Rome’s early History
according to Livy
Myth, history, moral values and
patriotism
Livy’s place in Rome’s historical
chronology
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8th Century BC: 753 BC – traditional date of Rome’s Founding
753 BCE – 509 BCE Regal Period;
6th Century BC:
509 BCE – 287 BCE Roman Republic
5th century:
Conflict of the Orders (Patricians-Pleibeians);
Law of the XII Tables; Plebeian tribunes; Pleibeian (popular) assembly
4th Century BC
396 BCE – 275 BCE Expansion in Italy
3rd Century BC
240 BCE - Beginnings of Latin Literature: Livius Andronicus: (mostly
translations of Greek plays into Latin
Ca. 200 BCE – Fabius Pictor – first history written in Latin
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59 BCE – 17 CE - Titus Livius (Livy)
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Early Roman History:
Myth or History?
No history was written at Rome before the 3rd
century B.C.
 Romans kept some official records of annual
magistrates, important political and religious
events such as wars, omens, catastrophes, etc.
beginning after the Roman Republic had been
founded (after 510 BC)
 Many details of stories from the regal period and
early Republic such as names, dates, what
people felt and said, etc., are not historical facts
but traditions and often later interpolations
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Titus Livius (Livy)
and Early Roman History
The historian Livy ( 59 B.C. – A.D. 17)
 Work: ab urbe condita ( from the founding of
Rome) an enormous history of Rome from its
foundation to his own time, contains many
traditional stories about early Roman history
that are not historical facts!
 Stories reflect traditional Roman ideals and
values, not necessarily those of the early
Romans, but rather of later periods and of Livy’s
own period (anachronism).
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Livy’s prologue
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“Events before the city was founded or planned, which
have been handed down more as pleasing poetic fictions
than as reliable records of historical events, I intend
neither to affirm nor to refute. To antiquity we grant the
indulgence of making the origins of cities more
impressive by commingling the human with the divine,
and if any people should be permitted to sanctify its
inception and reckon the gods as its founders, surely the
glory of the Roman people in war is such that, when it
boasts Mars in particular as its parent and the parent of
its founder, the nations of the world would as easily
acquiesce in this claim as they do in our rule.”
The Story of Aeneas
Livy 1.1
 To begin with, it is generally admitted that after
the capture of Troy, whilst the rest of the
Trojans were massacred, against two of themAeneas and Antenor -the Achivi refused to
exercise the rights of war, partly owing to old
ties of hospitality, and partly because these men
had always been in favour of making peace and
surrendering Helen.
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Livy: the Aeneas tradition
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Livy 1.3 (the founding of the Roman Race and the Iulian Clan
His (Aeneas) son, Ascanius, was not old enough to assume the
government; but his throne remained secure throughout his
minority. During that interval-such was Lavinia's force of characterthough a woman was regent, the Latin State, and the kingdom of
his father and grandfather, were preserved unimpaired for her son.
I will not discuss the question-for who could speak decisively about
a matter of such extreme antiquity?-whether the man whom the
Julian house claim, under the name of Iulus, as the founder
of their name, was this Ascanius or an older one than he,
born of Creusa, whilst Ilium was still intact, and after its fall a sharer
in his father's fortunes. This Ascanius, where ever born, or of
whatever mother-it is generally agreed in any case that he was the
son of Aeneas-left to his mother (or his stepmother) the city of
Lavinium, which was for those days a prosperous and wealthy city,
with a superabundant population, and built a new city at the foot of
the Alban hills,
Livy 1.3 continued
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was called "Alba Longa." An interval of thirty years
elapsed between the foundation of Lavinium and the
colonisation of Alba Longa. Such had been the growth of
the Latin power, mainly through the defeat of the
Etruscans, that neither at the death of Aeneas, nor
during the regency of Lavinia, nor during the immature
years of the reign of Ascanius, did either Mezentius and
the Etruscans or any other of their neighbours venture to
attack them. When terms of peace were being arranged,
the river Albula, now called the Tiber, had been fixed as
the boundary between the Etruscans and the Latins.
Livy 1.3
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Ascanius was succeeded by his son Silvius, who by some
chance had been born in the forest. He became the
father of Aeneas Silvius, who in his turn had a son,
Latinus Silvius. He planted a number of colonies: the
colonists were called Prisci Latini. The cognomen of
Silvius was common to all the remaining kings of Alba,
each of whom succeeded his father. Their names are
Alba, Atys, Capys, Capetus, Tiberinus, who was drowned
in crossing the Albula, and his name transferred to the
river, which became henceforth the famous Tiber. Then
came his son Agrippa, after him his son Romulus Silvius.
He was struck by lightning and left the crown to his son
Aventinus, whose shrine was on the hill which bears his
name and is now a part of the city of Rome.
Livy 1.4 the parentage of Romulus
and Remus
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But the Fates had, I believe, already decreed the
origin of this great city and the foundation of the
mightiest empire under heaven. The Vestal was
forcibly violated and gave birth to twins. She
named Mars as their father, either because she
really believed it, or because the fault might
appear less heinous if a deity were the cause of
it. But neither gods nor men sheltered her or her
babes from the king's cruelty; the priestess was
thrown into prison, the boys were ordered to be
thrown into the river.
