In a work of this scope it is manifestly out of place to supply full references or to append exhaustive bibliographies. (Readers who wish to pursue their studies in Roman History will find comprehensive and well-arranged biblio- graphies in the Cambridge Ancien: History.)
Books and articles which I have found particu- larly helpful have been cited from time to time in the notes. In addition, I desire to express a more general obligation to various authors in the Cambridge Ancient History, notably to Professor Adcock and to Mr Last (who has also given me valuable advice on method and procedure); and to Professors Carcopino, De Sanctis, Tenney Frank, Holleaux and Rostovt- seff. I am also indebted to Dr H. H. Scullard for permission to incorporate some details from his forthcoming book on Roman History to 146 Bac,
My acknowledgments are also due to the Roman Society and to Messrs H. Chalton Bradshaw and Geoffrey E. Peachey for leave to reproduce illustrations.
Lastly, I desire to express my thanks to Messrs Macmillan; to the staff of Emery Walker Ltd; and to Mr W. T. Purdom, Assistant Librarian to the Hellenic and Roman Societies, for the every-ready help which I have received from them in preparing the text and the illustrations.
I wish to express my gratitude to Dr H. H. Scullard for his valuable assistance in the pre- paration of the second edition of this book,
M. CARY
vil
Contents
Preface to the Third Edition. . . . . . . . . . . v Preface to the Second Edition. . . . . . . . . . . Vil List of Illustrations. we I List of Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . X¥XvVi
PART | PRE-ROMAN ITALY
CHAPTER 1 THE GEOGRAPHICAL ENVIRONMENT OF ROMAN HISTORY 1 The Mediterranean Area . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 Italy . . . . . . . . . ‘ . . . . . 4 CHAPTER 2
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY
1 Stone Age Man . .
2 Bronze Age Man ; . . . 3 The Iron Age and the ‘Villanovans’ 4 The Peoples and Tongues of Italy
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A HISTORY OF ROME CHAPTER 3
GREEKS AND ETRUSCANS IN EARLY ITALY
The Greeks . Who were the Etruscans? Etruscan Civilisation Etruscan Expansion .
PART Il THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
CHAPTER 4 LATIUM AND ROME
The Geography of Latium
The Early History of Latium
Rome. The Site of the City ‘ The Origins of Rome. The Traditional Story . The Origins of Rome. From Village to City
CHAPTER 5 ROME IN THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
The Kings and Tradition .
The City
Economic Conditions under the Kings Early Roman Religion . Social and Political Groupings . The Monarchy . .
Military and Political Developments . Rome and her Neighbours
The End of Etruscan Rome
CHAPTER 6 THE SOURCES FOR EARLY ROMAN HISTORY
Documentary Records
2 Oral Tradition
tad
Literary Sources
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—
CONTENTS CHAPTER 7
THE CONFLICT OF THE ORDERS. THE FIRST STAGE
The First Republican Constitution Economic Conditions . . The Plebeian Counter-organisation .. The Twelve Tables
Plebeian Advances
CHAPTER 8 THE EARLY WARS OF THE REPUBLIC
Rome and Latium
Sabines, Aequi and Volsci
The Conquest of Veii
The Siege of Rome by the Gauls
CHAPTER 9 THE CONFLICT OF THE ORDERS. THE SECOND STAGE
New Discontents after the Gallic War Economic Legislation
Plebeian Victories .
The Patricio-Plebeian Nobility .
The Resultant Constitution Conclusion
CHAPTER 10 THE LATIN, SAMNITE AND PYRRHIC WARS
The Establishment of Roman Ascendancy in Central Italy The Oscan-speaking Sabellians . . . The First Samnite War and the Great Latin War
The Second Samnite War .
The Third Samnite War
The War with Tarentum and Pyrrhus
CHAPTER 11 THE ROMAN STATE IN THE THIRD CENTURY B.C.
The Roman Constitution. Apparent Defects The Working of the Constitution
70 70 71 72
97 97
xi
xi
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A HISTORY OF ROME
The Roman Conquest of Italy .
The Political Organisation of Italy Economic Conditions in Rome and Italy . Architecture and Art.
Social and Religious Life .
Early Roman Literature
PART II
THE CONQUEST OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
CHAPTER 12
THE FIRST PUNIC WAR AND THE CONQUEST OF NORTH ITALY
Sources of Information
The Carthaginian State
The Affair of Messana
The Growth of Roman War Aims The Invasion of Africa
Later Operations in Sicily
The First Punic War. Conclusion The Seizure of Sardinia and Corsica The Last Gallic Invasion .
The Illyrian Wars
CHAPTER 13 THE SECOND PUNIC WAR
The Carthaginian Conquests in Spain The Affair of Saguntum . Hannibal’s Invasion of Italy. Cannae The Roman Effort after Cannae Sequel of the War in Italy
The War in Greece and Sicily .
The Scipios in Spain .
The War in Africa
Conclusion
99 103 106 107 108 110
113 113 116 117 118 119 121 121 121 123
124 125 127 129 130 131 133 135 137
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CONTENTS CHAPTER 14
THE CONQUEST OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN
Rome’s Expanding Dominance .
The Final Reduction of Csalpine Gaul The Ligurian Wars. .
The Spanish Wars, 197-179 B.c,
The Spanish Wars, 154-133 B.c. Rome, Carthage and Numidia .
The Third Punic War
CHAPTER 15 THE MACEDONIAN WARS
Early Contacts between Rome and Greece
The First Macedonian War . . The Overtures of Pergamum and Rhodes | to Rome The Second Macedonian War
Antiochus III and the Aetolians
The Third Macedonian War
The Fourth Macedonian War
Rome and the Greek Homeland
CHAPTER 16 THE ROMAN WARS IN ASIA IN THE SECOND CENTURY
The Origins of the War against Antiochus
The First Roman Campaign in Asia
The First Roman Settlement of Asia . The Romans in Asia Minor down to 129 B.c. Relations with Syria and Egypt
CHAPTER 17 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ROMAN PROVINCES
The Client States and Kings
The Status of the Provincial Communities The Provincial Governors
Conscription and Taxation in the Provinces The Defects of Roman Rule in the Provinces Attempts at Reform .
138 139 140 141 143 147 148
1450 151 151 154 156 157 159 160
161 163 164 165 166
169 171 172 172 174 175
xii
A HISTORY OF ROME CHAPTER 18
DOMESTIC POLITICS IN THE SECOND CENTURY
1 The Popular Assemblies. . . . . . . . . . . 177 2 The New Nobility. . . . . . . . . ; . . 179 3 Political Groups at Rome . . . . . . . . . . 180 4 The Executive . . . . . . . . ; . . 181 5 Reforms in the Judicial System . . ; . . . ; - « 181 6 Financial Administration. . . . . . . . . . ~ 182 7 The City of Rome . . . ; , . . . . ; . . 183 8 Italy . . . . : . . . . . . 183 9 Foreign Affairs. The Army . ; . . . . . ; . . 184 CHAPTER 19 ROMAN SOCIETY IN THE SECOND CENTURY i Agriculture ' . . . ' . . . : . » 186 2 Slave Labour on the Land . , . . . . . . . 187 3 Industry and Commerce . . : . . . . . . . - 188 4 Roman Private Life . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 5 The City of Rome. . . . . . : . . . . . 4192 6 Roman and Italian Art . . . . . . : . . . . 194 7 Early Latin Poetry. . . . . . . . . . . » 194 8 Early Prose Literature : . . . . . . . . . . 196 9 Science and Philosophy . . . . . . , . . . . 197 10 Religion. . . . : . : . . . . . - 198 PART IV. THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC CHAPTER 20 TIBERIUS AND GAIUS GRACCHUS
1 Tiberius Gracchus. His Political Aims . ©. ©. . «© «© «© + 263 2 The Gracchan Land Law . . . . . . . . . . . 204 3 The First Senatorial Reaction . . . . . . . . . - 205 4 The First Italian Franchise Bill . , . . . . . . - 206 5 The Social Reforms of Gaius Gracchus . . . . «. « + «| 207 6 The Political Legislation of Gaius Gracchus. . . . . . . 207 7 The Second Senatorial Reaction . Ce . . + 209 8 The Conquest of Narbonese Gaul . . . . . . . . - 210
xiv
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CONTENTS CHAPTER 21
MARIUS AND THE NEW ROMAN ARMY
The Restored Senatorial Government
Affairs in the Eastern Mediterranean .
The War against Jugurtha. The First Phase The War against Jugurtha. Metellus and Marius The Invasion of the Northmen . Saturninus and Marius’s Sixth Consulship
CHAPTER 22
THE ITALIAN WARS, 91-83 B.C.
The Tribunate of Livius Drusus
The Rebel Italian Confederacy
The Italian War
The Tribunate of Sulpicius Rufus . . The Capture of Rome by Sulla and by Cinna The Rule of Cinna . .
CHAPTER 23
THE TEMPORARY MONARCHY OF CORNELIUS SULLA
Events in Asia Minor to 88 B.C. The First Mithridatic War
The Homecoming of Sulla
Sulla’s Settlement. The Proscriptions Sulla’s Constitutional Legislation Sulla’a Place in Roman History
CHAPTER 24
THE FALL OF THE RESTORATION GOVERNMENT
Prospects for the Seventies
The Rebellion of Lepidus and its Aftermath The War against Q. Sertorius ; The Slave War in Italy
Pompey’s Coup d’Etat
Crassus, Caesar and Catiline
212 213 214 215 217 219
222 223 225 226 227 228
230 231 233 234 235 237
239 240 241 242 242 244
XV
xvi
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coo ~] ON A Be Ww De
Rao
A HISTORY OF ROME
The Conspiracy of Catiline The Concordia Ordinum of Cicero The First Triumvirate and Caesar’s First Consulate
CHAPTER 25 THE WARS OF LUCULLUS, POMPEY AND CRASSUS
The Campaigns against the Pirates
Lucullus’s Conquests in Asia Minor
The Campaigns of Lucullus in Armenia Pompey’s Settlement of the East
The Campaign of Crassus against the Parthians
CHAPTER 26
CAESAR’S CONQUEST OF GAUL, AND THE BREAKDOWN OF THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE
Gaul and its People ,
Caesar’s Advance to the Rhine and the Channel
Caesar’s Forays into Germany and Britain
The Final Reduction of Gaul
The First Crisis in the Triumvirate .
The Conference of Luca and the Dictatorship of Pompey The Second Crisis in the Triumvirate . .
CHAPTER 27 THE RISE OF CAESAR TO SUPREME POWER
The Campaigns of 49 B.c.
Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus
The ‘Bellum Alexandrinum’
Thapsus and Munda .
Caesar’s Measures of Reconstruction
Caesar’s Foreign Policy. Miscellaneous Reforms Caesar’s Constitutional Position
Caesar’s Personality and Achievements
CHAPTER 28 THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE
The Interim Administration of Antony . The Philippics of Cicero and the War of Mutina
246 247 248
250 251 252 254 255
258 261 262 263 265 266 267
270 271 273 275 276 278 279 281
283 284
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cy
CONTENTS
Octavian’s Coup @’Etat and Pact with Antony The Proscriptions and the Campaign of Philipps The Wars of Perusia and Brundisium Octavian’s War against Sextus Pompeius . Antony in the East
The War of Actium . .
Review of the Second Triumvirate
CHAPTER 29 ROMAN SOCIETY IN THE FIRST CENTURY
Changes in Roman Agriculture Manufactures and Trade Standards of Living .
Social Life
Architecture and Art
Latin Literature. Poetry
Latin Prose Writers
Science and Philosophy Religion .
PART V CONSOLIDATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
CHAPTER 30 THE SETTLEMENT OF AUGUSTUS. ROME AND ITALY
The First Settlement, 29-23 8,c. Augustus’s Second Settlement . The New Executive
The City of Rome
Italy
Social Legislation
The Ludi Saeculares
CHAPTER 31 THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER AUGUSTUS
The Roman Frontiers Africa and the Red Sea
286 288 290 292 294 295 298
299 300 302 303 304 308 309 311 311
315 319 321 322 327 328 329
331 331
XVil
A HISTORY OF ROME
3. Asia Minor and the Euphrates . . . . . . . . . 333 4 Western Europe . . . . . ‘ . . . . . . 334 § The Danube Lands . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 6 Military Reforms . . ; . ; . . . . . . . 338 7 The Provinces. . . , . . . . . . . . . 339 8 Financial Administration . . . . . . . ' . . . 342 9 The Succession . . ' , . . . . . . . 343 10 Summary of Augustus’s Principate : . . . . . . . . 344 11 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 CHAPTER 32 THE JULIO-CLAUDIAN EMPERORS. INTERNAL AFFAIRS 1 Tiberius (A.D. 14~37) . . . . . . . . . . . 351 2 Caligula (37-41) . . ; . . . . . . . . . 354 3 Claudius (41-54) . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 4 Nero (54-68). . . . . . . ; . . . . 357 $5 Constitutional Developments . . . . . . . . . . 360 6 Finance : : . : : : . . : , . : : . 362 7 Rome and Italy . . . . . . . . . . ; . . 363 CHAPTER 33 THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER THE JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY 1 Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 2 Judaea . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 3 Armenia and Parthia : . . . . . . ‘ . . . 368 4 The Danube Lands . . . . . . . . . . . 370 5 Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 6 The Conquest of Britain . . . . . . ; . . . . 371 7 The Provinces . . , . . . . . . . . . . 374 8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 CHAPTER 34 ROMAN SOCIETY UNDER THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE 1 Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . ; : . 377 2 Industry and Trade . . . . . . . . . ; ‘ . 379 3 Urban Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 4 Architecture and Art. . . . . . . . . . . - 385 5 Literature. General Conditions . . . . . . . . . 393 6 Latin Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394 7 Latin Prose . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 8 Religion. . . . . . . . \ . . . . . 397
XViii
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CONTENTS CHAPTER 35
THE ‘YEAR OF THE FOUR EMPERORS’
The Revolt against Nero Galba
Otho .
Vitellius
Conclusion
CHAPTER 36
THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS
Personalities .
Constitutional Changes
General Administration
The Jewish War . . . .
The Revolt of Civilis and Classicus Further Conquest in Britain
The Rhine and Danube Frontiers
The East
The Provinces. . . : . . The ‘Opposition’ to the Flavian Emperors
CHAPTER 37
THE ‘FIVE GOOD EMPERORS’. GENERAL ADMINISTRATION
Personalities . Constitutional Changes Municipal Government Imperial Finance
The Provinces
CHAPTER 38 THE ‘FIVE GOOD EMPERORS’. EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Foreign Policy
Africa . . Armenia and Parthia Judaea
Dacia . . The Marcomannic Wars Britain
402 403 405 406 408
409 410 412 415 418 420 421 422 423 423
425 427 429 430 432
434 435 438 439 441 443 444
XIX
A HISTORY OF ROME
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8 The Roman Army. . . . . . . . . . . . 448 9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 CHAPTER 39 ROMAN SOCIETY FROM A.D. 70 TO 180 Agriculture . . . ; . . . . . . . . . 451 Industry and Trade . ; . . . . . . . . . » 453 The Growth of Cities : : . . . : . . . . . 458 Architecture . . . . ‘ . . . . . , . . 459 Art. ; . . . . . . . . . ; . \ . 476 Social Life . . . . . . . . . . 478 The Spread of Latin and Greek , . . . . . : . . 479 Latin Poetry . . . , . . . ‘ . . . . 481 Latin Prose . . . . . . . ; . . . . 481 Philosophy and Religion . . . . . . Loo . . . 482 The Spread of Christianity . . . . . . . . . . 484 The Opposition to Christianity . . . . . . . . . . 486 Conclusion . . . . . . . , . . . . . 488 CHAPTER 40 COMMODUS AND THE SEVERI 1 The Reign of Commodus (180-192) Be 489 2 The Civil Wars of 193-197. . . . . . . . . 490 3 The Military Policy of Septimius Severus . . - . . . 492 4 The Internal Reforms of Septimius Severus. . . . ; ; . 493 5 Caracalla (211-217) . . . . . . . . . . . . 496 6 Severus Alexander (222-235) . . . . . . . . . . 498 7 The Severan Age . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
PART Vi THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
CHAPTER 41 THE CRISIS OF THE EMPIRE IN THE THIRD CENTURY 1 Military Anarchy in Permanence. . ; ; . . . . - 507 2 The Empire Invaded . . . ; ; ; Loo, . . . 509
3 The Frontiers Restored . . . . . . . ; . . » §12
CONTENTS CHAPTER 42
DIOCLETIAN AND CONSTANTINE
Diocletian and the Tetrarchy
The Rise of Constantine
Constantine and Licinius .
The Transition to Absolute Monarchy The Emperors and their Executive . Financial Reforms
Compulsory Service .
Defence and Army Reform Conclusion . .
sO 00 6] A ln Bb OW bo oe
CHAPTER 43 ECONOMIC, CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS
Economic Conditions
Architecture and Art
Social Life
Education and Letters
Latin and Greek Literature
Religions .
Christianity, Persecuted and Triumphant |
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CHAPTER 44 THE ROMAN EMPIRE. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
The End of the Empire in the West Decline and Fall .
Physical Causes of the Decline
Social and Political Causes of the Decline Survivals of the Roman Empire
TA Be Ww A)
Chronological Table
List of Emperors
Genealogical Tables 1. Some Cornelii, Aemilii, and Sempronii Gracchi 2. Some Metelli, Claudii, etc. 3. The Julio-Claudian dynasty
Brief List of Books
List of Abbreviations
Notes and References
Glossary
Index
517 520 523 524 526 530 532 533 535
536 538 342 543 543 545 546
550 551 552 553 556
559 571
$72 573 574 375 576 577 659 667
xxi
List of Illustrations
‘Villanovan’ biconical pottery urn (Saprintendenza alle Antichita del?’ Etruria, Florence’
‘Villanovan’ bronze sword (Bologna Museum)
Cinerary urn
(Soprintendenza alle Antichita
deil’Etruria, Florence)
Shepherd’s capanna resembling an Iron
Age hut (Ht. A. Scullard)
Air-view of the Greek city of Poseidonia (Paestum) Paestum. Temple of Poseidon Engraved back of bronze mirror from Vuleci (The Vatican Museum) Terracotta sarcophagus from Caere (Thames & Hudson Archive} Large burial tumulus at Caere (H. A. Seuijard) Interior of the Tomba delle Cornice at Caere (Thames & Hudson Archive) Terracotta statue of Apollo from Veii (Soprintendenza alle Antichita dell’ Etruria Meridionale, Rome) Etruscan wall-painting (Thames & Hudson Archive) Bronze statuette of an Etruscan warrior (Elsevier Nederland BV witgevers) Funerary siele of the sixth or fitth century (Thames & Hudson Archive) Air-view of Capua Inscribed sheets of gold leaf found at Pyrgi (Soprintendenza alle Antichita delf’Etruria Mertdionale, Rome)
10
11
12
12
26
27
4.1 4.2 4.3
44
45
5.1
Archaic stone altars at the Latin city of Lavinium Island in the Tiber Terracotta statuette of Aencas (Soprintendenza alle Anitchita dell’Etruria Meridionale, Rome) Foundations of an lron Age ‘Villanovan’ hut on the Palatine hill (Thames & Hudson Archive) Reconstruction of a ‘Villanovan’ hut (Thames & Hudson Archive}
Wall-painting from a tomb at Etruscan Vulci (Thames & Hudson Archive) Terracotta moulded reliefs from Regal Rome (Thames & Hudson Archive) Terracotta relief showing a Minotaur and two felines (Thames & Hudson Archive) Terracotta head of a statue of Minerva (Thames & Hudson Archive} Terracotta antefix of a temple on the Capitol (Thames & Hudson Archive) Reconstruction of the facade of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol (Thames & Hudson Archive) Detail of 5.6 (Thames & Hudson Archive) Bronze statue of the Capitoline Wolf (Thames & Hudson Archive) The so-called ‘Servian’ wall of Rome Early earthworks at the Latin town of Ardea (H. A. Scullard) Bronze figurine of a ploughman (Elsevier Nederland BV uttgevers)
37
38
42
43 43
44
44
45 45 46 46 47
47
XX
10.1
10.2
21.1
xxiv
A HISTORY OF ROME
Painted plaque from Caere (Thames & Hudson Archive) The Roman fasces (Macmillan)
Lapis Niger Inscription
Stele from Felsina (Thames & Hudson Archive)
Latin soldiers carrying their dead comrade (Thames & Hudson Archive) Sabellian warriors depicted on a tomb- painting at Paestum (Elsevier Nederland BV uitgevers) An Indian war-elephant with tower (Elsevier Nederland BV utigevers)
Alba Fucens
(H. A. Scullard) The wailis of Signia Air-view of the centre of the Latin colony at Cosa Coin: libral bronze as, c. 235 B.C. Coin: early Roman silver, c. 269 B.C. Coin: silver guadrigatus, c. 235 B.C. Cot: silver denarius, c. 211 B.c.
