James H. Richardson
The Fabii and the Gauls
Studies in historical thought and historiography in Republican Rome
Historia – Einzelschrift 222
This book explores how Roman ideas about human behaviour and
historiography affected the ways in which the Romans wrote about
their past. The first of the book’s three chapters considers Roman
views concerning human behaviour and the impact that these had on
the traditions of Rome‘s past. The second looks at the presentation of
the gens Fabia in the literary evidence and at the ways individual Fabii
were said to have behaved. The final chapter examines the evidence
for the Gallic sack of Rome and considers the influence that Greek
historical traditions had on Rome’s own traditions. Numerous
members of the gens Fabia were said to have acted in a similar manner
and even to have done the same things, while the tradition of the
Gallic sack bears a striking resemblance to the tradition of the Persian
sack of Athens. Scholarship usually maintains that individual historians such as Fabius Pictor were responsible for devising these sorts of
parallels, and that they did so for their own literary and political
purposes. The principal argument put forward here is that they are
James H. Richardson
The Fabii and the Gauls
Studies in historical thought and
historiography in Republican Rome
2012.
186 pages.
Hardcover.
¤ 52,–
ISBN 978-3-515-10040-3
the inevitable product of Roman historical thought, and so need not
be attributed to any one historian.
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The author
James H. Richardson is a lecturer in Ancient History at the University
of Wales Trinity Saint David. He has published various articles on
Roman Republican history and, together with Federico Santangelo,
an edited volume on Priests and State in the Roman World.
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Contents
I. the influence of noble self-presentation on historical
thought and historiography: Models of behaviour | Thinking
differently | Heirs, aspirations and expectations | General claims | …
II. the traditions of the fabii: Q. Fabius Verrucosus, ‘the Delayer’ |
The Fabii Vibulani and the concord of the state | The battle of
Cremera and the story of the sole survivor | The Fabii and the
Sempronii | … III. the fabii and the gauls: The sack of Rome |
History and tradition | Athens and Rome …
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