The Founding of Rome
The Romulus and Remus ‘tradition’
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1.4 The tradition goes on to say that after the floating cradle in
which the boys had been exposed had been left by the retreating
water on dry land, a thirsty she-wolf from the surrounding hills,
attracted by the crying of the children, came to them, gave them
her teats to suck and was so gentle towards them that the king's
flock-master found her licking the boys with her tongue. According
to the story, his name was Faustulus. He took the children to his hut
and gave them to his wife Larentia to bring up. Some writers think
that Larentia, from her unchaste life, had got the nickname of "Shewolf" amongst the shepherds, and that this was the origin of the
marvellous story.
lupa = she-wolf or prostitute
Myth or History?
Traditional stories serve to explain Rome’s
origins: origins of the Latin race, of cities, names
of places, rivers, religious practices, cults,
origins of gentes (families)
 by Livy’s days the corpus of stories formed an
integral part of Rome’s history and identity of
both the Roman state and the Roman people
 instrumental in the transmission of values to the
next generation; important element in the
education of young Romans
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Other Important Legends:
Women as the main characters
1.
2.
3.
The Sabine Women
The Rape of Lucretia
The mother of Coriolanus
The Rape of the Sabine Women
(Livy 1.9-1.13)
Rape - from Latin rapio = capture, seize
 1. Young community had not enough women;
 Attempts by Romans to marry women from
neighbouring Sabines rejected; despised by
them.
 2. Romans invited the Sabines to a festival in
honour of Neptune, the Consualia, Sabines came
with their families. During festival the young
unmarried girls were seized by Romans and
made their wives.
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The festival
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“As the games broke up in confusion and
fear, the grieving parents of the maidens
ran off, accusing the Romans of violating
their sacred obligations as hosts and
invoking the god to whose festival and
games they had been deceitfully invited
contrary to religion and good faith. The
abducted maidens had not better hope for
their plight than had their parents, nor
was their indignation less.” (Livy 1.9)
The benefits will make up for the
wrong
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“Romulus repeatedly went about in person to
visit them, arguing that what had occurred was
due to the arrogance of their parents who had
refused intermarriage with their neighbours.
Despite this, he promised that they would enjoy
the rights of a proper marriage becoming
partners in all the fortunes the couple might
share, in Rome’s citizenship, and in the
begetting of children, the object dearest to
every person’s heart. …often he said,
thankfulness replaces a sense of wrong over the
course of time, ….”(Livy 1.9)
War with the Sabines
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“..when the two sides renewed the general fight in the
valley …It was at this moment that the Sabine women,
whose abduction had caused the war, boldly interposed
themselves amid the flying spears. Their misfortunes
overcame womanish fear: with hair streaming and
garments rent, they made a mad rush from the
sidelines, parting the battling armies and checking their
angry strife. Appealing to fathers on one side and
husbands on the other, they declared that kin by
marriage should not defile themselves with impious
carnage, nor leave the stain of blood upon descendants
of their blood, grandfathers upon grandson, fathers upon
children. ..Their appeal moved both leaders and rank
and file ….the commanders then came forward to strike
a treaty by which they not only made peace but united
the two peoples in a single community.” (Livy 1.13)
The function of the ‘Sabine Women’
legend
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to pass on and reinforce important social ideals and
values associated with marriage
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1. the importance of marriage and children to ensure the
future of the community;
2. the importance of marriage as forging alliances;
bonds between kin considered the most important ones.
3. the important role of women for the perpetuation of
the state and to cement political alliances
4. story demonstrates what is the expected conduct of
women: they must be loyal both to their paternal family
and to their conjugal family: women as bridging the
divide.
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Marriage by capture,
a ritual practiced by many archaic cultures,
including the Spartans – probably reenacting a
similar practice of capturing wives when they
first arrived and settled in the region
 A trace of custom can be found in Roman
tradition of parting the bride’s hair with a
spear(Wiseman
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Justification for violence
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Story example of how relationship originally established by violence
could turn into a mutually beneficial relationship.
Reflection of values (justification for the use of violence) of later
period of Roman conquest, when Romans forced other people under
their rule.
Also theme in Augustan period: civil wars ultimately brought peace
to Roman society and the pax Romanum to the world.
Important : the centrality of the state
The value of Roman citizenship anachronistic – a later value projected back to Rome’s earliest day.
The poet Ovid’s version of the ‘Rape
of the Sabine Women’
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Ovid 43 B.C. – A.D. 17
“ The king gave the sign for which/they’d so eagerly watched.
Project Rape was on. Up they sprang then/with a lusty roar. Laid
hot hands on the girls./As timorous dove flee eagles, as a
lambkin/runs wild when it sees the hated wolf,/so this wild charge
of men left the girls all panic-stricken/not one had the same color in
her cheek as before-/the same nightmare for all, though terror’s
features varied:/some tore their hair, some just froze/where they
sat; some, dismayed, kept silence, others vainly/yelled for Mamma:
some wailed; some gaped;/some fled, some just stood there. So
they were carried off as/marriage bed plunder: even so, many
contrived to make panic look fetching. Any girl who resisted her
pursuer/too vigorously would find herself picked up/and borne off
regardless. “Why spoil these pretty eyes with weeping?”/She’d hear,
“I’ll be all to you/that your Dad ever was to your Mum” (Ovid,
Metamorphoses)