The site of Carthage
(H. A. Scullard) Carthage: walls and siege bullet Mount Eryx in western Sicily
Coin: probable portrait of Hamilcar View of Saguntum {Ampliaciones y Reproducciones MAS, Barcelona) Coin: probable portrait of Hannibal View from the hill of Cannae (H. H. Scullard) Coin: probable portrait of Hasdrubal Barca Coin: probable portrait of Mago Coin: Hiero of Syracuse Coin: Hieronymus of Syracuse Coin: Probable portrait of Scipio Africanus Coin: Masinissa
Coin: Philip V of Macedon Coin: Flamininus Coin: Perseus of Macedon
Coin: Antiochus III of Syria
A scene from a comedy (The Mansell Collection)
Coin: Bocchus kneeling before Sulla
51
51
58 73
85
89
95
100
101 101
107 107 107 107
114
115 120
125 126
126 128
131 132 132 134
135 136
131 154 158 161
195
216
22.1 22.2
23.1
Coin of the Italian allies Coin of the Italian Confederacy
Coin: Sulla
Head of Pompey
(Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen) Bust of Cicero
(Apsley House Museum) Bust of Julius Caesar
(The Vatican Museum)
Coin: Mithridates of Pontus Coin: Tigranes of Armenia Coin: Orodes II of Parthia
Coin: probable portrait of Vercingetorix Coin: Gallic trophy
Coin: Pompey Coin: Julius Caesar Coin: Marcus Brutus
Coin: Mark Antony
Coin: Octavian
Coin; Lepidus
Coin: Octavia
Coin: Sextus Pampeius
Coin: Q. Labienus
Coin: Mark Antony and Cleopatra Coin of Mark Antony
Roman Forum to the west Roman Forum to the east Forum of Julius Caesar Tempte of Mater Matuta at Rome Temple of Hercules at Cori CH. A. Scullard)
Statue of Augustus Coin: Augustus
Coin: Agrippa
The Cloaca Maxima Forum of Augustus Theatre of Marcellus Mausoleum of Augustus
The Gemma Augustea
(Elsevier Nederland BV uitgevers) Coin: Parthian handing over standard Coin: the elder Drusus Coin: Livia Coin: Gaius and Lucius Caesar
Coin: Tiberius
Coin: Germanicus
Coin: the elder Agrippina Coin: Caligula
Coin: Claudius
224
32.6 32.7 32.8
33.1
33.2 33.3
34.1
34.2
Coin: Nero Porta Praenestina Porta Tiburtina
Tombstone of Roman centurion (Colchester and Essex Museum) Coin: triumphal arch Reconstruction of Roman Palace at Fishbourne (Sussex Archaeological Trust)
Terra sigillata
(Colchester and Essex Museum) An Italian hill town
(The Mansell Collection) A Campanian harbour town A Roman patrician Portrait of a Roman Portrait of a Roman Portrait of a Roman lady Bestiarii
(The Mansell Collection) Chariot-racing Maison Carrée at Nimes Pont du Gard Ampitheatre at Nimes Domus Aurea Subterranean basilica House at Pompeii Street in Pompei
(H. H. Scullard) Painting from villa of Livia Ara Pacis Ara Pacis; relief Temple of Isis at Pompeii Painting of ritual of Isis
Coin: Galba Coin: Otho Coin: Vitellius
Coin: Vespasian Coin: Titus Coin: Domitian Colosseum Colosseum Air-view of Pompeii Closer air-view of Pompeii Street in Herculaneum Masada Masada
(Macmillan) Panel from the Arch of Titus
Coin: Nerva Coin: Trajan Coin: Hadrian Coin: L. Verus
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
358 363 364
37.5 37.6 37.7 38.1 38.2
38.3
Coin: Antoninus Pius Coin: Marcus Aurelius Trajan distributing relief
Lambaesis
(Photographie Giraudon, Paris) Fortress in Syrian desert
(Elsevier Nederland BV uiigevers) Trajan’s Column
(German Archaeological Institute, Rome)
Detail of Trajan’s Column
(German Archaeological Institute, Rome)
Saalburg (Saalburgmuseum)
Hadrian’s Wall (Dr ¥. K. St Foseph)
Hadrian’s Wall (Crown Copyright reserved, reproduced with the permission of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office)
Vindolanda (Department of Archaeology, University of Durham)
Granaries at Corstopitum (Crown Copyright reserved, reproduced with the permission of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office)
Coin showing Britannia
Military diploma (Trustees of the British Museum)
Corn mill worked by an ass (Elsevier Nederland BV utigevers) Warehouse at Ostia A smith at work (Elsevier Nederland BV uitgevers) A shoemaker at work (Elsevier Nederland BV uitgevers) A vegetable stall (Elsevier Nederland BV uttgevers) Wine being loaded (Elsevier Nederland BV uitgevers) Silchester (Cambridge University Collection: copyright reserved } Building operations Reconstruction of Colosseum (Elsevier Nederland BV uttgevers) Aerial view of central Rome (Elsevier Nederland BV tiigevers) Mausoleum of Hadrian Trajan’s Forum Trajan’s Market The Pantheon Site of Stadium of Domitian Aerial view of Timgad General view of Timgad Piazza at Gerasa (Professor W. L. MacDonald)
426 427 431 435 440 44] 442 442 445
445
446
446
447
448
451
452 453
453
454
454
459
460
461
462
A HISTORY OF ROME
39.19 Baalbek 39.20 Petra (Professor WL. MacDonaid) 39.21 Amphitheatre at E] Diem 39,22 Aqueduct at Segovia 39.23 Bridge at Alcantara (Ampliactones y Reproducciones MAS, Barcelona) 39.24 Aerial view of Ostia (Bisevier Nederiand BV uitgevers) 39.25 Reconstruction of houses at Ostia 39.26 Reconstruction of villa at Chedworth (The Custodian, The Roman Villa, Chedworth, Gios.) 39,27 Mosaic from Chedworth (Mr George Roper, Cirencester, Glos.) 39.28 Baths at Chedworth (Mr George Roper, Cirencester, Glos.) 39.29 Castor ware (Colchester and Essex Museum) 39,30 Corbridge lion (Crown Copyright, reproduced with the permission of Her Majesry’s Stationery Office) 39.31 Circus Maximus 39.32 Surgical instruments 39.33 Mithraeum at Ostia
40.1 Coin: Commodus
40.2 Coin: Septimius Severus 40.3 Coin: Julia Domna
40.4 Coin: Pescennius Niger 40.5 Goin: Clodius Albinus 40.6 Coin: Caracalla
40.7 Coin: Geta
40.8 Coin: Elagabalus
40.9 Coin: Severus Alexander 40.10 Baths of Caracalla
41.1 Coin: Maximinus
41.2 Coin: Philip
41.3 Coin: Decius
41.4 Coin: Valerian
41.5 Coin: Gallienus
41.6 Valerian surrendering to Shapur (Elsevier Nederland BV uttgevers)
41.7 Coin: Zenobia
41.8 Coin: Postumus
41.9 Coin: Claudius Gothicus
41.10 Con: Aurelian
xxvi
472 472
472 473 473 474 475 475 476 476 477
477
41.11 Aurelian’s Wall 41.12 Coin; Probus
42.1 Cotn: Diocietian
42.2 Coin: Maximian
42.3 Coin: Carausius
42.4 Coin: Constantius
42.5 Coin: Galerius
42.6 Aerial view of Richborough (Elsevier Nederland BV uitgevers)
42.7 Aerial view of Portchester (Elsevier Nederiand BV uitgevers)
42.8 Arras medallion
42.9 Coin: Maximinus
42.10 Diocletian’s Palace at Split
42.11 Coin: Constantine
42.12 Coin: Maxentius
42.13 Coin: Licinius
42.14 The Milvian Bridge
42,15 Senate House
43.1 Mosaic showing African farm
43.2. Mosaic showing African hunting scene 43.3 Baths of Diocletian
43.4 Porta Nigra, Trier
43.5 Mosaic from Piazza Armerina
43.6 Arch of Constantine
43,7 Christian catacomb
43.8 Christian sarcophagus
All coms and the Arras Medallion are repro- duced by kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.
The publishers are indebted to Fototeca Unione of Rome for the use of the following illustrations: 3.1, 3.2, 3.11, 4.1, 4.2, 5.9, 6.1, 11.2, 11.3, 12.2, 12.3, 29.1, 29.2, 29.3, 29.5, 30.1, 30.4, 30.5, 30.6, 30.7, 32.7, 32.8, 34.3,
34.4, 34.5, 34.6, 34.7, 34.9, 34.10, 34.11, |
34,12, 34.13, 34.14, 34.95, 34,17, 34.18, 34.19, 34.20, 34.21, 36.4, 36.5, 36.6, 36.7, 36.8, 36.9, 36.11, 37.7, 38.3, 39.2, 39.8, 39.11, 39.12, 39.13, 39.14, 39.15, 39.17, 39,19, 39.21, 39.22, 39.25, 39.31, 39.32, 39.33, 40,10, 41.11, 42.10, 42.14, 42.15, 43.1, 43.2, 43.3, 43.4, 43.5, 43.6, 43.7, 43.8.
La oe LA BS
lraly
Rome’s neighbours
Early Rome
Central Italy
Plan of a Roman camp, according to Polybius
Italy before 218 B.c.
Plan of colony at Cosa
The Punic Wars
Battle of Lake Trasimene, 217 B.c. Battle of Cannae, 216 B.C.
Battle of Zama, 202 B.C.
Spain
Plan of Numantia
Scipio’s siege of Numantia, 133 B.c. Castillejo (excavated Roman camp at Numantia)
Greece
Battle of Cynoscephalae, 197 B.c, Roman Empire ¢. 133 B.c,
List of Maps
100 103 104 114 128 129 136 142 144 145 146
152 155 170
19 20 21
22 23 24 25
26 27 28
29 30 31 32 33 34 35
Plan of the Roman Forum
Gaul in the time of Caesar Pompey and Caesar at Dyrrhachium, 48 B.c.
Battle of Pharsalus, 48 8.¢.
Battle of Philippi, 42 B.c,
Battle of Actium, 31 8B.c.
Roman Empire at the death of Augustus
The Roman World
Roman Britain
Roman Empire from Augustus to Trajan and Hadrian
Products and trade of the Empire The Far East
Rome
The Capitolium
The Palatine
The Imperial Fora
The Empire under Diccletian
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192-3 260 272
273 290 297
337 348-9 372
436-7 455 456 463 464 465 466 529
XXVEL
PART |
Pre-Roman Italy
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
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1. ITALY
The Mediter- ranean Sea
CHAPTER 1
The Geographical Environment of Roman History
1. The Mediterranean Area !
Roman history is the record of a state that extended its boundaries from a narrow territory in the Tiber valley to include all the lands of the Mediterranean seaboard. Its scene was laid m every part of Italy and in every district of the Mediterranean area. This geographical background of Roman history will require a brief introductory description.
The Mediterranean basin forms a natural geographical unit. Its constituent lands are on the whole alike in climate and vegetation; they have relatively easy access to each other, but are cut off in a greater or lesser degree from their hinterlands. Intercourse between the Mediterranean area and the three adjacent continents of Europe, Asia and Africa is impeded by an almost continuous barrier of mountains and deserts: only at rare intervals does a river valley or a low pass provide a con- venient avenue to the interior. On the other hand, the Mediterranean Sea itself connects rather than separates the surrounding lands. Its winter storms are more than compensated by the regular incidence of its summer trade winds, by the absence of strong currents and tides, and by the abundance of clearly visible islands and headlands which serve as natural signposts to the seafarer. In ancient times its waters were almost deserted from October to April, but in the summer months they were a safe and fre- quented highway. To the Romans the Mediter- ranean Sea, or ‘Our Sea’ (Mare Nostrunt), as it was appropriately called by them, became an indispensable link of empire. In short, the
natural features of the Mediterranean area favour more than they hinder the grouping of its component countries into a unified state- system. The Roman Empire followed rather than cut across the natural lines of its develop- ment.
The Mediterranean climate (which in the days of ancient Roman history was substantially the same as the present time)’ falls into two main seasons with sharply contrasted character- istics. Its winter months are dominated by strong and boisterous winds, mostly from a westerly point, bringing rain-storms of almost tropical violence. Now and again, when the wind veers to the north, a ‘cold snap’ sets in, and reduces the temperature to that of an English winter. But the rain-squalls pass away as sud- denly as they come, and scarcely a day goes by, but the sun breaks through the cloud-banks. The prolonged chilliness, the fog and gloom that mar the northern winter are almost foreign to Mediterranean lands. If the Mediterranean winter is wet and wild, it is also genial and bright.
In the summer months the prevailing wind is a persistent northerly breeze which sweeps the skies clear of clouds and makes an open path for the sun. Under the influence of a dazzling solar radiation the summer temperature of the Mediterranean lands rises to tropical heights. The dryness of the heat renders it wholesome to human life; but the scarcity of summer rain — the drought lasts from one month in northern Italy to six or ten months in Tripoli and Egypt — is destructive to vegetation. Yet the abundance of sunshine which distinguishes the Mediter-
The climate of the Magi- terranean fands
Their mountain ranges
Their vegetation
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
ranean regions — their yearly ration seldom falls below 2000 hours — is on the whole a great boon. Their brisk and bracing winds, and their clear bright skies, under which the forms of objects stand out in sharp outline and their colours show true, tend to foster an active mind in a vigorous body. In a word, the Mediterranean lands were a natural birthplace of a high civilisa- tion.
The structure of the Mediterranean lands is largely the product of an extensive upheaval in the tertiary age, in the course of which the Apennines, the Dalmatian coastal range, the Alps and Pyrenees, the Sierra Nevada and the mountains of North Africa were folded up to their present altitudes. The main ranges of the Mediterranean area, being of relatively recent formation, have not yet weathered into rounded contours, their steeply scarped slopes resemble cliffs rather than downs. The sharp and varied relief of the clear-cut crests seen under a luminous sky gives a peculiar charm to the Mediterranean landscape. But the Mediter- ranean mountains bring more pleasure to the artist and sightseer than profit to the husband- man. They restrict the area of tillage to the com- paratively narrow basins of the level land, and they perform but indifferently the natural func- tions of mountains as reservoirs of water. Sel- dom exceeding 10,000 feet in height, they lose their snowcaps before midsummer, and their predominant limestone formations do not store the rain by filtering it into the subsoil, but waste it by pouring it off their impervious flanks. Here and there the water drains off through wide cracks on the limestone face into subterranean caverns, from which copious perennial springs well up at favoured spots in the lowlands. But in general the winter rain and snow do not ade- quately compensate for the summer drought.
The peculiar climate and relief of the Medi- terranean lands combine to clothe them with a distinctive vegetation. In the lowlands ever- green trees and shrubs replace the deciduous plants of more northerly latitudes, which cannot resist the Mediterranean summer drought. In the mountains forests of oak, beech and chestnut are still to be found at the present day; and in antiquity, when the woodman and the crofter’s goat were as yet only beginning their work of destruction, the hill-sides were better clad than their present bald appearance would suggest. But on the lower levels the tree-growth of the Mediterranean lands tends to dwindle into sparse bush.
Among the cultivated plants cereals yield a good return under careful cultivation. Crops sown in autumn mature by June or July, before the season’s drought can bring them harm.’ On
the other hand, the lack of summer rain restricts the variety of orchard plants. The common fruits of central and northern Europe thrive only in the neighbourhood of springs, of rivers or of irrigation-canals. But three typical pro- ducts of the Mediterranean area, the olive, fig and vine, are particularly well adapted to its climate. The olive is favoured by its relatively mild winters; the fig and the grape are matured to perfection by its abundant summer sunshine; and all these three plants have roots sufficiently long to reach down to water-level, however severe the drought.
In the lowlands winter grazing is abundant, but summer pasture is only to be found in river valleys. On the other hand, a summer supply of green fodder sprouts on the mountain-sides after the melting of the snows. In Mediterranean lands accordingly any extensive pastoral in- dustry must depend on the provision of alternate summer and winter grazings, between which the flocks can be driven to and fro, and it must be restricted chiefly to sheep and goats, as being better adapted than horses and cattle to this semi-nomadic existence.
The mineral resources of the Mediterranean region are in general less abundant than those of central and northern Europe. But Spain and Asia Miner contain a rich and varied supply, which was extensively exploited by its ancient inhabitants.
In regard to material wealth the Mediter- ranean area has not been lavishly endowed by Nature. Many of its countries have ever been and still remain sparsely peopled; and even in the richer districts close settlements are seldom possible except where rivers or springs or arti- ficial supplies of water mitigate the summer drought. But in antiquity the compulsory clustering of the population on the most eli- gible sites was not without its attendant benefits, for it favoured the growth of cities and fostered the social and political aptitudes which urban life engenders. The natural ten- dency to city life among the Mediterranean peoples also facilitated the organisation of the Roman Empire.
2. Italy
In comparison with other Mediterranean coun- tries Italy is on the whole a favoured land. Its climate conforms to the general Mediterranean type, but exhibits several local variations. The winter of peninsular Italy is mild and open;* but the region north of the Apennines, being cut off by this chain from the warm sea winds, becomes frostbound like continental Europe. In
Camparative poverty of the Mediter- ranean region
The efimate of ftaty
its mauniains
Ralative fertility of ftaly
THE GEOGRAPHICAL ENVIRONMENT OF ROMAN HISTORY
the summer months the western seaboard of the peninsula is exposed to the occasional searing blast of the Sirocco, the plumbeus Auster of Horace. But these disadvantages are more than compensated by the comparative coolness and moistness of the Italian summer. At Rome or Florence the rainless season does not ordinarily extend over more than a month.
The physical structure of Italy is of the usual Mediterranean pattern. The Apennine range, which constitutes its backbone, does not rise to more than a moderate height: its tallest peak, the Gran Sasso, in the country of the ancient Piceni, falls slightly short of 10,000 feet. But it stands up boldiy and imparts to the Italian landscape the usual clear-cut contours of Medi- terranean scenery. The Apennines, like most other Mediterranean mountains, glut the rivers in winter and starve them in summer. On the other hand the Alpine chains on the northern border render the short summer drought of that region almost innocuous, for their perennial snow keeps the rivers comparatively well fed throughout the rainless season.
Italy possesses a larger expanse of rich soil than most Mediterranean lands. From the Alps the northern plain receives not only a copious water supply, but a mass of fertilising detritus which the rivers deposit on the land during the winter floods. Along the western margin of the peninsula, from the Ciminian mountains of southern Tuscany to the bay of Napies, an inter- mittent line of volcanoes has covered the adjacent plains with a rich coating of lava-dust. Like all volcanic districts, western Italy has to pay a price for its high fertility. Although no earthquake comparable with that which de- stroyed Messina in 1908 is recorded in ancient history, minor tremors were often reported at Rome;? and in a.p. 63 the dormant giant of Vesuvius turned over in his sleep and caused a premonitory havoc at Pompeii. In a.p. 79 the first recorded eruption of the mountain utterly destroyed Pompeii and two neighbouring towns (p. 413). The volcanoes in southern Etruria and Latium at the northern end of the chain remained quiescent through all the centuries of Roman history, and their extinct craters formed attractive lakes, as Bracciano, Albano and Nemi, but in prehistoric times they rendered the lower valley of the Tiber unattractive for human settlement (p. 31), Yet the occasional disturb- ances and dangers in the volcanic borderland were atoned for by the richness of the soil.
The use and misuse of Italy’s natural resources under Roman rule will require fuller consideration in subsequent chapters. It will suf fice here to mention that while the eventual de- cline of cereal cultivation in Italy was due to
political causes rather than to the lack of good arable land, the development of orchard industry and of ranching by the Roman landowners was in accordance with the country’s natural line of growth. In particular, it may be observed that Italy has a natural abundance of saitus or sum- mer pastures in the highlands, to serve as a complement to the winter grasslands in the plains. Taken as a whole, Italy has a lesser per- centage of cultivable land than France or England (only $5 per cent of the surface was cultivated in the late nineteenth century, and the percentage may have been even lower in Roman times), but it has a lower ratio of waste or semi- waste districts than most other Mediterranean countries.
In regard to mineral resources Italy is not well endowed. But it possessed one important metalliferous area on the northern coast of Tuscany and in the adjacent island of Elba. The copper mines of the mainland and the extensive iron deposits of Elba went a long way to supply ancient Italy with its two most essential metals.
