The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire (63 page)

Dedication,
this page
: Translation of “La Trebbia”

The dawn of an ill-omened day has whitened the heights. The camp awakes. Below, the river swirls and roars where a squadron of Numidian light cavalry waters its horses. Everywhere sounds the clear call of Roman buglers, for in spite of Scipio’s disapproval, the lying auguries, the Trebbia in flood, the wind and the rain, Consul Sempronius, new to office and vainglorious, has
ordered the symbols of his authority, the bundled axe and rods or
fasces
, to be raised and his state attendants to advance.

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

Introduction

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

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

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

  
3
  
“What a disaster!”
Plut Sull 31 6.

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

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

  
6
  
a handbook on agriculture
Var Rust De re rustica.

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

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

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

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

1. A New Troy

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

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

  
2
  
According to another narrative
Dio of H 1 46.

  
3
  
Aeneas looked wonderingly
Virg Aen 1 421–25.

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

  
5
  
Aeneas the True
Virg Aen passim.

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

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

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

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

2. Kings and Tyrants

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

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

  
2
  
They were on friendly terms
Plut Rom 6 3.

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

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

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

  
6
  
Faustulus’s grave
Dio of H 1 87 2.

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

  
8
  
Cain murdered Abel
Genesis 4:9–16.

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

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

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

12
  
“I have chosen you”
Dio 1 5 11.

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

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

15
  
one of Rome’s earliest historians
Fabius Pictor.

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

17
  
a new comet
Suet Caes 88.

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

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

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

21
  
The timber is still to be seen
Livy ibid.

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

23
  
Pons Sublicius
See Richardson under heading.

24
  
“Hear me, Jupiter”
Livy 1 32 6.

3. Expulsion

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

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

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

  
3
  
“rules concerning the founding”
Festus 358 L.

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

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

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

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

  
8
  
the geographer Strabo
Strabo 8 c. 378.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

22
  
base-born himself
Livy 1 47 11.

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

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

25
  
discovered by a modern archaeologist
Amedeo Mauri in 1932.

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

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

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

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

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

31
  
Bronze Charioteer
Now in the Delphi Archaeological Museum.

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

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

4. So What Really Happened?

Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Cicero are the main literary sources.

  
1
  
“old tales”
Livy 1 Preface 6–7.

  
2
  
“a nation as truly Greek”
Dio of H 1 61 1.

  
3
Romulus
means “founder of Rome”
Ogilvie 1 p. 32.

  
4
  
“the spirit of tranquillity”
Cic Rep 2 14 27.

  
5
  
“religious ceremonial [and] laws”
Ibid., 2 14 26.

5. The Land and Its People

The poets Virgil, Horace, and Propertius evoke Rome’s prehistory. For a more detailed account see Scullard,
A History of the Roman World 753 to 146 B.C
., Chapter 1.

  
1
  
a shower of stones
Livy 1 31 1.

  
2
  
Laurel, myrtle, beech, and oak
Theo 5 8 3.

  
3
  
“All Latium is blessed”
Strabo 5 3 5.

  
4
  
“In general, Etruria”
Dio Sic 5 40 5 (citing Posidonius).

  
5
  
[He] avoids the haughty portals
Hor Ep 2 7–16.

  
6
  
This is what I prayed for
Hor Sat 2 6 1–4.

  
7
  
The Curia, now standing high
Prop 4 1 11–14.

  
8
  
Homer probably wrote his great epics
Homer, of course, may have been one or more authors—even a woman. Samuel Butler argues that the writer of the
Odyssey
was a young Sicilian woman (see
The Authoress of the Odyssey
, 1897).

  
9
  
“We Romans got our culture”
Cic Rep 2 15 29.