Historical sources on early Roman history

Extract A

"Publius Vergilius Maro, a native of Mantua, had parents of humble origin, especially his father, who according to some was a potter, although the general opinion is that he was at first the hired man of a certain Magus, an attendant on the [officials], later became his son-in-law because of his [hard work], and greatly increased his little property by buying up woodlands and raising bees." 

Extract B

"Last of all he began the 'Aeneid,' a varied and complicated theme, and as it were a mirror of both the poems of Homer; moreover it treated Greek and Latin [characters] and affairs in common, and contained at the same time an account of the origin of the city of Rome and of Augustus, which was the poet's special aim." 

Contextual information:

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69–c. 130 CE) was a Roman biographer who served as secretary to the Emperor Hadrian. His Life of Vergil is the most important ancient biography of Virgil and was written about a century and a half after the poet died in 19 BCE. It draws on earlier biographical traditions, including the now-lost work of Varius Rufus, who was Virgil's literary executor. 

Bibliographical reference:

Suetonius. Life of Vergil (J. C. Rolfe, Trans., 1914). In Suetonius (Vol. II, pp. 465, 481). Harvard University Press. (Original work ca. 110 CE) 

Copyright: Public domain. 

"Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,

And haughty Juno's [unforgiving] hate,

Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.  

Long labours, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;

His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,

And settled sure succession in his line,

From whence the race of Alban fathers come,

And the long glories of majestic Rome." 

Contextual information:

Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BCE) wrote the Aeneid, an epic poem in twelve books, during the last decade of his life under the patronage of the Emperor Augustus. The poem follows the Trojan prince Aeneas from the fall of Troy to his settlement in Latium, where he founded the city of Lavinium, the forerunner of Alba Longa and eventually Rome. John Dryden's English verse translation, published in 1697, was the standard English rendering for over a century. 

Bibliographical reference:

Virgil. The works of Virgil: Containing his Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneis (J. Dryden, Trans., 1697, Book I, lines 1–10, p. 201). Jacob Tonson. (Original work ca. 19 BCE) 

Copyright: Public domain.

Extract A

I.3. "He was succeeded by Proca, who had two sons, Numitor and Amulius. To Numitor, the elder, he bequeathed the ancient throne of the Silvian house. Violence, however, proved stronger than either the father's will or the respect due to the brother's seniority; for Amulius expelled his brother and seized the crown. Adding crime to crime, he murdered his brother's sons and made the daughter, Rea Silvia, a Vestal virgin; thus, under the [excuse] of honouring her, depriving her of all hopes of [having children]." 

Extract B

I.4. "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 [attacked] and gave birth to twins. She named Mars as their father, either because she really believed it, or because the [crime] might appear less [terrible] 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." 

Extract C

I.18-9. "There was living, in those days, at Cures, a Sabine city, a man of renowned justice and piety — Numa Pompilius. He was as conversant as any one in that age could be with all divine and human law." 

"After forming treaties of alliance with all his neighbours and closing the temple of Janus, Numa turned his attention to domestic matters. The removal of all danger from without would [tempt] his subjects to [become lazy], as they would be no longer restrained by the fear of an enemy or by military discipline. To prevent this, he strove to [teach them] the fear of the gods, regarding this as the most powerful influence which could act upon an [uncivilised] and, in those ages, a [primitive] people. But, as this would fail to make a deep impression without some claim to supernatural wisdom, he pretended that he had nocturnal interviews with the nymph Egeria: that it was on her advice that he was instituting the ritual most acceptable to the gods and appointing for each deity his own special priests. First of all he divided the year into twelve months, corresponding to the moon's [cycles]." 

Extract D

I.38. "From that moment the king devoted himself to peaceful undertakings with an enthusiasm which was even greater than the efforts he had expended in waging war, so that there was no more rest for the people at home than there had been in the field. For he set to work to encircle the [previously] unfortified parts of the City with a stone wall, a task which had been interrupted by the Sabine war; and he drained the lowest parts of the City, about the Forum, and the other valleys between the hills, which were too flat to carry off the flood-waters easily, by means of sewers so made as to slope down toward the Tiber. Finally, with [foresight] of the splendour which the place was one day to possess, he laid foundations for the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, which he had vowed in the Sabine war." 

Extract E

I.59. "Whilst they were absorbed in grief, Brutus drew the knife from Lucretia's wound and holding it, dripping with blood, in front of him, said, 'By this blood — most pure before the [crime] wrought by the king's son — I swear, and you, O gods, I call to witness that I will drive hence Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, together with his cursed wife and his whole brood, with fire and sword and every means in my power, and I will not suffer them or any other man to be king in Rome.'" 

"The terrible occurrence created no less excitement in Rome than it had done in Collatia; there was a rush from all quarters of the City to the Forum. When they had gathered there, the herald summoned them to attend the 'Tribune of the Celeres'; this was the office which Brutus happened at the time to be holding. He made a speech quite out of keeping with the character and temper he had up to that day assumed. He dwelt upon the [cruelty] and [wickedness] of Sextus Tarquin, the infamous outrage on Lucretia and her pitiful death, the [loss] sustained by her father, Tricipitinus, to whom the cause of his daughter's death was more shameful and distressing than the actual death itself. Then he dwelt on the tyranny of the king, the toils and sufferings of the [common people] kept underground clearing out ditches and sewers — Roman men, conquerors of all the surrounding nations, turned from warriors into [labourers] and stonemasons!" 