Thanks to its combination of natural advant- ages, Italy is, next after the Nile valley, the most densely populated of Mediterranean lands. With an area only half that of the Spanish peninsula, it now carries almost double the number of in- habitants. In ancient times its relative abundance of man-power contributed in a large degree to its political ascendancy over its neighbours (pp. 121, 130).
In the matter of internal communications Italy is handicapped by its great length from north to south, and by the diagonal barrier of the Apennines, which impedes alike the passage from coast to coast and from the peninsula into the Po valley. Its rivers are for the most part too rapid and carry too variable a volume of water for purposes of transport. The facility of inland travel which the country came to enjoy under Roman rule was due in part to the artificial regulation of its water-courses, but more especi- ally to the construction of the Roman high- roads.
The Alpine ranges which mark off Italy from the European mainland are a less formidable obstacle than the height of their peaks might suggest. On the north-eastern frontier of Italy a gap in the Carnic A lps provides a thoroughfare at a mere 2500 feet of altitude. In the central and western Alps the passes rise to 6000-8000 feet, yet on the outer side the river systems of the Rhine and Rhone give easy access to them. It has accordingly been affirmed that the history of Italy is the history of its invaders. This dictum, applied to ancient history, is not without a foundation of truth, for the Alps were repeatedly traversed by ancient armies, and
Popuious- ness
Jaland com- munications
The Alps
The coast of italy
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
where soldiers went, traders also were sure to find their way. Nevertheless for many centuries of early Italian history the Alps remained an almost insurmountable barrier. The compara- tive seclusion which they gave to Italy at the beginning of Roman history was a fortunate cir- cumstance, for it enabled the Italians to mature their own civilisation without constant molesta- tion from the ruder Transalpine tribes, until the day when they crossed the barrier and entered the European continent on their own terms.
The seaboard of Italy has long stretches of open roadstead and offers no such abundance of sheltered inlets as the neighbouring Greek peninsula. As is the case with all Mediterranean coast-lands, its river estuaries are positively dangerous to shipping, for the sea has no strong tides to scour away the fluvial deposits, so that their entrances are commonly blocked with banks of silt. Neither Po nor Tiber has ever been accessible to large vessels: under the emperors the port of Ostia at the Tiber mouth had to be refashioned at some distance from the river
(p. 357). Of Italy’s best harbours, Genoa and Spezia are culs-de-sac in the Maritime Alps, and Jay almost unused in ancient times; two other commodious basins, at Brindisi and Taranto, open on to the same hinterland and in antiquity effaced each other in turn. It was not until the Middle Ages that Italy became a great home of mariners and explorers. Yet the coasts of the peninsula were frequented from early days by seafarers of other nations, and its people soon came under the influence of visitors from over- seas (Chap. 3). With the rise of the Roman Empire Italy inevitably became the focus of Mediterranean navigation.
Lastly, Italy possesses one geographical advantage, which is so obvious as to be often overlooked. Its central position in the Mediter- ranean marks it out to be the natural seat of any Mediterranean empire. Once the ancient Ita- hans had been united under Roman rule, their overseas conquests were greatly facilitated by the commanding position of their country within the circle of Mediterranean lands.
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fts central position
The Pafaeo- hithie Age
The Neolithic peoples
CHAPTER 2
The Early Inhabitants of Italy:
1. Stone Age Man
Some 200,000 years ago, near the end of the second interglacial period, man first appeared in Italy. He has left tangible evidence of his pre- sence in the flint axes which are found through- out the country (especially near Chieti and at Venosa), and an actual settkement has been revealed just west of Rome at Torrimpietra. His successors of tle Middle Palaeolithic Age have left skulls of the Neanderthal type at Saccopas- tore at the very gates of Rome and in caves on Monte Circea. More advanced were the men of the Upper Palaeolithic of c. 10,000 Bc, who are represented for instance by a Cro-Magnon type of skull in the Fucino area. Although engrav- ings of animals are found on cave-walls and on bone, and a Palaeolithic ‘Venus’ has turned up near Lake Trasimene, Italy can offer nothing like the spectacular art found in the caves of France and Spain: indeed its population must have been very sparse, continually on the move, hunting and gathering food where best it could, and life was ‘poor, nasty, brutish and short’.
A great change occurred c. 5000 B.c. when Neohthic farmers began to replace the earlier hunters; they probably arrived by sea at Gargano in the heel of Italy from across the Adriatic and settled at Coppa Nevigata. With them they brought seed-corn and sheep and cows, they made pottery vessels and built huts, and thus could live more settled lives. By the Middle Neo- lithic this culture spread widely in south-east Italy and skeletal remains, which were buried in contracted positions, reveal that the people were of Mediterranean stock, shert in stature and long-headed. Their pottery became more artis- uc, and while some may still have lived in caves, others lived in villages. These were revealed by
the study of air~-photographs taken by the Royal Air Force in 1943 in the Tavoliere, the plain around Foggia in northern Apulia. Here huts were grouped into compounds, each surrounded by a ditch, and these compounds were often united into a village, again with a surrounding ditch: the largest village enclosed a hundred compounds and an area of 500 x 800 yards,?
Thus the nomadic life of Palaeolithic man was replaced by Neolithic settlers who cleared the forests, cultivated the fields and raised domestic animals, but when the soil within easy reach of their villages was exhausted and their population increased they would move on to other virgin areas throughout the eastern and southern parts of the peninsula and indeed their pottery is found reaching northward to Emilia. As interchange increased in the Late Neolithic from ¢. 3500 g.c. their wares occur in Etruria and even in Malta, but after this period of great prosperity increasing desiccation led to the vir- tual abandonment of the Tavoliere and doubt- less expedited their settlement in northand west Italy (inchuding a settlement at Sasso di Furbara north of Rome). Gradually in this Late Neolithic Age external mfluences increased, coming from the south-west and north-west and reflecting the wider cultures of Neolithic western Europe in France, Spain and North Africa. In particular, material of a type found in a settlement near Brescia (at Lagozza di Besnate) spread down the Adriatic coast; its makers may well have brought with them knowledge of spinning and weaving which begins to appear about this time. Even more significant for the future, amid the stone tools shone the occasional glint of a piece of worked metal, albeit not of home manu- facture.
The Copper Age
Fhe Bronze Age
Pile dwellings
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
2. Bronze Age Man
Man’s mastery over the working of metals was gained slowly. In the Alpine regions and the plain of the Po knowledge of copper began to infiltrate from Bohemia and Hungary, and stone tools were gradually supplemented by copper during a long transitional period known as the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. At the same time men with round heads (‘Alpine Man’) appear, as shown by surviving skulls: a new pheno- menon pointing to warrior immigrants from central Europe. In Italy the culture of this Cop-~ per Age is represented in three main areas: in the Po valley (at Remedello near Brescia), in Tuscany (at Rinaldone) and in the province of Salerno (at Gaudo near Paestum). Thus it was widespread, but Neolithic groups of course still lived on, affected to a greater or lesser extent by new trends. Even in the Copper Age settle- ments this metal was far too rare to replace stone for most of the tools and weapons of everyday life: flint daggers and stone battle-axes long con- tinued in use, and flint-workers still required supplies of obsidian from Lipari. To what extent Aegean influences affected the more southern settlements remains debatable.
When men discovered that by adding tin to copper they could produce an alloy which was easier to work and more durable than copper, they advanced into the Bronze Age, very roughly around 1800 B.c, in Italy. The two main cultural areas which emerged, one in the north, the other along the Apennines, must now be briefly reviewed.
First the north. We have already seen that a settlement flourished at Lagozza near Brescia as early as the Late Neolithic Age, but its nature was not described. It was in fact typical of a number of villages built on piles on the edges of lakes (palafitte) which are found by the north- ern Italian Lakes (Maggiore, Garda, etc.) and by the swampy rivers of the Po valley. These villages continued to flourish through the Cop- per into the Bronze Age, and their culture is often called Polada from a settlement on Lake Garda. They probably have some connection, obscure though it may be, with the later so- called Terramara settlements which were estab- lished in the Po valley in the Middle and Late Bronze Age.
When these latter settlements were discovered last century they were named from the ‘black earth’ (terra marna, a modern local dialectal phrase} which because of its rich nitrogenous matter was used by the local farmers as a fertiliser. Until some thirty years ago they figured large in modern accounts of early Rome because it was thought that some
of their inhabitants may have spread south- wards through Etruria and reached the site of Rome and that the regular layout of their settle- ments influenced later Roman ideas of the plan- ning of towns and camps. Now, however, they are thought to be a more local group who settled in the middle Po valley somewhat later than once believed and who arrived in Italy from the area of the middle Danube in the north-east. The settlements, which are found in the modern provinces of Modena, Reggio Emilia, Parma and Piacenza, consist of villages of huts (usually circular) built on raised terraces or piles, some- times surrounded by a ditch which would pro- tect them against man and water. Outside lay other smaller palafizze which formed cemeteries where the ashes of the dead were buried in urns, incineration being a distinctive mark of this culture. It may be that climatic deterioration at the end of the second millennium p.c. led to increased building on piles and possibly even to the ultimate abandonment of the settlements.
These people, whom archaeologists have called Terramaricoli, brought with them signi- ficant skills and practices: a distinctive pottery, great ability in bronze-working (deriving metal supplies from the Austrian Alps), the custom of cremation and in all probability an Indo-Euro- pean language or dialect. They were in the main agriculturists and stock farmers (cows, goats, pigs, sheep}, though many continued ro hunt (boar, deer and bear} and perhaps to fish; remains of flax, beans and two kinds of wheat have been found; cartwheels have been discovered and the horse was used for draught purposes. But besides importing goods from the north and thus forming a channel between Italy and the Danube, they became manufacturers and ultimately began to export their products southward into Apennine Italy, which was poor in metals.
This brings us to the second main Bronze Age culture in Italy, once known as ‘extraterra- maricola’ but now as Apennine Culture, which stretched along the mountain back of Italy from Bologna in the north to Apulia in the south; it reached its developed form about 1500 B.c. The people were semi-nomadic pastoralists who moved between more permanent winter settle- ments on lower ground (often only in caves by water courses), and summer pastures high in the mountains; such annual transhumance still continues today among the high mountainous areas. But by the twelfth century they had become somewhat more stable and practised some agriculture. They consisted of descendants of the Neolithic population, intermixed with some ‘warriors’ who may have come in small groups from overseas (from the Aegean world)
Apennine eulture
Cantacts between Terramara and Apennine foik
Mycenaeans in tha west
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY
and landed either on the west coast or in Apulia and who probably spoke an Indo-European lan- guage which would be spread more widely by their semi-nomadic life and which may well have been the ancestor of the later Umbro-Sabellian dialects spoken by Samnites, Sabines and other tribes of the central Apennines. They lacked the technological skill in metalwork of the northern Bronze Age folk, and unlike them, they buried their dead. As will be seen, their pottery has been found on the future site of Rome (p. 37).
In the course of time peaceful contacts deve- loped between the Terramara and the Apennine folk. Some of the latter seem to have moved north and settled in open villages near the Adria- tic and the mouth of the Po; they perhaps brought with them bronze from Etruria. The Terramara people then worked the metal and exported the finished products not only back to Etruria but also down the Adriatic coast to the south of Italy where an ‘Apennine’ settle- ment near Tarentum (Scoglio del Tonno), which had traded with the Mycenaean Greeks until their collapse (see p. 16}, played an important role. Thus from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200-1150 38.c.) the two main cultural areas in Italy began to draw much closer together, as seen at Pianello, a typical site inland from Ancona. Cremation and urnfields were introduced into many districts where inhuma- tion had prevailed, but the old Apennine culture with its practice of inhumation persisted well into the Iron Age in much of central and south- ern Italy.
Before tracing the merging of the Bronze into the Iron Age, we must glance briefly outside Italy whose Bronze Age culture had lagged far behind that of the Minoans and Mycenacans in the eastern Mediterranean. These prede- cessors of the classical Greeks traded widely in western waters. Even before 1400 B.c. traces of Mycenaean influence have been detected in Sicily and the Aeolian Islands (Lipari), but there- after Mycenaean traders not only visited south- ern Italy but some appear to have established a trading post at Tarenttum, where they were active until their own world collapsed over two centuries later. From Tarentum they could extend their trade over the heel of Italy, to the Adriatic, to Sicily and Lipari and even to central Italy where they sought to obtain copper from Etruria, The extent of this trade is problematic, but Mycenaean sherds have been found around Syracuse and at Mylae in north-eastern Sicily, at Lipari, at Ischia and even at Luni in Etruria; the five from Luni date to c. 1250 B.c. Thus whether or not the name Metapa found on a Linear B tablet of Pylos should suggest that Metapontum in southern Italy at some time
came under the control of the kingdom of Nestor at Pylos in the Peloponnese, the extent of Mycenaean influence, both economic and cul- tural, in these western areas was considerable, and some trade with Greece even continued after the collapse of Mycenaean power, although the settlement at Tarentum itself was aban- doned in the twelfth—eleventh century?
The volcanic Lipari Islands (Aeoliae Insulae), 25 miles north-east of Sicily, oceupied a key position in this area, both geographically for trade and archaeologically for the chronology of the Bronze Age. Thanks to their exploitation of their native obsidian the inhabitants flourished from Neolithic times onwards, but about 1250 B.c, the Middle Bronze Age huts on the acropolis of Lipari were destroyed by fire. They are covered by a layer containing pottery which is completely different from the earlier types and is closely related te that of the late Apennine phase in Italy (e.g. in the villages of Scoglio del Tonno and Coppa Nevigata).* This ‘Italianisation’ may well be reflected in the legend, recorded by Diodorus, that Liparus, son of the king of the Ausonians of central-southern Italy, occupied Lipari and founded a city there. The resultant cultural phase, which in conse- quence has been named Ausonian, flourished until c 850 B.c. On Lipari (the other islands seem to have been abandoned) and also at Milazzo in Sicily we find a culture which represents a fusion of Apennine and Terramara, such as we have already seen in northern Italy at Pianello and elsewhere, with cremation pre- vailing. The cemetery found at Milazzo was in use c. 1050-850 (that at Lipari is earlier: c. 1150-1050) and closely resembles the ‘urn- fields’ which are common in central Europe, in northern Italy (Terramara) and later, as will be seen, in central Italy. All this heralds the coming Iron Age and the Villanovans, while the later material from Lipari has close parallels with the earliest Iron Age remains from the Palatine and Forum at Rome.
3. The Iron Age and the ‘Villanovans’>
Both the process and dating of the merging of the Bronze into the Iron Age are obscure: only the result is clear, namely that ultimately much of northern and central Italy, as far south as Rome and even further, was occupied by a culture which archaeologists have named Vil- lanovan, after a typical site discovered in 1853 at Villanova, some four miles east of Bologna. The only firm dates are provided by Greek evi- dence: the full flowering of the Apennine Bronze Age coimcides with Mycenaean IH A and B
Lipari islands and Ausonian culture
Seginnings of the fron Age
Uratietd and Proto- Vilsnovan culture
Vitanavan culture
10
PRE-ROMAN {ITALY
(c. 1400-1200 B.c.), that of the Villanovan Iron Age in Etruria with the beginning of Greek colonisation in Italy at Ischia and Cumae from ce. 750 B.C. (see p. 16). The intervening gap has been filled differently by varied interpretations of the archaeological evidence: some would put the beginning of the Iron Age back to 1000, others find the transition about 900, while yet others by postulating Sub-Apennine and Proto- Villanovan periods bring down the Villanovan period proper to c. 800.
One factor in the problem is the chronological relationship between the cemeteries of the Vil- Janovans and the ‘urnfields’ found north of the Alps. These Urnenfelder are large cemeteries where urns containing the ashes of the cremated dead are buried in the ground side by side, often numbering many hundreds. Wherever the prac- tice may have started (Hungary-Transylvania?), it spread widely north of the Alps in the Rhine- jand, France and part of Spain. It also pene- trated into Italy, probably over the Julian Alps, perhaps also from Iliyria across the Adriatic. From the twelfth century such urnfields are found at Pianello in the north and at Timmanri in Apulia in the south; then others, marked bya development both of the pottery and the fbulae, spread widely over Italy. While many archaeo- logists believe that the impulse to this so-called Proto-Villanovan phase came from central Europe, a few have argued that it was a develop- ment from Terramara or even only a local evolu- tion of the Apennine culture. At the same time from the beginning of the first millennium greater skill in metallurgy was acquired, not only in bronze but in the new metal, iron, that was coming into use in two cultures, that of the Celtic Hallstatt period in Gaul and the Vil- lanovan in Italy.
Villanovan culture falls into two main groups, one in the north around Bologna and a southern group in Tuscany and northern Latium, where settlers are found in the Alban Hills and at Rome where they occupied the Pala- tine and used the Forum as a cemetery. There were other outlying settlements, for instance at Fermo in the Marche near the Adriatic, and considerable settlements as far south as around Salerno. Even between the two main areas there were naturally local differences, but by and large their most distinctive feature was the use of biconical cinerary urns. These were covered by inverted pottery bowls by the northern group, more often with helmets in Etruria, while in parts of Etruria and in Latium urns modelled like huts replaced the northern type of ossuary. The urn was then placed in a round hole in the ground, sometimes enclosed by stones; in and around it were placed ornaments,
2.1
such as brooches, bracelets and razors, though not many weapons.
The settlement at Bologna, the largest of the northern group which stretched eastwards to Rimini, was the key position astride the early trade-routes. It drew copper, and later iron, from Tuscany and in return exported manu- factured metalwork and agricultural products: by the eighth century it had become ‘the Birm- ingham of early Italy’. Increasing wealth brought social changes. Villages began to cluster together, though it may be too carly to think of communities organised as towns (except
‘Villanovan’ biconical pottery urn for ashes, covered by a bronze helmet: from Tarquinii.
The northern Villanovans
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY
2.2 ‘Villanovan’ bronze sword of the ‘antenna’ type: from Bologna.
perhaps in the case of Bologna itself); larger groups would be economically stronger and the gens was perhaps replacing the family as the unit of importance. Although few arms survive, military activity may have increased later in the sixth century, but there was apparently no ‘war- rior-class’, at most a citizen militia. In this later period art came under ‘orientalising’ influences which probably derived from Etruria, where by this time, as will soon be seen, Etruscan civilisa-
tion had emerged. Indeed about 500 B.c. Etrus- cans themselves advanced north over the Apen- nines and founded Felsina on the site of Bologna, near to the Villanovan settlement; the two peoples remained aloof, but soon afterwards Villanovan culture died out and the area passed to Etruscan control.
The southern Villanovans ultimately de- veloped differently from their northern counter- parts. The huts in which they lived can be recon-
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
2.3 Cinerary urn in the form of an Iron Age ‘Villanovan’ hut.
2.4 Shepherds’ capanne by the Volturno river, resembling an Iron Age hut,
i2
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY
structed from the clay replica cinerary urns found in southern Etruria and south of the Tiber, while the foundations of three such huts have been found on the Palatine at Rome (see pp. 37f.). These were cut into the tufa rock, roughly rectangular in shape, while the arrange- ment of the post-holes allows the wooden super- structure to be reconstructed, the walls consist- ing of wattle and daub. Remains of charcoal and ash attest a hearth inside the hut; fragments of cooking-stands, smoke-blackened houschold utensils and charred animal bones indicate the family meal and the life of the early Romans. Village-settlements grew out of clusters of these huts, and recent excavation at Ven in Etruria fifteen miles north of Rome reveals that several such villages might be built around a central strong-poit on a hill, and then later fused into a unified town settlement. The Villanovans perhaps had greater instinct to social develop- ment than has sometimes been allowed. At first they followed the custom of the northerners in placing their burial urns at the bottom of a pit (pozzo), but after 750 B.c. inhumation began to appear alongside cremation, the bodies being laid in trenches (a fossa). The objects put in the graves also became finer and included more imports, among them some Greek pottery, since now the Greeks were beginning to found colonies in southern Italy. In the seventh cen- tury in Tuscany inhumation became the normal forin and the dead were laid in chamber-tombs cut into the rock. At the same time the funeral equipinent becomes richer, with more imported Greek and Oriental objects, including gold and silver work, and iron becomes more common. These changes and the beginning of the orienta- lising phase in art appeared first among the settlements near the coast, and spread only slowly inland. In fact a transition from a Vil- lanovan culture was taking place; villages were becoming wealthy cities and men were begin- ning to use the Etruscan ianguage. Whether this was due to the arrival of another people, the Etruscans, from overseas or merely to the influx of new cultural influences will be considered later (see pp. 18f.), but it is a striking fact that whereas the northern Villanovans retained their own culture until they died out, the southern culture north of the Tiber gradually became Etruscan. That south of the river, at Rome and in Latium, took a different course, as will be seen later.
4. The Peoples and Tongues of Italy
In historical times Italy presents a mosaic of peoples and tribes, some apparently autochtho-
nous, others more recent settlers. It is impos- sible to analyse this agglomeration accurately, still Jess to trace their origins or define their languages, but something must be said about these problems, while the contribution of the Etruscans and Greeks to the life of Italy is re- served for the next chapter. First at the archaeo- logical picture, then the linguistic.
In the mountains which rise up sharply from the coast of the Italian and French Rivieras lived a Neolithic people, while the wild and backward mountaineers who inhabited the district in later times were known to classical writers as Ligures. Since they spoke an Indo-Evropean tongue and archaeologists have discovered no cultural break in Liguria, they may well be descendants of Neo- lithic folk driven back into the mountains by some invaders (from the Lakes?) who imposed their Indo-European language on the natives.
In addition to the Villanovans, two other main groups of kindred cremating peoples are found in northern Italy in the early Iron Age: Golasec- cans around Lake Maggiore and in Piedmont and Lombardy, together with the Comacines around Lake Como, and the Atestines (or, in Roman terminology, the Veneti) around Este (ancient Ateste) in Venetia. Golaseccan culture, which persisted from about 900 s.c. until Roman times, appears to have enjoyed a dif- ferent social structure from that at Bologna or Este, since, unlike them, it had a warrior class to judge from the chariots and arms found inthe graves of some chieftains, During the fifth cen- tury trade developed with the Etruscan and Greek areas, to be followed by increasing Celtic penetration. The Atestines very probably came to Italy from [lyria under the impulse of the movement of peoples which caused the Dorian invasion of Greece. Their cemeteries, however, which also start about 900 g.c., provide little evidence of any sharp distinction between rich and poor. Their metalwork rivals that of the northern Villanovans at Bologna; in particular their pictorially decorated bronze buckets (szzu- fae) provide splendid scenes of everyday life, as ploughmen, huntsmen, soldiers, charioteers, boxers and banqueting. Inscriptions, some of which are found on offerings dedicated to a goddess named Reitia, show that they spoke an Indo-European language which was closely related to Latin but was written in an alphabet mainly derived from Etruscan script. In the fourth century this culture was so dominated by the invading Celts that, later, Polybius de- scribed the second-century Veneti as virtually indistinguishable from the Celts except in lan- guage; at that time they had come under Roman control, but they retained their langu- age and customs until the Christian era.
tigurians
The ftalfan fakes and Venetia
13
The Picenes
Fosse grave cufture
Cumae
ischia
Aputta
fade- Europaar dialects
14
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
Next, three groups of Iron Age peoples wha practised inhumation. First, the Picenes, a war- like people as shown by their weapons and their stelae which depict battles by sea against pirates in the Adriatic. They lived around Ancona in the Marche. They perhaps comprised some invaders from Illyria who mingled with the indi- genous population; their language, as recorded later, is Indo-European and akin to Illyrian. The contents of their tombs indicate wide trade, and post-1945 excavation within Ancona throws light on their domestic life and supplements the earlier evidence from the famous cemeteries of Novilara near Pesaro. Secondly there is the Fossa Grave culture in Campania and Calabria, named after its trench graves, which began in the final stages of the Bronze Age. An important settlement was founded in the tenth or ninth century on the hill of Cumae, at the foot of which its trench-grave cemetery was discovered. Long before it was superseded by the Greek colony at Cumae in c. 750 B.c., its traders were reaching north to Etruria and south to Calabria and Sicily, and Greek geometric pottery prob- ably of the ninth century, has been found; at the same time the settlement shows traces of Villanovan influence. Some eight miles across the water lay the islet of Vivara, where an Apen- nine settlement had traded in Mycenaean wares, and the larger island of Ischia, where another Apennine village (on the hill of Castiglione) was followed on Monte Vico by a Fossa culture settlement like that at Cumae; this also, as at Cumae, was superseded by a Greek colony named Pithecusae (c. 760 u.c.). The Fossa settle- ments further south in Calabria are closely related to similar ones in Sicily, a fact which may be reflected in the Greek tradition (recorded by Hellanicus in the fifth century) that the people whom the early Greek colonists met in eastern Sicily in the late eighth century were called Siculi and had recently come from south- ern Italy,
A third inhuming group is found in the heel of Italy in Apulia. In later times this area was inhabited by three tribes, the Daunians, Peuce- tians and Messapians. As suggested by Greek legend as well as by the occurrence of Illyrian tribal- and place-names in Messapia, the tribes were probably of Illyrian origin. With the founding of Taras and other Greek colonies in south Italy, the native populations increasingly came under their superior cuitural influence, but these three lapygian tribes continued to pro- duce distinctive pottery, that of the Daunians (from c. 600 B.c.} being fanciful and even grot- esque.
No inscriptions exist to show what languages all these people spoke at the beginning of the
Iron Age—nor in fact could they ever have existed, since before the time of the Greeks and Etruscans the inhabitants of Italy were illiterate.? However, later inscriptions and the languages spoken in Roman times indicate that the majority of their predecessors shared a linguistic group of Indo-European dialects. The tribes of the central Apennines used Osco- Umbrian or Umbrian-Sabellic dialects: Umbrian in the north, Sabellic (‘Italic’) dialects in the centre, and Oscan (the language of the Samnites) in the south, These people were prab- ably descendants of the ‘Apennine’ culture, rein- forced by some Indo-European-speaking peoples from overseas (cf. pp. 8f.). Akin to, but quite separate from, this group of dialects was Latin, which was spoken by the peoples who occupied the plain of Latium to the east and south of the Tiber.
The Indo-European dialects in Italy probably originated from a common source, perhaps more immediately in the Danube area. But how did they reach Italy; by land or by sea? (as we have seen, Messapic in the south and Venetic in the north almost certainly were brought by Illyrians from across the Adriatic). Did their arrival involve the immigration of large
Their origin ?
numbers of people or did they spread more .
by infiltration? If they were due to mass move- ments, did the individual dialects arise before or after their speakers arrived m Italy? Despite the labours of comparative philologists, no agreed and sure answers can be given to these and similar questions.
Thus for the early history of Italy we have two strands of evidence, linguistic and archaeo- logical; a third strand is provided by what the classical writers tell about these prehistoric days. Unfortunately the three sources cannot be neatly woven into a unified pattern, and as yet no firm correlation between linguistics and archaeology can be established. However, some theories may appear more reasonable than others.
The classic view held in recent times has been that two waves of peoples who spoke Indo-Euro- pean dialects came down from north of the Alps: the first group, who cremated their dead, settled west of a line which ran from Rimini in the north to just south of Rome, and the second, the Sabellian-Italici, who buried their dead, settled east of this line. We will return to the first part of this view shortly, but the second part should probably be rejected: the supposed hordes of inhuming Italici have left no trace of an advance through north Italy. The Italic dialects therefore may well have spread from western or eastern parts of Italy among the ‘Apennine’ Bronze Age peoples, who retained
The language of the Apenning people
THE EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY
their habit of inhumation. Nor need the new language presuppose mass immigration of invaders: a relatively small number of Indo- European speakers may have arrived and their tongue have infiltrated gradually. The process would have been facilitated by the practice of the Italic peoples, known from historical times, of the Sacred Spring (wer sacrum), whereby as tribes expanded in population the children born at a certain time were marked to be sent out to a new settlement when they grew up, thereby spreading both their customs and language further afield in central Italy.
Regarding those settled west of the Rimini- Rome line, namely the Terramaricoli, Villano- vans and Latins, the theory of their northern origin is still widely held, as also is the view that they spoke an Indo-European dialect (as the Latins certainly did), A much less probable view is that the urnfield culture reached Etruria not by land from the north but by sea from the east. Others again believe that the Villano- vans were autochthonous and that their culture was a native growth, based on Apennine culture which absorbed external (urnfield) elements which were brought perhaps both by land and sea but by numbers so small as not to effect a profound ethnic change in the country. Pro- fessor Pallottine, the proponent of this last view, also believes that the Indo-European dialects reached Italy in successive waves from across the Adriatic. However, amid a great variety of possibilities it is still a reasonable view that the Villanovans came into Etruria from the north, bringing with them an Indo-European dialect and urnfield culture, though they did not neces- sarily come in vast numbers. Thus the safest use of the word ‘Villanovan’ is to suggest a com-
mon culture without implying an unduly rigid and unified racial and linguistic block.
Difficulties about the origin of the Villano- vans are matched by those which surround the reason for their end, which varied in different areas. In the north they were gradually absorbed by Etruscans, Celts and Romans, as will be seen; in Tuscany their culture developed into Etru- scan civilisation and their tongue was super- seded by Etruscan; in Latium and Rome they survived as Latins.
Thus in the early Iron Age Italy was inhabited
by a medley of peoples whose general level of jraty in the
culture gave little promise of their eventual leadership among the nations. Their material civilisation had not advanced, except in a few favoured districts, beyond that of a reasonably selfcontained agricultural people; they were unacquainted with writing; their craftsmanship was competent but their art, though attractive, relatively rudimentary. Their social organisa- tion varied; among the Villanovans villages were on the verge of becoming towns, while the tribes in the mountains of central Italy were probably much looser units. Later social developments, as they emerge into the light of history, will be examined below, but in general there was little to indicate the peninsula’s future great- ness. Not even the diviners of Etruria could have foretold that by the beginning of the third cen- tury B.c. the whole would have been united within the framework of a Confederacy led by Rome and have become a world power: still less that two or three centuries later a Roman Italy would be the unchallenged master of the west- ern world from Spain to the Euphrates, from Britain to the Sahara.
PDF created by Rajesh Arya - Gujarat
Myeenaean traders
The Phoenicians
16
CHAPTER 3
Greeks and Etruscans in Early Italy
1. The Greeks
At the beginning of the first millennium z.c. the Italic peoples had laid the foundations of a settled and ordered life, but their civilisation lagged behind that of the older seats of culture in the Nearer East. The next stages in the de- velopment of Italy were the result of increased contact with peoples from the Eastern Mediter- ranean.
The Greeks of the classical age were not the first mariners to explore western waters: they had been preceded by Mycenaean traders who visited Sicily and southern Italy and perhaps even set up a permanent post at Tarentum (see p. 9). Some dim knowledge of these adven- turous seamen may conceivably be reflected in the Greek legend that the survivors of an abor- tive expedition to Sicily, led by the Cretan king Minos, settled in southern Italy. But the link was broken by the fall of Mycenaean civilisation in the twelfth century: apart from some very tenuous links with the area around Tarentum, the visits of traders from the Aegean world were suspended for several centuries. In the meantime the exploration of the western Mediterranean was completed by the Phoenicians, who estab- lished colonies in North Africa, in Sicily and in Spain, and perhaps paid trading visits to the coasts of Tuscany. In the sixth century the trade of the Phoenicians with Italy was gathered into the hands of their colonists at Carthage (p. 115), who cultivated friendly relations with Tuscany. But the Phoenicians left singularly little trace of their visits to Italy, and they exerted no direct enduring influence upon its early civilisation apart from their indirect gift of the alphabet.
A much closer and more fruitful contact was established between the Italic peoples and the
Hellenic or (as the Romans came to call it) the Greek nation, which had been formed in the Aegean area after the Indo-European invasions. Stray finds of Greek ‘geometric’ pottery (with linear decorations) on the coasts of Apulia, of Campania and of Tuscany, show that the Aegean seafarers resumed intercourse with Italy not very long after 800 z.c, In the second half of the eighth and during the seventh and sixth centuries the Greeks made one chain of settle- ments in Sicily, and another on the southern and western coasts of Italy from Tarentum to the bay of Naples. From this base-line Greek traders carried their characteristic merchandise, bronze ware and the so-called proto-Corinthian, Corinthian and Attic varieties of pottery to central and northern Italy. One stream of traffic moved from Tarentum up the Adriatic coast, extending northwards as far as Hadria (near the Po estuary), and inland as far as the Apennines. Another proceeded from Cumae, the oldest per- manent settlement of Greeks on the Italian mainland,” to Latium and Tuscany, and spread itself like a flood over the Tuscan inland. One such Greek trader was Demaratus, a noble of Corinth, who after his native city became sub- ject to a tyrant (c. 655 B.c.) migrated to Etruria, taking with him workmen, potters and painters. He settled at Tarquinii where he married a noble Etruscan lady; their son is said to have moved to Rome and become king, ruling as the Elder Tarquin (p. 41). The story of Demaratus may well be true: it certainly illustrates the great volume of trade between Greece and Etruria which is also attested by archaeological finds.’ Thus between 750 and 500 B.c. Italy became one of the chief markets for the Greek export trade.
But the influence of the Greek merchant and
Cofonrsation dy the Greeks
GREEKS AND ETRUSCANS IN EARLY ITALY
3.1 the centre {the so-called basilica and templa of Poseidon) were in tact dedicated to Hera. To the left {i.¢. to the north} stands the tempie of Ceres {in fact ‘of Athene’} of the late sixth century.
influence af the Gresk colonists
colonist went further than the mere exchange of goods. Greek settlers introduced into Italy the cultivation of the vine and the olive, which had hitherto existed there in a wild state only, and so took the first steps by which the country was converted into the ‘garden of Europe’. Hav- ing acquired from the Phoenicians an alphabetic system of writing, the Greeks adapted it to the needs of Indo-European tongues, and they made a gift of this improved script to the Italic peoples, all of whom, directly or indirectly, took over their letter-signs from Cumae or some other Greek colony.* The bronzes and ceramic ware which the Greeks disseminated over Italy, the sculpture and architecture with which they decorated their cities, provided the natives with art-patterns which here and there found not unskilful imitators. The Greeks also gave Italy its first lessons in scientific war-craft, in the for- tification of towns with walls of dressed masonry, and the decision of set battles by the shock-tactics of armoured spearmen.* Nevertheless the Greeks accomplished far less
in Italy than they might have achieved, had they applied their superior civilisation in a systematic manner to the penetration of the peninsula. With the quarrelsomeness that was their beset- ting sin, they frittered away their opportunities in mutual warfare between their several cities, or in civil dissension within each town wail. Under these conditions they scarcely advanced their political ascendancy beyond their criginal area of settlement, and their institutions of city- life at first found few imitators among the Italic peoples. In the political history of Italy the first chapter belongs, not to the Greeks, but the Etru- scans.
2, Who were the Etruscans ?*
The name ‘Etruscans’ was given by the Romans to their neighbours in the district now known as Tuscany; by the Greeks, even as early as the epic poet Hesiod, they were called Tyr-
Etruscan origins
Air-view of the Greek city of Poseidonia (Paestum) in Lucania. Note the surrounding wall. The two temples side by side in
17
18
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
senians or Tyrrhenians. But the origin of the splendid civilisation which flourished in Etruria from c. 700 z.c. is one of the most vexed ques- tions of early Italian history. Although the Etru- scans owed much to Greek influence, many of their institutions were not derived from that quarter. Were they native Italians, or were they immigrants, like the Greeks? The age-long debate on this controversial issue was opened about 450 B.c. when the Greek historian Hero- dotus reported the story that the Etruscans were an offshoot of the Lydians of western Asia Minor who because of a famine had set out (at an uncertain date) in quest of new lands, This yersion found credence among Roman writers, and was accepted by the Etruscans themselves. But another Greek author, Dionysius of Hali- carnassus, pointed to the many divergences between the Etruscan and Lydian languages and institutions of his day (c. 30 B.c.) and concluded that the Etruscans must be of Italian origin,’
In more modern times a battle royal has been fought between the champions of autochthony and of immigration.
Two of the weightiest arguments for the indi- genous character of the Etruscans are drawn from the location of their cities and from the development of their cemeteries, together with the contents. Their towns for the most part replaced a former Villanovan settlement on or close by the same site: this process can be seen most clearly at Veii, just north of Rome. In Etru- scan cemeteries the successive types of tomb appear to develop out of each other in a con- tinuous series, and the style of their furniture exhibits a similar unbroken progression. Thus at Tarquinii, perhaps the oldest Etruscan city, Villanevan cremation burials in urns (a pozze) were supplemented and superseded (c. 750-700 B.C.) by inhumation in trenches (a fossa), with an increasing richness of the buried objects; then inhumation became normal, with chamber-
3.2 Paestum. Ternple of Poseidon (mid-fifth century) and, in background, the ‘basilica’ (mid-siath century}. Cf. 3.1.
Were the Ftruscans autoch- thonous ?
Did they come fram the Fast?
GREEKS AND ETRUSCANS IN EARLY ITALY
tombs cut in the rock; painting, sculpture and ceramics flourished, and imported Greek and oriental objects increased. Etruscan civilisation had arrived without, it may be argued, any major break.®
To such arguments those who believe in Herodotus would reply that to build cities where only villages had existed presupposes new skills and administrative talent of a different order from those shown hitherto by the Villanovans. Further, although the cemeteries show no abrupt break, they do indicate a change in the disposal of the dead, a matter of deep feeling among primitive peoples and not lightly to be undertaken. Also if the immigration was gradual and spread over a considerable period (and few scholars today believe in vast hordes of Etru- scans descending like locusts on the shores of Etruria in one mass movement) then one would expect the change in burial customs to be gra- dual. Even apart from any specific resemblance between some tombs in Etruria and Asia Minor, Etruscan civilisation as a whole seems more east- ern than Italic: the luxury of the Etruscans, their love of feasting, music and dancing, of games, jewellery and bright colours, and many of their religious practices, especially their science of divination by means of the liver of sacrificed animals, have eastern parallels. Lastly, their language is of crucial significance. By general agreement it is non-Indo-European. The Autochthonists would argue that therefore it is the survival of a very early pre-Italic tongue, but it happens that on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean there survives the inscribed tomb- stone of a warrior, and the language of the in- scription has links both with Etruscan and with tongues of Asia Minor, while the historian Thucydides tells us that the pre-Greek popula- tion of Lemnos was Tyrrhenian. Thus it is very tempting to see in Lemnos a stage of Etruscan migration from the East.?
Despite the attempted help from physical anthropologists in examining skulls and bones, and of medical biologists in studying blood- groups, the problem remains. Recently, how- ever, emphasis has moved from an apparently insoluble problem to the undeniable fact that Etruscan civilisation, as it is known ta us, de- veloped on Italian soil, and so the problem is often now posed as one of formation rather than of origin: what elements in Italy and from overseas combined to create the culture?! Stress is laid on not viewing the Etruscans in their early days as a clear-cut and closely knit unit, but rather upon analysing their racial, linguistic and cul- tural aspects, all of which may have separate lines of origin. As various elements were fused in the crucible during the so-called ‘orientalis-
3.3 Engraved back of bronze mirror from Vulct, ¢. 400 B.C. It depicts the seer Calchas examining a sacrificial liver (hepatoscopy}. The Romans tater had recourse to this
Etruscan method of divination.
ing’ phase in the early seventh century, it is clear that the basic population of Etruria was still of Villanovan origin and that it was adopt- ing new ideas of burial and social organisation and increasingly importing Greek and oriental wares which were gradually unitated by local artists. But unless we are prepared to forget Herodotus, we still want to know whether all this was the result of the upsurge of native talent under eastern cultural influences, spread by trade and probably by the settlement in Italy of some foreign artists, or whether the change was so fundamental as to justify belief in the impact of foreign occupation.
If the speed with which city-life and culture suddenly emerged in Etruria—and not, be it noted, in other Villanovan areas in Italy — suggests the influx of a relatively small number of men with administrative skills and the power to organise large labour forces, then the process may reasonably be imagined on the following lines (tmtagined, however, since the evidence is still too contradictory to allow more than hypotheti- cal reconstruction). In the turmoil and disloca- tion of peoples in the eastern Mediterranean
Possible development
79
20
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
3.4 Terracotta sarcophagus from Caere, ¢. 500 8.c. Husband and wife recline on a banqueting couch. Women had far greater social freedom in Etruscan than in Greek sociaty.
which resulted from the collapse of the Hittite and Mycenaean empires, many peoples from Asia Minor drifted westward. Some of these ‘Peoples of the Sea’ tried to raid Egypt in the twelfth century, but hieraglyphic inscriptions of Ramses Ii record their expulsion; later it is possible that some arrived in Lemnos and
others on the coast of Etruria. They would be warrior-bands, with few womenfolk, but bring- ing with them their language, and their experi- ence in war, administration and the arts of city- life; their numbers may not have been large and their arrival spread over a considerable period of time. In Etruria they would find a Villanovan
The land of Etruria
GREEKS AND ETRUSCANS IN EARLY ITALY
population which lived in villages, spoke an Indo-European tongue and cremated its dead. They imposed themselves as a conquering aris- tocracy and intermarried with the Villanovans. Their language and burial habits gradually pre- dominated; they encouraged the subjugated Vil- lanovans to clear the forests, drain the land and build cities; further, by exploiting the mineral wealth of the country, they developed an over- seas trade which brought many of the luxurious products of the East. Thus by the early seventh century we find an Etruscan nation, born on Italian soil; but it must be remembered that not all scholars wouid define its parents in the same terms as those suggested above.