Contextual information:

Titus Livius (59 BCE–17 CE), known in English as Livy, was a Roman historian from Patavium (modern Padua) who wrote Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Books from the Founding of the City), a history of Rome in 142 books, of which 35 survive complete. Book 1 covers the legendary period from the arrival of Aeneas in Italy through the expulsion of the kings (traditionally 753–509 BCE). Livy wrote during the reign of Augustus and openly acknowledged the legendary character of his earliest material while presenting it as the Romans' received tradition. 

Bibliographical reference:

Livy. (1912). The history of Rome (Rev. Canon Roberts, Trans., Vol. 1, Book 1, pp. 8–9, 10, 32–34, 100–101). E. P. Dutton and Co. (Original work ca. 27–25 BCE); Livy. (1919). Books I and II with an English translation (B. O. Foster, Trans., Book 1, pp. 137–139). Harvard University Press. (Original work ca. 27–25 BCE) 

Copyright: Public domain.

"As for the day they began to build the city, it is universally agreed to have been the twenty-first of April, and that day the Romans annually keep holy, calling it their country's birthday. At first, they say, they sacrificed no living creature on this day, thinking it fit to preserve the feast of their country's birthday pure and without [the] stain of blood. Yet before ever the city was built, there was a feast of herdsmen and shepherds kept on this day, which went by the name of Palilia. The Roman and Greek months have now little or no agreement; they say, however, the day on which Romulus began to build was quite certainly the thirtieth of the month, at which time there was an eclipse of the sun which they conceived to be that seen by Antimachus, the Teian poet, in the third year of the sixth Olympiad." 

Contextual information:

Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 46–c. 120 CE) was a Greek biographer, essayist, and priest at Delphi. His Parallel Lives paired biographies of famous Greeks and Romans; the Life of Romulus was paired with Theseus. Writing about 850 years after Rome's traditional founding, Plutarch drew on a range of earlier sources, including the chronological calculations of the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE), whose dating of Rome's foundation became the standard "Varronian chronology." 

Bibliographical reference:

Plutarch. (1859). The life of Romulus (A. H. Clough, Rev.). In Plutarch's lives: The translation called Dryden's (Vol. 1, Ch. 12, p. 41). Little, Brown, and Company. (Original work ca. 75 CE) 

Copyright: Public domain.

"Tradition varied more or less in assigning the addition of some of the hills to this or that king, but its oldest form represented Servius as having incorporated the last two, the Esquiline and the Viminal. The chief variation in the traditional account concerned the Quirinal and the Caelian; but be this as it may, there is little doubt that under septem montes [seven hills] in the Ciceronian epoch were included normally the Palatine, Capitoline, Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal — five montes [hills] and two colles [smaller hills]." 

Contextual information:

Samuel Ball Platner (1863–1921) was an American classical scholar and Professor of Latin at Western Reserve University, now Case Western Reserve. He is best known for his Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, the standard reference work on the city's ancient geography. This 1906 article brings together the evidence from Varro, Cicero, Livy, and other classical authors to establish the canonical list of Rome's seven hills. 

Bibliographical reference:

Platner, S. B. (1906). The Septimontium and the seven hills. Classical Philology, 1(1), 69–80, p. 70. 

Copyright: Public domain.

"The Consuls, before leading out the legions, remain in Rome and are supreme masters of the administration. All other [officials], except the Tribunes, are under them and take their orders. They introduce foreign ambassadors to the Senate; bring matters requiring [discussion] before it; and see to the [carrying out] of its decrees. If, again, there are any matters of state which require the [approval] of the people, it is their business to see to them, to summon the popular meetings, to bring the proposals before them, and to carry out the decrees of the majority. In the preparations for war also, and in a word in the entire administration of a campaign, they have all but absolute power. It is competent to them to impose on the allies such levies as they think good, to appoint the Military Tribunes, to make up the roll for soldiers and select those that are suitable. Besides they have absolute power of inflicting punishment on all who are under their command while on active service: and they have authority to expend as much of the public money as they choose, being accompanied by a quaestor [treasury official] who is entirely at their orders. A survey of these powers would in fact justify our describing the constitution as [all-powerful], — a clear case of royal government." 

Contextual information:

Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 200–c. 118 BCE) was a Greek historian who lived in Rome as a political hostage and became closely associated with the powerful Scipio family. His Histories in 40 books covered the period 264–146 BCE, and Book 6 contains his celebrated analysis of the Roman constitution as a "mixed" system combining monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements. Writing as an eyewitness to Roman power at its Republican height, Polybius provides the most systematic surviving ancient description of consular authority. 

Bibliographical reference:

Polybius. (1889). The histories of Polybius (E. S. Shuckburgh, Trans., Vol. 1, Book 6, Ch. 12, pp. 471–472). Macmillan and Co. (Original work ca. 150 BCE) 

Copyright: Public domain.