3. Etruscan Civilisation
The central area of Etruscan civilisation lay between the river Arno in the north, the Tiber in the east and south and the Mediterranean in the west. Into it were thrust the lower slopes of the Apennines, The northern part comprised fertile alluvial valleys, plains and rolling hills of sandstone and limestone where cities such as Clusium, Cortona, Perusia and Faesulae grew up; such was their attraction that the sites con- tinued to be occupied through to modern times. Southern Etruria on the other hand, where the earliest settlements are found, was a volcanic zone, whose tufa rock has worn into peaks and plateaux, separated by deep valleys and gullies; here cities, such as Tarquinii, Vuici, Caere and Veii, are found on hills which rise where rivers or streams meet, amid a wild landscape which in part still retains something of its primitive appearance. Much of the land was covered by forest and wild macchia. The Villanovans, as pioneers, had begun to penetrate into this for- midable barrier and gained enough jand for cul- tivation, but wider occupation resulted in the ‘Etruscan’ period from engineering skill shown in land-reclamation, drainage, forestry and road-building. Even so, the settlers had to choose for their homes various pockets of land which were often separated from one another by physical barriers which made communica- tions difficult. Thus geography, as also in Greece, led to the emergence of city-states, each with its individual characteristics, and made wider political union more difficult. The basis of life was agriculture, supplemented by hunting and fishing, but the mineral wealth of the country, especially its copper and iron, were quickly exploited. Thus nature afforded mineral wealth which provided building-stone for cities and raw materials for export in exchange for foreign luxuries, while the land was fertile
enough to support a large population. But in addition it needed man’s co-ordinated labour and his technical skills to produce a rich civilisa- tion.
Etruscan cities had to be founded in accord- ance with religious practice, laid down in Ritual Books, and in particular each city had to be surrounded by a sacred boundary (pomertum) in order to secure the population within from all unseen dangers without. It is probable that rules for the plan and orientation of the temples may have led to some symmetry in the layout of public buildings from an early date, but the rough nature of many sites will have precluded the careful grid-system of strect-planning which was certainly adopted later: it is seen most clearly at an Etruscan colony founded c. 500 B.c. at Marzabotte near Bologna (p. 26). The later Roman grid-system, used in camps and colonies, may have been influenced by Etruscan practice, which, however, was not quite the same, since it was not based on the axial crossing of two main streets (the cardo and decumanus), but on a pattern of alternating wider and nar- rower divisions (such as are found in many Greek cities in the west from c. 500 B.c.}. Most of the cities seem to have relied on the strength of their natural position for long, but from e. 400 B.c., when the power of Rome began to rise on their southern horizon, they were forti- fied by walls of dressed stone. Their temples were more square than Greek ones, with a wide frontage; the front half had a colonnaded por- tico, the back comprised three shrines (cellae) for three deities, or one cella with two flanking wings (alae). Only the foundations were of stone; the main framework was of wood which was covered with gay multicoloured terracotta orna- mentation. Small private houses were generally rectangular, of mud-brick, laced with timber, built on stone or pebble foundations; larger houses had upper storeys, with flat or gabled roofs. The houses (domus) of the rich aristocracy can be reconstructed from the interior appear- ance of the stone chamber-tombs, which were decorated like houses and refiect something of their elegant and luxurious construction. They are the forerunners of the atrium (central court- yard) type of house which later Romans used and developed (p. 192).
The cemeteries underwent a continuous de- velopment, as has been seen, from simple pits and trenches to rock-cut family tombs with vaulted roofs and frescoed walls. The tombs were built in rows of streets so that the ceme- teries literally resembled ‘cities of the dead’ (necropoleis), as revealed by the spectacular cemeteries at Caere. The dead were usually buried, but on some sites, especially in northern
The
foundation
of pftfes
Tomes
2]
22
PRE-ROMAN {ITALY
3.5 Large burial tumulus at Caere.
3.6
Interior of the Tomba detla Cornice at Caere. The wall imitates the fagade of an Etruscan house with doors and windows.
Art
GREEKS AND ETRUSCANS IN EARLY ITALY
3.7 Terracotta statue of Apollo from Veti, made by the artist Vulca or his schoal, c. 500 8.c.A master- piece of Etruscan art.
and inland Etruria, cremation was practised. The more elaborate tombs, often themselves shaped like houses, were equipped with a sump- tuous furniture which vividly illustrates the luxury and artistic taste of the Etruscan nobles. The pottery found in these burials consisted in part of a native ware of black polished clay (6uc- chero), but their chief ceramic contents were fine Greek vases, of every type from ‘geometric’ to Attic, in immense quantities. The metal ware of bronze and gold was mostly of native work- manship, but of high quality. Among the keep-
sakes of bronze were toilet-cases and mirrors with incised decorations which plainly betrayed Greek influence; the gold filigree ornaments were less dependent on foreign models and in craftmanship equalled the finest Greek work. The jewellery and metalwork were widely exported, even to Celtic lands. Two masterpieces are the Capitoline wolf in Rome and the Chi- mera of Arezzo. Although sculpture in stone, which could be practised only where local stone was suitable, fell far below Greek achievements, the Etrusecans excelled in sculptured terracotta
23
Religion
24
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
which was brightly painted and widely used to cover the wooden structure of temples and even for life-size statues, as the Apollo of Veii. The gaily coloured wall-paintings in the tombs, espe- cially those at Tarquinii, display great jowe de vivre but also some grim figures of the under- world; in general they throw a vivid light on Etruscan life, showing scenes of banqueting, dancing and music, horse-racing, wrestling, hunting and fishing. All Etruscan art derived ultimately from Greek and Oriental inspiration, but it developed an individual character all of its own.
The Etruscans believed that their religion had been revealed to them in early days by seers; this teaching, the Eerusca disciplina, which defined religious practice, was enshrined in a number of books of ritual. The bri fulgurales interpreted thunder and lightning, which were believed to portend events in man’s everyday life, while the [bri Aaruspicini instructed pro- fessional Aaruspices in the art of divination based on the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals. The Romans later often appealed to Etruscan Aaruspices to interpret omens which they themselves failed to understand. The books also dealt with founding cities, consecrating temples, matters concerning war and peace, and thus all public and private life was dominated
by what the Ritual Books had foreseen. The names of many Etruscan deities are known, although their precise functions are sometimes obscure; they were soon assimilated to Greek gods. Etruscan religion was. or at any rate became in its later phases, gloomy and cruel, unlike most Greek and Italic cults. This repul- sive trait is illustrated by the scenes in tomb- paintings which depict the torments of the de- parted at the hands of the demons of the under- world. For the appeasement of their divine fiends the Etruscaris seem to have offered up human sacrifices; a common method of dispatching their victims was to set them to kill each other off in duels, which served as the models for the gladiatorial contests in Rome. The social and political organisation of the Etruscan city-states was rigid and aristocratic. In early days they were ruled by kings (lucu- mones} who were surrounded with great pomp. The king wore a robe of purple and a golden crown, carried a sceptre, sat on an ivory throne, and was escorted by retainers who carried an axe in a bundle of rods (fasces), eloquent symbols of the ruler’s right to execute or scourge.!! When Etruscan kings occupied Rome they left as a legacy to the later Republican magistrates many of these trappings of office. During the sixth and fifth centuries the power of the kings was
3.8 Etruscan wall-painting from the tomb of the Leopards at Tarquinii, probably early fifth century. It illustrates the Etruscans’ love of music and dance.
Politicat organisation
The Etruscan League
GREEKS AND ETRUSCANS IN EARLY ITALY
challenged and then superseded by that of the nobles; before this happened some kings poss- ibly had tried to bolster up their waning power by reorganising the city’s institutions in order to strengthen the military potentiality of a middle class as a counterweight to the nobility, as seems to have been attempted in Etruscan Rome, where the army was reorganised (p. 52). When the monarchy fell some military adven- turers may have gone on the warpath in an attempt to establish personal power, but were soon reduced to the level of their fellow nobles, and the cities were administered thereafter by local aristocracies. The latter exercised their power through magistracies which were norm- ally annual, but the detailed functions of the gilath, the maru and the purthne are hidden from us.
The cities were autonomous states, but they were linked in a League of Twelve Cities and had a federal sanctuary at the Fanum Voltum- nae near Volsinii (Voltumna was their chief god), where leaders of the cities met for common cult and games, Whether this became a strong communal bond or whether federal ties were
3.9 Bronze statuette of an Etruscan warrior.
held loosely is uncertain, but clearly the cities did develop some feeling of national unity which on occasion resulted in joint League action. However, local loyalties often overruled federal considerations and this failure to establish real unity of purpose through an effective confedera- tion was ultimately to prove fatal to the cities when they came into conflict with Rome.
The general picture of the social structure given by our sources is that of a powerful and rich aristocracy and an immense body of clients, serfs and slaves, but the gap may have lessened slightly when during the sixth century the Etru- scans adopted the Greek military formation of a closely-knit battle-line (phalanx) of heavily armed soldiers (hoplites}. The citizen body com- prised families or clans, a gentilician system, with a strong feeling for family and a recogni- tion of a position of the mother as well as of the father within it. Little is known about the serfs and slaves who worked the land for their overlords, but the opulent culture and private lives of the nobles are partly revealed by the great richness of the archaeological remains.
a ae
S tars
3.10 Funerary stefe of Avele Tite of Volaterrae, of the sixth or fifth century, depicting the dead man, with his name inscribed on the border.
Sociaf organisation
26
Expansion soutAward
Firuseans and Greeks
3.11
Air-view
PRE-ROMAN ITALY
4. Etruscan Expansion
Etruscan culture, and to a more qualified extent political control, soon spread beyond Etruria itself. Some Erruscans advanced southward over the Tiber into Latium, where they occupied Rome and other centres (p. 41). Others pene- trated further, either by land or sea or both, into Campania where they established them- selves at Capua (c. 650 B.c.?), Nola and Pompeii among other places. This expansion into a Greek sphere of influence led to conflict, the more so because of a wider clash of interest at sea where Greek penetration into western waters limited the spread of Etruscan direct control. As we have already seen, the Greek cities of southern Italy provided the Etruscans with new markets for their metals, and a vast network
of Capua, perhaps founded by the
Etruscans. In the central lower part the Roman (Etruscan?) rectangular city-pianning is still preserved. At the top, a Roman
26
amphitheatre.
of trade developed especially in Greek pottery (p. 23). But a new phase started when the Pho- cacans of Asia Minor established a colony at Massalia (modern Marseilles) c. 600 3.c. This was a direct challenge to the Carthaginians, who were defeated in a naval battle, recorded by Thucydides, in an attempt to keep the Pho- caeans out of this area: the resultant Phocaean
thalassocracy pleased the Etruscans no more than it did the defeated Carthaginians. When the Phocaeans moved nearer the shores of Etruria by settling at Alalia in Corsica (c. 560 B.c.), the Etruscans and Carthaginians soon made common cause and met the intruders in a naval engagement off Alalia «. $35; while the Etruscans gained control of Corsica, the Carthaginians took over Sardinia.’
Encouraged perhaps by these events the Etru- scans launched an attack on Greek Cumae, which had remained independent (524 8.c.), but they were repelled through the energy of the Cumaean Aristodemus. Soon Etruscan influ- ence in Latium weakened (pp. 55f.) and when Tarquinius was driven from Rome the other Latin cities were encouraged to seek freedom and appealed to Cumae for help. Once again Aristodemus was the hero of the hour: he helped to rout the Etruscans at Aricia (c. 506), with the result that the Latins could cut communica- tions by land between Etruria and Campania. Some years later, in 474, Cumae, either threat- ened by the Etruscans or taking the initiative against them, appealed to Hiero of Syracuse, who had recently smashed at Himera a Cartha- ginian attempt to occupy eastern Sicily. At a naval battle off Cumae the allies broke Etruscan sea-power: the Greeks regained the freedom of the seas around Naples, and the Etruscan cities in Campania were isolated by sea as well as by land.'? In the event neither victors nor van- quished in Italy enjoyed independence in Cam- pania for long, since Sabellian tribes began to descend from the mountains (p. 87) and by 420 both Etruscan Capua and Greek Cumae had succumbed,
With their hold on the south loosening, the Etruscans began to expand northward over the Apennines into the valley of the Po (¢. 500 B.c.) where they exerted influence for over a century. The chief colony was founded alongside the old Villanovan settlement ar Bologna and was named Felsina; it soon became a prosperous city of farmers, industrialists and merchants, importing large quantities of Greek vases. These came directly from Spina at the head of the Adriatic which became the chief port for Greek goods, especially Athenian vases; it was a Greek settlement in which the Etruscans secured a strong foothold. The third important Etruscan foundation was at modern Marzabotto, some seventeen miles south of Felsina, commanding the valley southward over the Apennines. It is of great interest because it was a new foundation {c. 500 B.c.) and it has not been built over since: thus it provides us with our best evidence for a late Etruscan city and its street-planning. The extent of Etruscan settlement beyond the area
Cumae
Expansion northward
Celtic artacks
GREEKS AND ETRUSCANS IN EARLY ITALY
( ;
(Vy Ie iat aN
Bas
3.12 Inscribed sheets of gold leaf found in 1964 between two temples at Pyrgi, the port of Caere. The left-hand one is in Etruscan, the right in Phoenician. They contain a dedication by Thetarie Velianus,
wih a .. AY 4 iv ¢\ 7% )*
ruler of Caere, to the goddess Uni-Astarte, and date from ¢. 500 B.c.
of these three cities is problematic and the view that they spread over the northern plain as far as the Alps is not supported by archaeological evidence, while the tradition that they founded a League of Twelve cities here, as in Etruria {and allegedly in Campania), is open to doubt. Etruscan trade certainly extended north of the Po, but large-scale settlement is improbable. But trade rivals soon appeared: Celtic tribes were tempted to move over the Alps and occupy the northern plain of Italy. The movement may have started in the fifth century, but it only became threatening after c. 400 when they began to sweep all before them. The final attacks fell on Marzabotto and Felsina, the latter being overwhelmed c. 350: on the burial stefae we see the horsemen of Felsina matched against naked
Gauls. Thus Etruscan power north of the Apen- nines was smashed and the northern plain became what the Romans called Gallia Cisal- pina. Nor was Rome itself immune from these Gallic invaders (p. 73).
Despite ultimate repulse in north and south the Etruscans at the height of their power had gathered into their hands all the richest portions of the country, and they held sway over a terri- tory far exceeding that of any Greek city or native canton. At the same time they gained control of the seas on either side of Italy, so that they could impose their terms of admission upon the Greeks.’* Their ascendancy on the western sea was commemorated by the name of ‘Mare Etruscuny or “Tyrrenum’ (from the Greek name for the Etruscans), which it retained
27
influence oF the Firuscans on the ftafic peoples
The failure of £truscan émperiatism
28
PRE-ROMAN {ITALY
throughout antiquity. The wider range of the Etruscan conquests enabled them to exercise 2 more extensive and enduring political influence than the Greeks. To the Etruseans rather than to the Greeks was due the incipient urbanisation of Italy. The Etruscans not only founded cities of their own on conquered terri- tory, but they set the example of town-building to their subject peoples. A movement of popula- tion from villages to towns took place under Etruscan influence in Latium and Campania, and even in the hill-country of Umbria on the slopes of the northern Apennines. Another last- ing result of the Etruscan ascendancy in Italy was the dissemination of the Etruscan alphabet, which was received in Umbria and (with some important modifications) in Latium, and was adopted, in preference to its Greek prototype, among the Oscan-speaking populations of the southern Apennines.
But the Etruscans had overrun Italy rather than secured it with a firm hold; they had overawed rather than conciliated or assimilated the subject populations.'* Moreover, they failed to preserve unity among themselves. For all their rigid organisation, the governing aristocra- cies of the cities could not prevent armed risings
of the unprivileged serf or artisan populations. Neither could the several cities achieve any dur- able harmony among themselves. The Etruscan conquests, therefore, were not the product of a concerted drive across Italy, but the isolated results of haphazard thrusts by individual cities or private war-bands, and no effective organisa- tion was formed to defend these gains. To these causes of weakness might perhaps be added the progressive enervation of the Etruscan ruling classes under the corrupting influence of over- abundant wealth. But leaving aside this reason — and we need not take at face value the highly coloured accounts of Etruscan debau- chery in Greek and Latin writers — we can find a sufficient explanation for the early failure of Etruscan imperialism in the deficiencies of Erru- scan statecraft.
After 500 B.c. the political destiny of Italy passed out of Etruscan hands (p. 55), and a con- current regression in their material welfare and artistic proficiency foreboded the eventual ex- tinction of the peculiar Etruscan culture. From this date the Etruscans require no more than incidental notice, as the centre of political power and culture moves across the Tiber to Latium and Rome.
PART II
The Roman Conquest of Italy
Extension of Latium
The soif of Latium
CHAPTER 4
Latium and Rome
1. The Geography of Latium
Latium, the cradle of Rome, consisted originally of the coastal plain from the mouth of the Tiber to the Circeian promontory, and its adjacent foothills. In the south its habitable zone was narrowed by the Pomptine marshes and by the Mons Lepinus, a spur from the Apennines extending toward the sea. On its northern and western border the lower valleys of the Tiber and of its tributary the Anio—the ‘Roman Campagna’ of the present day — formed a wider belt of open land. The centre of the region consisted of a group of valcanic hills, the principal of which, the Mons Albanus, rose to a little above 3000 feet.’
The plains of Latium were composed of a stout layer of alluvial clay overlaid with a thin coating of lava from the Alban volcanoes, This upper crust, being rich in plant-food and friable in texture and well provided with springs, gave the district a well-deserved reputation for fer- tility. But the hard pan of clay prevented the absorption of flood-water into the subsoil, so that the low-lying land was liable to become waterlogged? At the dawn of Roman history the lowlands of Latium were kept in cultivable condition by systematic drainage, and in recent years 4 great reclamation scheme has at last won them back for intensive husbandry. But in the intervening centuries areas of insalubrious fen- land were allowed to form near the coast.
The Latin hill country, despite progressive deforestation, still possesses fine woodland; in the early days of Roman history it was noted for its tall beech copses. On these pleasant uplands the villages of primitive Latium clus- tered most thickly. The remaining settlements were mostly built on the low but steep bluffs
that jut out of the plains here and there.
Latium is cut off from the eastern face of Italy by an almost continuous ridge of high land. The only commodious road across the Apennine range, by way of the Anio valley and the Lacus Fucinus, extended along the northern border of the Latin territory. Coastal communications with the bay of Naples were impeded by the Mons Lepinus and the Pomptine marshes. On the other hand two low cols between the Alban Mount and the Apennine foothills provided gateways into the valleys of the Trerus and the Liris, and so gave an easy approach from Latium into Campania. Between Latrum and Etruria the Tiber formed a strong natural boundary. Though not the longest of Italian rivers, the Tiber is one of the most voluminous, and even at its lowest summer level it is not easy to ford, except at a few easily guarded points. On this side lay the most vital frontier of Latium: if the Alban Hills formed the geographical heart of the country, the line of the Tiber was the natural seat of its political capital.
2. The Early History of Latium
The inhabitants of ancient Latium had no recal- lection of their immigration into the country. Roman writers, in a vain endeavour to conciliate this native tradition with the random specula- tions of Greek historians, made the Latins into a conglomerate of Aborigines, Ligurians and Sicels. In the light of modern research they appear as one of the youngest of Italian peoples. Continuing volcanic activity may have made Latium unattractive to man during the Chalco- lithic and Bronze Ages, but it was not entirely uninhabited in these centuries, as once was
Cammunica- tions
The early population of Letium
37
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
thought. However, sporadic finds of ‘Apennine’ material suggest only sparse population and do not prove a link with the Iron Age when the population suddenly increased to an extent which suggests settlers from outside. From Rome southward to Terracina there spread a culture, now known as Latial, which closely resembled the Villanovan culture of Etruria.’ These people lived in huts which can be recon- structed from the clay replicas which some groups used as cinerary urns in place of the biconical type employed in the north. They are found at Rome and in settlements in the Alban Hills, although apparently the archaeological evidence no longer supports the belief that the latter were slightly the earlier arrivals. Apart from an ‘Apennine’ substratum, the new ele- ments were reinforced by representatives of the inhuming Fossa culture (p. 14) whe perhaps came from southern Italy.4 This new mixture marks the beginning of the Iron Age in Latium
e 4 Clushum m ) _ 1 > ~ = Votsinie E: < 3 ° z es) Pr pa i ’ ; < b ’ evi mi . ‘ yy a } Se ¢ a t TS \ Falerng A. Tarquin 4 pioezas - Po Capena ‘ - ek, hi Lucus Feroniaed’< twee ag Fac et vp) Ata Ky) ~— oe OR 1 : rs VY ae Mine: _ : OMAP vale o~.. Praeneste 4 r, ' N . Pant <s 4 ‘ ‘Qe Ate Say. ‘LES ys Ostia ut ‘ AnciaSp Velitrae Sighia *; as ' ‘ be Laviniur” Lanuviam, Cora ie) . Md ~ NS a < t arden?” | 2 4 eg > Y a f. : L fs " o/™ “ a - Antium . ~ — 4 ibang Caleta Roman Miles , X 4c Englisn Miles 4 14 “4 oe =
32
2. ROME'S NEIGHBOURS
from c. 800 3.c., and early local variations tended to merge into 4 common culture. After some 150 years conditions began to change again when the Etruscans started to expand into Campania.
Thus Latium became a land of self-support- ing herdsmen and tillers of the soil, living in villages (vie?) which relied for protection on their hilly positions, strengthened possibly by wooden palisades. From surviving lists of Latin com- munities in ancient writers the number of early villages has been put at about fifty, while the Prisct Latini (Original Latins’) are given as thirty.> But however numerous these small populi were, the sharing of a common language would make them conscious of a degree of unity, which would be stronger if memories of a common tribal origin lingered on among any groups. They were probably organised on the basis of clans (gevtes), but as a social unit the gens was displaced by the familia or household within which the paterfamilias or eldest living male held an almost absolute dominion. Beside vici there were pag; in some cases these may have been only the extended areas in which the inhabitants of each wiews carried on their pas- toral or agricultural work; in other cases the inhabitants of various vict may have held a pagus in common and were thus linked up in cantons. Vict might also be grouped together in several cult-associations, of which the most notable were formed for the worship of Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount, of Diana at the Lacus Nemorensis (Lake Nemi), and of Venus (origin- ally a goddess of gardens) at Lavinium. In these religious federations the Latins possessed the framework of a political union, but they were long in forming a real political league. By virtue of its proximity to the sancturary of Jupiter, the village of Alba Longa (near Castel Gandolfo, on the west side of the Alban Lake) enjoyed a religious primacy among the Latin communi- ties, but it was never the political capital of a Latin state.
About 650 B.c. a new era opened for Latium with the coming of the Etruscans: the whole area became subjected to Etruscan influences, but Etruscan culture did not drive its roots very deep since Latium remained essentially Latin- speaking. The Etruscans encouraged agri- culture (rock-cut drainage channels in the Tiber valley and on the southern slopes of the Alban Hilts reflect the same technique as that of south- ern Etruria). They also fostered industry and commerce, promoted synoecisms, and thus swept the whole area into a wider world. But since Greek ideas were also reaching Latium from the south, it is not always easy to determine whether a Greek idea arrived direct or via the
Prisci Latins
Etrusean influences
Praeneste
LATIUM AND ROME
Etruscans: was the alphabet for instance, an indirect gift of the Etruscans or a direct gift of the Greeks from the south? It is equally diffi- cult to assess the political aspect: where and when do Etruscan features represent definite Etruscan rule? Etruscan rulers certainly occu- pied Rome during the sixth century and during that period a collection of villages became a united city with one of the largest temples in Htaly crowning its Capitoline hill. There is no certain evidence for Etruscan rule over other cities, but their influence should not be mini- mised nor their general dominance questioned.
Praeneste (modern Palestrina} seems to have been of Latin (and Sabine?) origin, but it was soon Etruscanised. Two famous tombs, the Ber- nardini and Barberini, contain a princely treasure of gold and bronze ware which resembles that of a similar tomb at Etruscan Caere of c. 650 B.c. Although one may have contained a gold fibula bearing an early Latin inscription (‘Manios made me for Numasios’), these tombs may well have been those of Etru- scan nobles, and Praeneste may have been a key point in the Etruscan advance into Latium: it commands the route to the Liris valley. Further, its flourishing bronze industry continued to prosper until Roman times. The names of
x
Tusculum, Velitrae and Tarracini seem to link these cities with the Etruscans, but there remains little direct evidence. However, the earliest treaty between Rome and Carthage of c. 509 B.C. (p. 48) suggests that the Etruscan rulers of Rome may have exercised some control over the coastal cities of Ardea, Antium, Circeii, Terracina and perhaps Lavinium.
A great gift of Etruria to Rome, and probably to Latium also, was the temple, a new architec- tural form. The coloured terracotta decorations of the temples which were built at Satricum, Velitrae and Lanuvium are virtually indis- tinguishable from those in Etruria, though they also resemble many in Campania. In fact a con- siderable area of central Italy was developing acommon culture, based on Etruscan and Greek ideas, the latter modified by the Etruscans or else coming from direct Greek contacts. The lat- ter channei has been emphasised by a recent discovery: in 1959 a series of thirteen massive archaic stone altars was found at the Latin city of Lavinium (Practica di Mare) some sixteen miles south of Rome. One altar had a bronze tablet inscribed in archaic Latin to Castor and Pollux (see p. 580}. Whereas it has often been thought that the cult of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) reached Rome from Etruria, the
” Tt
~- s+ of 49% ins * ia were
4.1. Archaic stone altars at the Latin city of Lavinium.
Temples and
altars
33
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
route may now appear to have been from the south, But in general in the seventh and sixth centuries Latium was closely linked with Etruria. By 500 B.c. the original fifty or more communities had been reduced by a process of absorption into some ten or twelve, the largest of which, Praeneste, Tibur and Tuscu- lum, long dealt with Rome on equal terms.‘ But Etruscan rule in Latium was not of long duration and far from universal, while its influ- ence on Latin culture was no more than spora- dic. The history of Latium was not bound up with that of Etruria, but with the annals of its own foremost city, Rome.
3. Rome. The Site of the City
The situation Rome was situated on the borderland of Latium geaors and Etruria, at a distance of 15 miles from the Tiber estuary. At this point the combined activi- ties of the Ciminian and Alban volcanoes threw up a ring of hillocks to a height of 200-300 feet above sea-level, and of a 100 feet or more above the surrounding plain.’ The western arc of the ring consisted of two isolated ridges on the right bank of the Tiber, the Janiculan and the Vatican. The eastern arc, on the left bank, formed a continuous stretch of high ground from which four spurs, the Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline and Caelian, projected into the river valley. Within the circle three inner bluffs, the Capitoline, Palatine and Aventine, guarded the passage of the Tiber. Of the central hills the
The Ailis of Fame
[This plan shows the line of W \ the city walls as reconstructed’
after 390 B.C
The Four Regions of the original city are marked thes 1,
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TARX LONE Subliciug,
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fof P. Navaljs) f P. Rudusculana,
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3. EARLY ROME
34
L c . Collina 0
Capitoline, which was the smallest in extent, stood detached on every side. The Palatine was separated by a deep-cut valley from its southern neighbour, the Aventine, and by a similar de- pression from the Quirinal on the north; on the north-eastern side it was connected with the Esquiline by a land-bridge, the so-called Velia. Through the rim of volcanic upcast the Tiber cut itself a new bed. Avoiding the Quirinal by a sudden westward bend, the river left a wide piece of open ground, the site of the Campus Martius; by a return curve it approached close to the three inner hills, and in this reach its channel. was bisected by an island which facili- tated crossing by a ford or bridge.
In this position Rome enjoyed a unique com- bination of natural advantages. A city of the Latin plain, it stood in a fertile territory which, under proper cultivation, was capable of main- taining a large population for its size. Its hills partly raised it above the reach of the inunda- tions to which the Tiber valley is peculiarly exposed. In the Tiber itself Rome possessed an easy approach to the sea and a potential avenue of foreign commerce. At the same time it com- manded the most convenient passage of the stream in its lower reaches, and thus held a key position on the main Hne of travel along the western face of Italy. From this double advantage of easy progress along and across its river Rome derived a similar ascendancy to that which nature has bestowed on London and Paris. Fin- ally, Rome lay in the heart of Italy, at equal distances from its northern and southern extre-
Roman Feet 1000 2000 3000 4000
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ap ROS 8, Ara Maxima 2) 5, Lupercal < Scalae Caci
Porta Mugonia
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T. Jovis (Capitolium) Curia Hostilia and
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Comitium 12. Regia _— . MLC. Mons Capitolinus M4.P. Mons Palatinus F.AR. Forum Romanum ~ Ce. Cermeaius
DBaminant position of Alome
The native fegend of Romulus
LATIUM AND ROME
4.2
mities. In a word, it was ltaly’s natural centre of communications.
4. The Origins of Rome. The Traditional Story
The origins of Rome became a fruitful subject of speculation even before the city had given clear signs of its future importance, and an end- less variety of foundation-legends was composed in its honour.? The starting point of the native tradition was the creation of a founder ‘Romulus’ out of the name of the city. Round this lay-figure a tissue of folk-tales was woven, so aS to give it a human and heroic semblance. Romulus was fitred out with a twin-brother Remus® and was affiliated to Mars, the tutelary god of Rome. The story grew up that, as an unwanted child born out of wedlock, he was cast forth into the Tiber but was saved for Rome by Providence which directed the river to swirl him ashore, a wolf to suckle him?® and the shepherd Faustulus to rear him, hard by the site of his future city. Out of the rest of the indigenous legend it will suffice here to recount that Romulus, grown to manhood, founded a settlement on the Palatine, while Remus made an abortive attempt to colonise the Aventine, and that he provided wives for his settlers by raping the women of a neighbouring Sabine community on the Quirinal (cf. p. 39).
Island in the Tiber which facilitated crassing by ford or bridge.
The tale of Romulus in its native version had come into existence not later than the fourth century B.c,; and the fact that in 296 a bronze statue of a wolf suckling human twins was set up in the Forum shows that by then the main outlines of the legend were familiarly known at Rome.”?
But Roman tradition was brought into com- petition with a multitude of rival stories of Greek origin. The Greek story-telling faculty supplied mythical founders to all cities that lacked an authentic record of their creation, and to some whose genesis was a matter of his- tory; itsrange of invention did notstopatthefron- tiers of the Greek world, but extended to foreign towns in which it happened to take an interest. In the fifth and fourth centuries Rome had already attracted sufficient attention among Greek men of letters to become the subject of a whole repertory of foundation-tales.'? In these alien versions the heroes of Greek legend, already the creators of innumerable towns, were requisitioned to be the founders of a ‘barbarian’ one The somewhat shadowy figure of the Arca- dian chieftain Evander was invoked for no better reason than that the name of the Palatine hill recalled that of his native place, Pallanteum. The Greek mythologists naturally did not forget Odysseus, for the scene of several of his adven- tures had been located by Greek tradition in Italy.!? In one legend Romus, the son of Odys-
The Greek fegend of
Aeneas
35
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
seus by Circe (the enchantress of the Circetan promontory), became the founder of Rome; in another, a second son of Odysseus by Circe created the neighbouring town of Tusculum. But the principal Greek contribution to the foundation-story of Rome was the introduction of the Trojan warrior Aeneas into it.'* Greek legend had busied itself with Aeneas since the seventh century, when the Sicilian poet Stesi- chorus traced the Trojan hero’s wanderings to the west, perhaps to his native isle and even to Italy. At any rate the story of Aeneas was well known in Etruria in the late sixth century: from Veii come votive statues (which imply a cult) of Aeneas carrying his father Anchises in flight from Troy, while at least seventeen vase- paintings (525-470 u.c.) depict the scene, and nearly as many show Aeneas in battle. In the fifth century a Greek writer, Hellanicus, made Aeneas the founder of Rome,’ but for a century or two after the Etruscan period Aeneas does not appear to have been much regarded at Rome, perhaps because he was linked with the Etruscans, now Rome’s enemies. Soon after 300 B.C..a historian named Timaeus created a new problem by bringing the foundation-date of Rome down to $14 B.c. (in order to synchronise with that of Carthage) or 370 years later than the reputed date of the fall of Troy, which was fixed at 1184 by the scholar Eratosthenes in the second half of the third century. But at this stage Greek speculation ran dry; it was left to Roman writers to blend native and foreign ele- ments into one authoritative version, The Greek tradition was known at least in its outlines to King Pyrrhus of Epirus (p. 94), who fancied himself as a descendant of Achilles in conflict with the progeny of Aeneas.
By 300 3.c, the story of a Trojan landing in Latium had been accepted in native tradition, for relics of Trojan origin were exhibited to Timaeus in the temple of Venus at Lavinium. Before the First Punic War the same tale had found credence in Rome, for in 263 the Romans gave favourable terms of alliance to the Sicilian city of Segesta, on the ground of common descent from Troy. At the end of the third century the process of bringing the Roman and Greek ver- sions into harmony was carried further by the pioneers of Roman literature, the historian
TheRoman Fabius Pictor and the poets Naevius and Ennius.
form ofthe In the revised form of the foundation-legend fegend Romulus ousted Aeneas and the gap between
4.3 Terracotta statuette of Aeneas rescuing his
father Anchises from Troy. Of the early fifth
century B.C, it comes from Veii, thus demon-
strating that the legend of Aaneas was known there at that time.
36
LATIUM AND ROME
the two was bridged. This was achieved by adapting the story to allow the interpolation, between Aeneas and Romulus, of a line of kings at Alba Longa; in this remodelling process Cato played a leading part (p. 60). Briefly, when Aeneas landed in Latium he was welcomed by King Latinus, whose daughter Lavinia he married. After founding a city named Lavinium in her honour,'® Aeneas died and was succeeded by his son Ascanius (or Iullus), who founded Alba Longa. After him twelve kings reigned at Alba, the last of whom, Numitor, was the father of Ilia (or Rhea or Silvia), who became the mother of Romulus and Remus; they in due season founded Rome. The Alban king-list thus made possible a reconciliation between Romulus and a Latin origin and Aeneas and a Trojan origin of Rome, The chief point of divergence among the early Roman writers lay in the vari- ous dates which they assigned to the birth of Rome, While Ennius went back beyond Timaeus to the neighbourhood of 900 B.c., Fabius advanced it to 748, and another early historian, Cincius Alimentus, to 728 B.c.‘? About the middle of the second century Fabius’s estimate was confirmed on the dual authority of Cato and Polybius, and a century later the date 753, proposed by the scholar Varro, became canoni- cal. In the Augustan age final shape was given to the received version by Virgil and Livy. Virgil’s chief personal contribution to the legend was the episode of Aeneas and Dido.*
4.4 Foundations of an Iron Age ‘Villanovan’ hut on the Palatine hill at Rome, of the mid-sighth century 8.c. Note the post- holes, porch at top of picture and drainage channel between two huts.
5. The Origins of Rome. From Village to City
The starting-point of any modern discussion on the origins of Rome must be the record of archaeological discovery on the site.’” In com- mon with other places exposed ro the action of the Latin and Etruscan volcanoes, the territory of Rome was only very sparsely populated until the first millennnium B.c. Except for a few ves- tiges of a Neolithic settlement on the Aventine, the first traces of human tenancy belong to the Chalcolithic period, and some Apennine pottery of the Bronze Age has come to light in the Forum Boarium which suggests 2 settlement on one of the neighbouring hills around 1500 B.c.7° But there is no certain evidence of continuity with later times.
A fresh start was made in the early Iron Age when small villages of shepherds and farmers, living in wattle-and-daub huts, spread over the Palatine, Esquiline, Quirinal and probably the Caelian Hills; they disposed of their dead on the slopes and valleys between.?! Overcrowding in the villages led some of the inhabitants to move down the slopes, early in the seventh cen- tury, and well before the end of that century they were able to build huts on the site of the future Forum Romanum, which by then they had drained and made habitable. One, perhaps slightly the earliest, village was on the Palatine, a height which commanded the Tiber and could easily be made defensible, yet was comparatively
fron Age settfamanis at Rome
37
38
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
roomy and not too inaccessible from the land- ward side. Here under the later House of Livia an early cremation-burial was found and also the foundations of three huts cut in the tufa rock. Here too in historical times was preserved the Hut of Romulus (casa Romuli), indicating that later Romans believed this hill to have been the heart of primitive Rome. On the Esquiline hill, on the other hand, the tombs are almost exclusively burials a fossa, while on the Quirinal the earliest are a pozzo cremations which are followed by a fossa inhumations. A main burial- ground was on the site of the Forum at the foot of the Palatine: here both cremation and inhumation burials are found, but with crema- tion dominant in the earliest tombs. These cre- mations almost certainly are the burials of the Palatine community, and the inhumations those of the occupants of other hills; they extend from the eighth to the early sixth century. On the Capitol, despite its dominant position, no traces of early settlment have yet come to light; this steep and narrow bluff was well suited to be an oppidum or temporary refuge and may have served as such rather than as a permanent habi- tation.
The inhabitants of these villages were essenti- ally similar to those of other Iron Age settle- ments in Latium: those on the Palatine resembled the ‘Villanovans’ of the Alban Hills, while material from the Esquiline finds its parallels at Tivoli and southern Latium. Despite some individual characteristics in their pottery, they all clearly shared the same culture. This was basically Latin though some scholars associ-
4.5 Reconstruction of such a hut. Cf. 2.3 and 2.4 above.
ate the inhumations with the Sabines, whom the later Romans believed to have formed a sub- stantial element in the early population. Thus the early settlers may have been reinforced by others from the central Apennine regions, to whom the valley of the Anio offered an easy avenue into the Tiber basin (p. 31).
The Palatine, Esquiline and Quirinal com- munities were at first quite distinct; indeed the marshland of the Forum, through which the surplus water of the outer hills made its way to drain into the Tiber, interposed an effective physical barrier to the amalgamation of the Palatine and Quirinal groups. A very general picture of how an incipient coalition of the villages developed can be gleaned from the archaeological evidence and from later religious customs. The former suggests that during the seventh century the isolation of the villages was beginning to break down; their products were becoming more standardised, partly through the emergence of more professional craftsmen; the distribution of wealth was widening (the remains of a man’s armour and chariot were found in a fossa tomb of c. 650 on the Esquiline); and external influences increased, more particu- larly from c. 625 B.c., when Etruscan bucchere and métalwork from Veii and Caere appear, together with Etruscan imitations of Greek proto-Corinthian and Corinthian pottery. Though the inhabitants still lived in huts, their cultural desires were increasing.
At the festival of the Lupercalia the Luperci used to run round the Palatine in a ceremony of purification; this suggests an original isolated
The isolation of the villages decreasas
Sapti- montium
The City of the Four Regions’
Etruscan elaments appear
LATIUM AND ROME
settlement on that hill, But another festival which also survived into historical times was called the Septimontium; the sepiem montes were not the well-known Seven Hills of Rome but the original elements of three groups, namely the Palatine (comprising the heights known as Cermalus, Palatinus and Velia), the Esquiline (= Oppius, Cispius and Fagutal) and the Cae- lius. This suggests that the first stage in the formation of the city was the union of these communities, even if the Septimontium proves nothing more than an association of villages for a common religious worship.
The next stage appears to have been a union of the enlarged Palatine community with that on the Quirinal; it also is reflected in later recorded religious practice. The Salii, dancing warrior-priests, were divided into two groups, the Salii Palatini and Salii Collini (= of the Quirinal}, and the Luperci were divided into two groups which also seem to represent the Palatine and Quirinal. This ‘twin city’ (urbs geminata, as called by Livy, i. 13) was organised inte four regions, as is shown by a religious procession of the Pontifices and Vestals who used to visit twenty-seven (or twenty-four) shrines of the Argei in four regions of the city, namely Palatine, Caelius, Esquiline and Quiri- nal.?? Here is a union of four areas, and since the procession went round each separately, the rite may possibly go back to a period when the four villages were separate communities. Although the Capitoline hill (and the Aventine) were probably excluded, the area was roughly coextensive with the four urban ‘tribes’ or city wards of the Republican period and so has been named the City of the Four Regions. It also corresponds roughly to the area within the pomerium, a ritual furrow made by a plough drawn by a yoked bull and cow to mark off the area of an augurally constituted city. This spiritual boundary, which the Romans shared with the Etruscans (p. 21), was not necessarily strengthened at this stage by an inclusive de- fensive rampart. Nor indeed is there definite evi- dence for the separate fortification of the earlier villages: they may have relied for defence on the steep hillsides, possibly reinforced with wooden palisades, while there may have been some earth walls across the Oppius, Cispius and Quirinal.
This stage in Rome’s growth heralds the tran- sition to the Etruscan city. In the last quarter of the seventh century not only was Etruscan pottery reaching Rome (p. 48) but also Etruscan ideas: huts, which now superseded the final Forum burials, began to give place to houses with tiled roofs. This archaeological evidence coincides in a remarkable manner with the
literary tradition of the Romans that the first Etruscan king, Tarquinius Priscus, gained the throne of Rome in 616 3.c. Henceforth Rome had become an Etruscan arbs rather than scattered pagi and entered the ambit of Etruscan civilisation. But before this flowering of early Rome is described we must see briefly what the later Romans themselves recalled about their early rulers.
To the mythical Romulus was attributed the creation of several of Rome’s institutions, including the Senate, but discussion of these is better left until they have emerged a little more clearly into the misty dawn of history.?? He is also said to have tried to increase the number of his citizens by two methods: he established an asylum on the Capitoline where all outlaws could find refuge and acceptance; this story reflects the later generosity of Rome in extend- ing its citizenship. The other story is the rape of the Sabine women. Romulus attracted to Rome many Sabines and other neighbours by a splendid celebration of a festival in honour of Consus (the god of the granary or storehouse); his men then seized the women for themselves. In reply Titus Tatius, king of the Sabine town of Cures, attacked Rome and captured the Capi- toline through the treachery of Tarpeia. In the resultant battle the Sabine women intervened: peace was made and the Romans and Sabines became one people, Romulus reigning on the Palatine and Tatius on the Capitoline. After Tatius’s death Romulus ruled the community alone until he was taken up to heaven in a chariot by Mars.
Such stories naturally have no historical foundation, but they raise many problems. The joint rule of the two kings was probably invented as a precedent for the later division of authority between the Republican magi- strates, the consuls. But what about the Sabines? While the tradition that Sabines conquered Rome and exercised a political ascendancy over the Romans is best set aside, some gradual Sabine infiltration is indicated by the infusion of a small Sabine element into the vocabulary of the Romans, and the reception of a few spe- cifically Sabine deities among their state cults. These deities included the mysterious Quirinus whom the Romans identified with both Mars and the deified Romulus, and the word may be linked with the Quirinal and also with Quirites, the name by which the Romans sometimes called themselves.?* Much is to be said for the view which identifies this Sabine element in Rome with the inhuming peoples who had occupied the Quirinal and Esquiline in early days. If this is accepted, the legend of Tatius may reflect a general, though not specific, historical truth.”*
Famiulus
and the Sabines
39
King Numa
Tulfus Hostifius
40
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
Romulus, the warrior-king, who was believed to have given Rome many of her military and political institutions, was said to have been suc- ceeded by Numa Pompilius, a priest-king who organised the religious life of the community by establishing regular cults and priests (fla- mines, pontifices, Sa lit and the Vestal Virgins and by reforming the calendar, correlating the lunar and solar year by introducing a twelve-month in place of a ten-month year (p. 52). Numa’s name and alleged Sabine origin may well be historical,?* but it is hazardous to attribute to the traditional date of his reign (c. 700 B.c.} any specific institution: some of his ‘reforms’ are certainly earlier (thus the Salian priests had armour of Bronze Age type), while the reform of the calendar may belong to the Etruscan period a century later. Robbed of his historical accretions, Numa becomes a very shadowy figure, but he need not disappear completely into thin air; he could well be a strong and respected leader who contributed to the process of unification.
The third king, who traditionally reigned from 673 to 642, was Tullus Hostilius, an aggressive warrior who repulsed an Alban inva- sion and then destroyed Alba Longa and trans- ferred its population to Rome, Both his name, which is Latin, and his destruction of Alba may be accepted: the Iron Age settlement at Alba, which was perhaps very slightly older than the one at Rome, gradually disappears, although there is no archaeological evidence for a cata- strophic sacking c. 650 B.c, The name of the Alban commander, Mettius Fufetius, may also be historical: he had been appointed as a magi- strate to succeed the dead king, and Mettius is the Latin form of an Oscan magistrate called meddix. The later Senate-house at Rome was known as the Curia Hostilia and attributed to
the king; this is possible, although it might have been built by members of the Hostilian gens a century or two later, However, as the Hostilii did not reach the consulship or become promi- nent until the second century, long after the establishment of the Curia and of Tullus in the regal canon, at least his name and perhaps his building suggest history rather than legend.
Much the same reason suggests that Ancus Marcius, Hostilius’s successor, was a historical figure: the Marcii did not reach the consulship until 357 B.c., long after the name had been incorporated in the list of kings. Nor, incident- ally, would the Romans have falsely inserted a plebeian name into the list (the Marcii were plebeians). Although Ancus did not found a colony at Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, as tradition describes, he almost certainly gained control of the salt-pans there south of the river. The Etruscans controlled those on the north bank as well as the crossing of the river at Fidenae above Rome, but the Romans began to wish for their own supply of salt which they could trade to the hill tribes in the east. Hence the occupation of Ostia. But the salt also had to be brought over the Tiber, and so the tradi- tion that Ancus built the first bridge at Rome is most reasonable, Further this bridge, the Pons Sublicius, was made entirely of wood (sublica means a ‘pile’); this suggests antiquity and also a probable connection with the pontifices, whose name means ‘bridge-makers’ (pons, facere), The report that Ancus incorporated the Janiculum hill in Rome is exaggerated, but he may well have established a bridgehead on it to protect the salt route and his new bridge, Finally, it was during his reign, which ended traditionally in 617, that Tarquin came to Rome. But that story belongs rather to Etruscan Rome.
PDF created by Rajesh Arya - Gujarat
Ancus Mareius
The iiterary tradition
The Targuins
CHAPTER 5
Rome in the Period of the Kings
1. The Kings and Tradition
In the sixth century Rome edges a little further into the brighter light of history, though much still remains obscure. In this chapter we shall look very briefly at what the later Romans believed to have been the history of that century and what tradition, combined with archaeology, tells of the amazing growth of the city and its buildings. Thereafter we can turn to the eco- nomic, religious, social and political institutions of Rome from early times down to the end of the sixth century and finally consider the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of the Roman Republic.
The Romans began to write their history only about 200 B.c., as will be described in the next chapter. Thus living some three centuries after the regal period even these early annalists would not always find it easy to differentiate between fact and fiction, although they had some reliable material to draw upon (pp. 57 ff.). Further, since their works are now lost, our main sources are two writers, Livy (ti. 15) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (i—y}, both of whom wrote some 200 years later — that is, half a millennium after the end of the monarchy. So it is not surprising that the surviving literary tradition presents many problems and has evoked diverse interpre- tations.
The three pre-Etruscan kings were followed by Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (traditionally 616-579 B.c.), Servius Tullius (578-535) and Tarquinius Superbus (534-510), It is clear that, however hard the later Roman tradition tried to disguise the fact, the Tarquins were Etruscan rulers: their name alone denotes this. Although the name Lucius may reflect a misunderstanding of the Etruscan title of Lucumo, and Priscus
and Superbus are [ater additions, Tarquin is Etruscan (cf. the Etruscan city of Tarquinii). Since many similar actions are attributed to both Kings, some scholars would regard them as reduplicated forms of one historical figure, but in view of the probable duration of the Etru- scan period in Rome, both Tarquins may be retained. Later Roman writers may have found uncertainties in the surviving tradition as to whether some acts were to be attributed to the one or the other: hence the resultant confusion, since in handling their material they did not all reach the same conclusions.
Tarquinius Priscus, son of Demaratus (p. 16), whether he came from Tarquinii or (as a family tomb possibly suggests) from Caere,! gained control peacefully. He is said to have established Games and a system of drainage at Rome: since these are both typicaily Etruscan interests, the tradition may be accepted. His alleged addition of a hundred members to the Senate, who were called mineres gentes, reflects the fact that he encouraged many Etruscan families to settle in Rome, as is shown by the existence of several Etruscan family names among the titles of the tribes established by lis successor Servius (e.g. Papiria, Voltinia); these newcomers would strengthen his power.
Servius Tullius traditionally was Tarquin’s son-in-law and secured the throne through the boldness of his wife Tanaquil. His name, which is Latin and later was used only by plebezans, supports his historicity: a fictitious king would have received a patrician name. There was, how- ever, an Etruscan tradition, known to the later Roman emperor Claudius, that Servius was in fact an Etruscan named Mastarna. This view gains some support from a surviving Etruscan painting of c. 300 B.c., but the story is a compli-
Tarquinius
Priscus
Servius Tuliies
47
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THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
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Wall-painting from a tomb at Etruscan Vulci. it shows
Mastarna liberating Caeles Vibenna. See p. 581.
His achieve- ments
42
cated one;? on balance it would seem that, while both peoples had a strong reason for claiming Servius, he is more likely to have been a Latin. However, even if a Latin king was sandwiched in between two Etruscan Tarquins, Etruscan influence will nevertheless have continued at Rome during the middle of the century.
Servius is credited with three outstanding achievements. He reorganised the state on a timocratic basis by creating new military units and property classes; many recorded details of this reform may have been introduced later (pp. 53ff.), but the essential elements probably go back to Servius. Thereby he both enfranchised many men whom trade and industry had attracted te Rome under Etruscan rule, and he strengthened the monarchy vis-a-o7s the nobles by appealing to the middle class, who could supply legionary hoplites for the army; at the same time he may have checked the increasing exclusiveness of the nobility. Second, he is said to have protected the city by building an encirc- ling stone wall: although this probably ex- aggerates his construction, he did not neglect the defences (p. 45). Third, on the Aventine hill, a plebeian quarter of the city, he established the cult of Diana, having persuaded some neigh- bouring Latin towns to allow the building of a common federal sanctuary at Rome: this will represent an attempt to assert Rome’s political
leadership in Latium, perhaps at the expense of Aricia, an older centre of the League.
Servius is said to have been murdered by the younger Tarquin (the son or more probably the grandson of Priscus}, who was instigated by his ambitious wife, Tullia, Servius’s own daughter. The literary sources dress up the second Tarquin in the guise of a typical Greek tyrant, but his essential historicity should not be questioned. In Rome his building-schemes included the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Cloaca Maxima (p. 44), which beside drawing on work- men and artists from Etruria provided employ- ment for many at Rome; abroad he ex- tended Roman influence in Latium and con- cluded a treaty with Gabii (p. 54). The story of his downfall will be recorded later (pp. 55 f) after a consideration of the growth of Rome during the regal period, including not least the extraordinary development of the public build- ings of the emergent city which owed so much to the Tarquins.
2. The City*
The Etruscans perhaps provided the stimulus which provoked the scattered villagers to greater unity; they certainly provided the archi- tectural and engineering skill which produced the new buildings of the city of Rome. The heart of the new city was the Forum, which became usable only when properly drained, After a disa- strous flood c. 625 B.c. the bed of the Forum brook was dredged (by Tarquinius Priscus?, while the main drain was attributed to the second Tarquin and belongs to « $70. Both these works were open drains, since the surviv- ing cappellacio work of the Cloaca Maxima dates to after 390 B.c, Over the top of the older graves and huts a pebble floor was laid for the new civic centre, and huts were replaced by houses of sun-dried brick with tiled roofs during the early sixth century. The most famous of the regular streets, which were now planned, was the Via Sacra, which followed the course of a stream and led between the Regia and the temple of Vesta; it continued to the Capitol, while the Vicus Tuscus led on from the Forum to the Cattle Market (Forum Boarium) near the Tiber. This Vicus was a district where Etruscans, perhaps largely craftsmen and traders, lived and in it stood a statue of the Etruscan god Vor- tumnus.
In the Forum on the north side of the Via Sacra where later the Regia stood, originally there were huts which were replaced during the sixth century by a temple precinct; the antefixes of one of two temples belong to c. 550-525 B.c.
Tarquinius Superbus
The Forum
The Aagia
Tempie af Vesta
FOME IN THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
4 me Sa 0
5.2 Terracotta moulded reliefs from Regal Rome (first half of sixth century ?). Warriors, charioteers and winged horses.
Recent excavation suggests that the Regia itself dates only from c. 500; if this is accepted, it cannot have been the dwelling of a king (one account associates it with Numa), but will have been the residence established at the beginning of the Republic for the priest who took over the sacral duties of the former kings, the rex sacrorum (though later the building was trans- ferred to the Pontifex Maximus).? On the oppo- site side of the Via Sacra was the early temple of Vesta, rounded like one of the primitive huts; votive deposits, which include early Greek pot- tery, suggest a date of c. 575-550 B.c. At the north-west end of the Forum was the Comitium, the later assembly-place of the Roman people; its political use may be contemporary with its first pavement, but beneath this was a gravel
5.3. Another terra-
cotta, showing a
Minotaur and two felines,
surface of c. 575 B.c. Nearby under the so-called Lapis Niger are the remains of a shrine (sace/- lum), which later had an altar flanked by two bases holding statues of lions and was held to be the tomb of Romulus; a covered aedicula, dedi- cated to a primitive but unknown deity, goes back to about 570. Near the north corner of the Forum was the sanctuary of Volcanus, an altar in an enclosed area which formed a platform from which the king could address the people. A similar pattern of development took place in the other Forum, the Boarium, as revealed by excavations around the Church of Sant’?Omo- bono: by 575 B.c. earlier huts were destroyed and a floor was iaid down, while an open-air sanctuary had been established. This was fol- lowed about the beginning of the fifth century
< : »
4 , 4 Ree = :
Lapis Niger
Farum foarium
43
The Capitoline temple
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
by two temples built on a platform with altars in front of each. These are probably temples of Fortuna and Mater Matuta, which were attributed to Servius Tullius; if too late for him, he may well have been associated with the preceding precinct. Considerable quanti- tites of Greek pottery, dating from c. 570 to 450, together with terracotta plaques depicting horses and charioteers have been found.
The Capitoline hill had curiously been neglected hitherto, but the Tarquins included it within the city and built on its southern side a great temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, making it the religious centre of the city. Traces of other early buildings have been found, together with a bucchero bow] inscribed with one of the three Etruscan inscriptions discovered in Rome. But the temple of Jupiter was the crown- ing architectural glory of Etruscan Rome; tradi- tionally vowed by Priscus, it was virtually finished by Superbus and dedicated in the first year of the Republic. Only parts of its stone foundations and fragments of its terracotta ante- fixes and tiles survive. Jupiter occupied the middie of three cellae, Juno and Minerva the
— , ae ed
5.4 Terracotta head of a statue of Minerva from the Forum Boarium, perhaps originally the acraterium of a temple. Late
44
sixth century.
5.5 Terracotta antefix of a tample on the Capi- tol, in the form of a female head with archaic smite.
side ones. His cult statue in terracotta was made by a master Etruscan sculptor, Vulca from Veii. Some 180 feet wide, 65 high, with three rows of six columns, 8 feet in diameter, forming a pronaos in front of the ceflae, the temple was of imposing size, while the gaily coloured painted terracotta, which covered its wooden superstructure, its figured friezes and the figure of Jupiter in a quadriga towering over the pedi- ment delighted the eye.
The religious importance of the new temple was great. Under the Etruscans the Romans first began to see the vaguer spirits in which they believed (p. 48} in the form of men and women and to build temples to house them in place of the earlier rustic altars. Further, Jupiter the Best and Greatest became the state-god of the whole community, while Vulca’s statue of him gave the worshippers a glimpse of Etruscan art to match his statue of Apollo at Veii. This new cult was linked with an Etruscan ceremony of holding a triumph which Rome now adopted. After a solemn procession which ended at the temple the triumphater, the king in regal times, sacrificed on the Capitol to the god whom he had represented in the procession (p. 51). He then descended to the Circus Maximus in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine, and there the Roman Games were held in the god’s
ROME IN THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
5.6 Reconstruction of the facade of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, showing the form of Etruscan temples. Resting on stone foundations, much of the superstructure was made of wood, covered with gay multicoloured terracotta ornamentation,
errr
5.7 Detail of 5.6.
honour. These Games were ascribed to Romulus, but they accord with the Etruscans’ love of horse-racing and were no doubt ela- borated, if not started, by the Tarquins, who built the first wooden stands for the spectators.®
Was sixth-century Rome encircled by a stone wall built by Servius, as tradition holds? The existing ‘Servian’ Wall belongs in the main to the fourth century; although some archaeo- logists would assign some parts made of cappella- cio tufa to Servius, this is far from certain. More probably he constructed the earthwork (agger) which runs across the Viminal and adjacent hills to block the heads of the valleys leading into Rome. Thus, like contemporary Ardea, regal Rome may have been protected only by its natural position and by an agger and ditch.’
Thus under Etruscan rule Rome became a united city, with public buildings which could vie with those of the older cities of Etruria. Fragments of temple friezes give us tantalising glimpses of the life of the times: banqueting scenes, horsemen, chariots and chariot-races, strange feline beasts and minotaurs, while the quantity of imported Greek pottery shows that the cultural level of the life of the upper classes had advanced far beyond that of their prede- cessors, who less than a century before were living in huts.
The
Servian’
Welf
45
46
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
5.8 Bronze statue of the Capitoline Wolf, perhaps the work of the Veientine school, c. 500 B.c. Figures of the twins, Romulus and Remus, were added during the Renaissance.
5.9 The so-called ‘Servian’ Wall of Rome, attributed traditionally to the Regal period, but more probably built after the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 390 B.c.
Early Roman agriculture
ROME IN THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
5.10 Early earthworks at the Latin town of
Ardea. They show the kind of agger that pro-
tected the exposed parts of Rame in the Regal period.
3. Economic Conditions under the Kings
The territory of Rome, which at the end of the regal period covered some 350 square miles, originally did not extend over more than some 60 square miles — a lesser area than that of many of its later colonies. From the list of deities and festivals in the Roman state-calendar (p. 48) it appears that an appreciable part of Rome’s earliest wealth lay in its flocks and herds. But until the Roman conquests extended into the Apennines, the lack of suitable summer pasture must have prevented the pursuit of a pastoral economy on any large scale. The inclusion of a vintage festival in the calendar shows that viti- culture was not wholly neglected; but vineyards were not yet common in central Italy, and the olive had probably not been introduced into the neighbourhood of Rome. The greater part of the cultivable land was under the plough or hoe, and the staple crop was a species of wheat named far, which produced a husky grain, more suit- able for boiling into porridge (puis) than for bak-
Bronze figurine of a ploughman from Etruria. The group illustrates the essentially agricultural basis of life in early Italy.
5.11
ing into loaves, but was hardy and prolific. Under these conditions it may be assumed that the yield of the Roman land was high according to the standards of the day, and that a relatively large population subsisted on it. While the pasture-land remained for the most part undi- vided, it is probable that from the beginning of Roman history the arable land was held in severalty.®
Although the early Romans were predomi- nantly an agricultural people, Etruscan influ- ence and occupation gave a great stimulus to their industrial and commercial development. The scale of the transformation of the physical city, which has just been described, clearly had fundamental economic consequences: thus, for instance, consider the labour involved in quarrying, transporting and building up the stone required for the massive foundations of the temple of Jupiter, which covered almost an acre of ground. Further, the technical skill of the Etruscans in clay and metal set an example for Roman craftsmen to imitate, and the labour guilds which are attributed to the regal period are quite credible, namely bronze-smiths, pot- ters, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, leather- workers, tanners and flute-players. The growth of a ceramic industry is attested by the finds of terracotta revetments of the sixth century in many parts of the city. In the field of bronze- work the famous statue of the Wolf of the Capi- tol is pre-eminent, but unfortunately its precise date and authorship are doubtful. If, as well may be, it belongs to the late sixth century and to the school of Vulca of Veii (p. 44), it will have provided a very high standard for native Romans to admire and seek to attain.’ But in fact we cannot say how many of the products
Arezzo in
Zarly Roman industry
47
Commerce
Popular religion
48
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
of industry were due to Romans, how many to immigrant Etruscan artists.
Roman tradition is silent about trade in the regal period. For currency cattle still did duty, or lumps of copper (aes rude) weighed in the balance. But the wide freedom of contract and bequest conceded in the law of the Twelve Tables of 450 B.c. indicates that the Romans had long passed out of the stage of domestic economy. Material evidence for overseas com- merce survives in the quantity of Greck pottery found on the site of the city. Fragments of at least 306 vases survive for the period 575-500 (and only 26 before that date), and 203 of them belong to 530-500 3.c., while no less than 255 are Athenian. It is significant that Attic imports to the six chief cities of Etruria during $30—500 are on average, as represented by surviving evi- dence, almost exactly the same in number as those which reached Rome.!° It is abundantly clear therefore that overseas trade played an im- portant role in sixth-century Rome. It is ex- tremely likely that Etruscan Rome had a formal treaty with the great trading-power of the west- ern Mediterranean, Carthage (since the so- called first treaty between Rome and Carthage which was made at the beginning of the Re- public, see p. 65, was probably a renwal of an earlier agreement). This is made even more probable by what is now known from the Pyrgi inscriptions (Pl. 3.12; p. 27) about the very close contacts between Carthage and Etruscan Caere: the Tarquins of Rome will not have wished to lag behind the city from which they themselves probably derived. The imports were presumably paid for in salt from the pans at the Tiber mouth, timber from the upper valleys of the Tiber and Anio, and perhaps some slaves acquired in war. With the growth of Roman trade we may connect the beginning of a new settlement on the Aventine, under which the first rrver wharves were built, and an institution of a fair at the sanctuary of Diana on that hill (p. 42), where merchants from other Latin towns could meet traders from overseas.
4. Early Roman Religion?
In the early Roman community religious usage clearly reflected the agricultural basis of the people’s life. Each household worshipped the pro- tectors of its home and its livelihood: the Lares, who kept general guard over house and land; the Penates who watched over the grain-store; Vesta, who fanned the glow in the Hearth-fire; Janus, who guarded the door; Jupiter, the arbiter of sun and rain; Mars, who stirred the plants to life in spring; and a host of other
powers that aided or hindered the work of herds- man or husbandman, or guided the members of the family through the critical stages of birth and childhood, wedlock and death.?? In his devo- tions the peasant hardly looked beyond the practical needs of day-to-day life. His idea of the powers (numina) whom he addressed was so hazy that he could not envisage them in any clear shape and was not always sure of their sex; his conception of the next world was so dim that he could think of the dead (anes) only in a collective sense. His acts of worship con- sisted of a simple invocation and libation of milk or (more seldom) of wine, an offer of a cake or a sacrificial animal, on an altar of turf. Magi- cal spells were occasionally practised by him, but formed no regular part of his ritual.
The religion of the state, as exemplified by the calendar of official festivals (the so-called calendar of Numa), was in large degree a dupli- cation of the private cults. The city of Rome gave public worship to Vesta, to the Lares and Penates, and to other guardians of fields and flocks, with ceremonies that did not differ sub- stantially from those of the individual house- hold, But certain of the rustic deities were trans- formed in the state cult into protectors of the community as a whole in all its activities. Mars turned the tide of battle in Rome’s favour; Janus mounted guard over the city-gates; above ail, Jupiter became the general watcher over Rome’s welfare. During the sixth century, moreover, the official religion was elaborated under Etru- scan influence. Deities were regarded more anthropomorphically, and if gods were fashioned in the image of man, they needed housing in temples and to be provided with cult- statues. The Romans did not indeed give a ready welcome to new deities from Etruria. But their earliest temples and cult-images were of Etru- scan type, and the great sanctuary of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva on the Capitol was copied from Tuscan models. Though their practice of ascertaining the will of the gods by observing the flight of birds and the feeding of chickens was probably of Italic rather than of Etruscan origin, it was no doubt in imitation of Tuscan ritual that the taking of such auspicia was made into a necessary preliminary of numerous acts of state, and the code for the interpretation of the omina became so complicated as to require a special board of consulting experts (augures).
At the close of the regal period the official Roman religion had acquired those permanent characteristics which no intrusive influence of later centuries was ever able to obliterate. It combined the practical give-and-take attitude of the Italian peasant with the ceremonial forma- lism of the Etruscans. The Roman state cults
The state cults
Charac- teristics of Roman religion
its canserva- tiveness
The patrician nobility and and the plebs
ROME IN THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
were in the nature of contractual acts, by which the magistrate bargained for certain benefits, or abstention from certain torts, on the part of the deity, in consideration of certain services, which were graduated according to a compre- hensive tariff and performed with punctilious exactitude: Do uz des (I give that you may give). Of all ancient religions it was the least emotional. The official Roman mind admitted a feeling of vague awe (religio in its original sense) in the presence of the deity, but it depre- cated any supersitito or unchecked display of emction as out of place in an act of worship, just as it would have frowned on cheers or groans before the practor’s tribunal. [t was equ- ally the most meticulous and conservative in its ritual. Even in the emancipated and irreverent days of the later republic ceremonial taboos inherited from the Stone Age were observed with an outward scrupulousness that bordered on the absurd. Encased in this strait-jacket, Roman religion never became, like that of the Greeks, the foster-mother of art, music and literature; though it possessed some resem- blances with the religion of the early Israelites, it never could produce a comprehensive and satisfying code of conduct: it produced only priests, not prophets. Yet for all its hardness and seeming selfishness, it was not lacking in social value, Negatively, it was singularly free from those extravagances of lust and of fear which emotionalism in ancient religion usually carried in its train: temple prostitutes were en- urely unknown in the state worship, and human sacrifices were of the utmost rarity. Positively, in emphasising the principle of reciprocal ser- vice between man and god, it also fostered the idea of mutual obligation between man and man. Again, within each Roman family the tra- ditional religion strengthened the feeling of partnership in a common cause: in early Rome weddings in patrician families were usuaily con- secrated by a religious ceremonial (confarreatio), and husband and wife shared the duties of the household ritual. Lastiy, the pax deorum, or covenant with the gods, which it was the pri- mary object of Roman ritual to maintain, imparted to the early Roman a sense of security which reinforced his inborn doggedness and could make him invincible in his fixity of pur- pose.
5. Social and Political Groupings"?
The social structure of early Rome was that of a free community with an inner circle of aristo- cratic houses. In the city the artisans and traders were their own masters, and the slave popula-
tion was limited to a few debtors whose servi- tude was neither hereditary nor irrevocable. In the countryside the peasantry were not tied to the soil,!* and they usually were the owners of a small plot. But the plebs or mass of the people in city and country gradually became distinct from the privileged class of the pazricti; later in the sixth or perhaps early fifth century the citizen body definitely hardened into the two sharply divided ‘orders’ of patricians and ple- beians (p. 64). The origin of this social division is not to be found in any diversity of race, but in a progressive differentation of wealth which had commenced before the foundation of the city. A limited number of families, in whose hands the larger estates were held, had gradually acquired a hold over the lesser peasantry, among whom the subdivision of land had been carried so far that they were driven to eke out their livelihood as labourers or part-tenants in the service of their wealthier neighbours. This eco- nomic nexus was reinforced by a social bond between the patrician and his ‘client’. The patron gave economic support to the client and assisted him in obtaining his rights against third parties. In return the client gave field labour, military aids (p. 52), and occasional contribu- tions of money, like those of a medieval vassal to his overlord.'’ These mutual obligations, though not enforceable by law, were sanctioned by custom and religion and were handed on from generation to generation, so that for many centuries the relation between patron and client remained one of the strongest links in Roman society.
The social organisation of the early Roman community, as that of other Italic peoples, was based on a ‘gentile’ pattern. The gens, clan or group of families, was marked by a common name: in addition ro his personal name (praeno- men) a Roman would always bear that of his gens (the nomen proper). Gentile solidarity long remained a powerful force among the ruling families of Rome; but the gentes never officiaily formed part of the machinery of government, although they had considerable influence on the development of law and religion. As a social unit the gens was replaced by the familia or household which at all times remained a miniature state within the state. The patriarchal organisation which was common to all peoples of Indo-Euro- pean stock was maintained at Rome longer than elsewhere in its pristine rigour. The paterfamt- fias, having acquired his wife by simple arrange- ment with the bride’s father, assumed manus or complete disciplinary control over her, and he wielded a similar despotic authority over his sons, of whatever age, and over his unmarried daughters. Although the arbitrariness of his
The gens
The family
49
The three ines
The curiae
The Senate
50
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
power was mitigated in actual practice by custo- mary safeguards against abuse, such as the insti- tution of a ‘family council’ (constiium familiae) to try offences of a serious nature, and by the discipline of the family religion, for many cen- turies his omnipotence within the family circle was unrestrained by law. Roman husbands might put their wives to death, and fathers might sell their children into slavery, without committing a crime.
In early times the Roman people were divided into three tribes (tribus), the Ramnes, Tities and Luceres; if these names are Etruscan, the tribes will be a fairly late. creation, but they may be Etruscanised forms of pre-existing Latin names.’ These tribes were probably originally ethnic rather than local groups, but little is known about their political functions; they were later replaced by new local tribes (p. 53), For political purposes the citizen body was grouped into thirty curiae. These may have been primi- tive groups of gentes associated for common defence, but they became local units of families who at first at any rate were neighbours.!? The members of each curia met occasionally to wit- ness adoptions and testaments and to decide disputed cases of legitimacy. Thus the curiae controlled admission to the citizen body; but the curtones who presided over them had no ex- ecutive duties except a few religious formalities. They were probably the elements of the earliest military organisation and certainly of the oldest Roman assembly. Meeting in joint convention (Comitia Curiata) they constituted the original Roman folk-moot. The chief function of the assembly was to ratify the choice of a new king by a lex curtata de imperio, by which it bound itself to obeys his commands (but it had little choice as to the ruler himself, who had already been nominated by an iuterrex and ratified by the Senate). The Comitia Curiata might also be convoked at the king’s discretion to confirm a sentence of death upon a citizen or to pledge its loyalty in a war or other political crisis. But it could not meet, except at the king’s writ; it had no power, or only a restricted opportunity, of discussion; and its method of voting was probably by mere acclamation. The Comitia Curiata was therefore little more than a sound- ing-board which made the people’s voice audible but not necessarily effective.
A more authoritative position was held by the Senatus or Council of Elders, an assembly of all the notables who had a customary claim to receive the king’s summons. These were the patres, the heads of the leading gentes which became known as the patrician gentes, The tradi- tion that Romulus enrolled exactly 100 senators and that by the end of the regal period these
had been increased to 300 cannot be accepted literally,?® but it indicates a gradual increase in the number of senators; this increase may be reflected in the phrase pazres conscripti, by which the Senate as a whole became known.!* This council was a merely advisory body, whose pronouncements had no binding force. But its collective opinion inevitably gained in weight from the personal importance of its members. Moreover, at the death of a king his sovereignty passed back into its hands, and an zterrex was appointed to conduct the election of a new monarch. But when a distinction had developed between the more privileged (patrician) senators and the others (whatever their origin), only a patrician could be an inzerrex and only patrician senators had the right of electing him and also of giving assent (auctoritas patrum) to the resolu- tions of the Comitia. Further, when an interreg- num occurred, ‘the auspices returned to the patres’ (Cic. ad Brut. 1.5.4) and so the patricians maintained an exclusive monopoly of this piece of religious machinery (p. 48). Again, outside the Senate, the major priesthoods, the flamines, were confined to patricians who also controlled several cults as well as the auspicial rights.
6. The Monarchy
Our knowledge of the powers and functions of The sing
the kings depends for the most part not upon contemporary evidence but upon the conception of these which was held by iater Roman jurists, annalists and historians who had to fill the gaps in their own knowledge by arguing back from later institutions. This suggests the need for caution in accepting statements of detail. But while, for instance, the conception of regal power, as weil as its outward trappings, may well have been somewhat different under the earlier Latin kings as contrasted with their Etruscan successors, nevertheless the general picture of the monarchy which the ancient sources present is doubtless reliable. It appears that the monarchy at Rome was a trust rather than a family possession. It was not exercised by dynastic right, but was conferred by the Senate and people without regard to family claims. The Roman kings made no pretence to divine descent, nor to any special communion with the gods, save by the right of taking the auspicia. Yet the trust conferred upon them invested them with almost despotic power. The royal imperium or right of command was unli- mited in range, and could be enforced by the sanction of capital punishment. The plenary power of the kings was reflected in their outward insignia, They, or at any rate the later kings,
ship. Its powers
ROME IN THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
5.12 Painted plaque from Caere, showing a rujer seated
before the statue of a goddess. Note the folding ivory seat,
iike the later seffa curulis used by Roman magistrates. His
clothing resembles the short Roman toga {trabes). his upturned shoes are typically Etruscan.
were clad in purple, administered justice sitting on an ivory chair on a chariot (called sella curulis, after the chariot, currus), and were attended by lictors bearing the fasces or bundles of rods and axes, the visible symbols of their iaperium. On their return from a successful war they rode at the head of their army in a ‘triumphal’ procession to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitel. This triumph may originally have involved a ceremonial purification of the soldiers and the city. Under the Etruscan kings its external form was elaborated: the iriumpha- tor wore the purple and gold garments of Jupiter, while his face was painted vermilion like that of the god’s statue in the Capitoline temple; he stood in a four-horse chariot which was escorted on a fixed route through the city by his army, which shouted To triumphe’.
a
Triumphs remained a feature of public life throughout Roman history; in the later Re- public they became even more gorgeous and emphasised the personal glory of the general, while under the Empire they became the per- sonal monopoly of the emperor himself, as of the king in early days.?°
As executive head of the state the king had a threefold competence. He was charged with the maintenance of the pax deoruon. But he dele- gated the more onerous religious ceremonies, such as the state cults of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus (a somewhat shadowy counterpart of Mars), to special officiators (famines), whom he selected from the patrician families, and the most exacting of all, the tending of the eternal fire of Vesta, to six daughters of leading families, who gave thirty years of their life to this never- ending task and lived in maiden seclusion for the term of their office. The king committed the duty of preserving and expounding the general law of state ritual (us divinum) to a college of five pontifices, and the interpretation of omens to a board of three augures. Like the officiating priests these delegates of the king were nominated by him out of the patrician families; but they had few regular duties, and could only express their opinion at the king’s special request. Apart from some minor sacri-
5.13 The Roman fasces.
Religious functions of the kings
57
Miltary functions
dudforal functions
52
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
ficial rites the king in person discharged no regu- lar religious duty save that of fixing the year’s calendar. In fact the creation of a new calendar (the pre-Julian calendar) was attributed to Numa: he established a twelve-month calendar m place of the older ten-month one (March to December) which tradition had assigned to Romulus, This reform, however, which almost certainly belongs to the regal period, should more probably be assigned to the Etruscan kings. The adoption of a twelve-month calendar helped to correlate the lunar with the solar year, which had to be brought into further adjustment by the periodic insertion ofan ‘intercalary’ month of 22/23 days (this latter device may have been elaborated, or even created, at the time of the decemvirs in 450 .c.).7!
In the second place the king represented the community in its foreign relations. He made treaties, decided on questions of peace and war, levied troops and money, and took the field as imperator or general plenipotentiary. Lastly, the King made and declared the law. The rules of civic intercourse, however, were regulated by use and wont rather than by statute, and it is probable that the royal laws were mainly con-
_ fined to the sphere of religious ritual.?? The
King’s jurisdiction was restricted by the con- current authority of the pazerfamilias over his household; and his interference in the disputes between private citizens was limited to the appointment of arbirf who made an award in his name, but left the execution of it in the hands of the successful suitor. On the other hand the Roman king, as guardian of public security, freely exercised large powers of penal justice. His criminal jurisdiction extended particularly to two fundamental offences against the com- munity: treason and unjustifiable homicide. Such ‘capital’ cases, involving exile or death (sometimes by hurling from the Tarpeian Rock, a cliff of the Capitol), he delegated to specially appointed officials, duovirt perduellionis, to deal with cases of treason, and guaestores (later guaes- tores parricidii) to investigate murder.?? Though he might allow the revision of a capital sentence by the Comitia Curiata this act of grace lay entirely in his own discretion. The efficacy of the king’s criminal justice is shown by the total absence of the blood feud in early Rome. The practice of private war, which proved so diffi- cult to eradicate in the cities of early Greece and in medieval Europe, had been abolished at the very beginning of Roman history.
Apart from the levying of money (in weight of copper) for purposes of war or public works, the king exercised no financial functions of any importance. The small revenue which he re- quired for ordinary administration accrued to
him in the form of rents from public domains (consisting of pastures and forests), from cus- toms dues, from licences for the monopoly of salt, and from fines on public offenders. The surplus funds, which never amounted to a sub- stantial sum, were deposited in a strong room (aerarium), later, at any rate, under the custody of regularly appointed guaestores.
In comparison with other ancient communi- ties at a similar stage of development, Rome in the regal period possessed a strong and active government. The salient feature of its early con- stitution lay in the exercise of imperium by the king, which gave him not only full powers of military discipline in the field of war, but an unlimited right to enforce his will and punish recalcitrants in time of peace. The bnperium was subsequently circumscribed and made less arbitrary in its incidence, but it was always pre served as an attribute of the head magistrates at Rome. The drastic right of coercion which the Roman community conferred upon its ex- ecutive was one of the clearest expressions of that practical turn of mind which made them realise that ‘His Majesty’s government must be carried on’, and that political discipline is prior, in fact if not on paper, to political liberty.
7. Military and Political Developments
The earliest Roman army consisted of a general levy which was raised from the aristocratic landowners through the genres and clientelae. It was based oa the three tribes, each of which pro- vided I000 infantry commanded by a tribuxus milttum, together with three squadrons of 100 horsemen (eguites or celeres) each under a tribunus celerum. Each of the three corps of 1000 com- prised ten groups or centuries, corresponding to the ten curiae of each tribe. The infantry was probably equipped with long body-shield and throwing-spear; the tactics were doubtless somewhat rough and ready, approximating to the early ‘heroic’ stage in the growth of the armies of other city-states. But despite analogies with Greek cities and medieval knights and de- spite much modern controversy, there does not appear to be conclusive evidence that the cavalry at Rome was restricted to the patricians,4 Rather, the eguttes may have provided the king’s bodyguard and not have played a leading role in military tactics: a reliable but fragmentary literary source, known as the Ineditum Vatt- canum, records that cavalry was not important until the Samnite Wars of the fourth century.
A tadical change in the organisation of the army and in many other aspects of Roman public life was attributed to Servius Tullius. The
Fevenue
The early army
Te army reform by Servius
The new tribes, urban and tutaf
ROME IN THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
army reforms may be dealt with first.?5 Servius is said to have doubled the number of soldiers and levied them on the basis of wealth, of new tribes (in place of the three old ones), and of ‘centuries’ (in place of Thousands). Thus the new levy (legio) comprised 6000 infantry, organised in sixty centuriae.?* The cavalry were also increased, perhaps to six centuries (sex suj> fragia}; alternatively, the sex suffragia could have been introduced earlier by Tarquinius Priscus, and Servius’s increase then will have been of twelve new centuries of equites (making eighteen in all, i.2., comprising sixty turmae, each of thirty equites, corresponding to the sixty centuries of the legion)?’ This reorganisation probably went hand in hand with the adoption of hopiite tactics, now well established in Greece and Etruria, although some historians would date the change much later.?* With this new battle-line new equipment was needed: the round shield (clipes), fastened to the forearm, and the sword (a bronze clipeus has been found ina tomb on the Esquiline, dating to about 600 B.C.). Thus there is good reason to believe what the ancient sources almost unanimously tell us, nainely that the mid-sixth century saw radical military reforms.
The accounts of the reforms which the ancient authorities ascribe to Servius are encrusted with many details which are clearly reflections of later developments and cannat go back to the sixth century. In consequence many modern critics have assigned the reforms to vari- ous periods in the fifth century and even the fourth century, but more recently an increasing body of historical opinion supports the view that the essence of the reforms does belong to the regal period although admitting that many details are added from a later stage of develop- ment. In consequence the principles of the reforms are described in this chapter.?°
The growth of trade and industry had attracted many men to settle in Rome, but while these immigrants helped to promote economic prosperity they did nothing to strengthen her military might: since they were not citizens, they were not liable for service in the army. The need to draw on this new reservoir of man- power suggested the desirability of incorporat- ing the newcomers in the citizen body, but to have drafted them into the existing curiae, closely knit family groups, would have given offence; hence a new structure was required. The three old tribes (Tities, Ramnes and Luceres) were abolished and twenty new tribes were created. Four were city tribes (urbanae} and took their names (Sucusana, Esquilina, Col- lina and Palatina) from the chief hills in each of the four regions into which Rome was now
in effect divided. In addition the population of the countryside (ager) was enrolled in sixteen rural tribes; they were mainly named after genes (e.g. Aemilia, Cornelia, Fabia), perhaps taking over the names from the still earlier pag?. Thus residence, not birth or ownership of property, was made the basis for this new census of the settled population of Rome which was now incorporated into the citizen body by means of the new tribes.?¢
Burt Servius went further. From the military standpoint not all the new citizen body was of equal vaiue: clearly the poor man could not guard the city with sticks and stones as well as the richer man with spear and sword, Thus in the census the landholders were divided into five classes, graded according to the equipment they could provide; the lowest class probably possessed only two (or two and a half} imgera of land, the first perhaps a minimum of twenty.?! Those whose property fell too low for inclusion even in the fifth class were registered together ‘by heads’ as capitecensi or proletarii. Thus this new system, based on wealth, was timocratic and was not altogether dissimilar from the reformed constitution which Solon had introduced at Athens in 590; it is by no means impossible that the Romans were aware of what had recently been done at Athens. Further, the tribal reorganisation at Rome had much the same object as that