was supposedly in the early fifth century.
The literary evidence for all these individuals and events is extremely problematic. The point does need to be stressed. Nonetheless this evidence does fit very well with the circumstances implied by the inscription from Satricum, and also with the evidence (likewise problematic) for powerful individuals from the regal period and for gentes that appear to have once been more powerful than the state. The evidence certainly suggests some element of continuity with those times.
While the difficulties involved in basing an argument on textual evidence written centuries after the events in question need always to be kept in mind, it is worth giving careful consideration to the plebeian movement in the context of state formation. To what extent did the activities of that movement – restricting the actions of the powerful, creating magistracies and an assembly, keeping records, campaigning to get a law-code drafted and published,73 and so on – play a role in the formation of the Roman state? Developments of this kind are just the sort of thing that ought to be expected when a state comes into existence. And, although it is the view of later writers who were drawing on an anachronistic literary tradition, the idea that the plebeian movement itself amounted to a state (albeit within a state) is nevertheless suggestive.
The nature of the evidence, unfortunately, may not allow for the argument to go much further than this, that is, beyond simply suggesting that ‘the conflict of the orders’ was not just about securing and advancing plebeian rights, but that it may well have also played a role in the formation of the Roman state, in its early stages at least. This possibility is certainly ←45 | 46→significant, not only in itself and for what it may reveal about the origins of at least one state, and, on its own terms at least, one extremely successful state. It is also significant for contemporary discussion, about states in the twenty-first century, about the roles that they should play and about their duties and responsibilities, as well as the duties and responsibilities of their citizens. For, in the case of Rome, it may be possible to see something of how the state was created – to some extent – by the people, and for the people, for their protection, to rein in those wealthy and powerful individuals who were concerned only with their own agenda and interests, to get them to adhere to the idea of the state and to behave responsibly towards it and their fellow citizens, as well as to try to address at least some of the inequalities in Roman society.
←46 | 47→
1 According to some; Timaeus put the foundation of Rome in 814 bc, while Fabius Pictor put it in 747 bc, Cincius Alimentus in 728 and Cato the Elder in 751 (see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.74.1–2). Naevius and Ennius made Romulus the grandson of Aeneas (Serv. Dan. Aen. 1.273), while Sallust claimed that Rome was founded by Trojans under the leadership of Aeneas (Cat. 6.1); on that sort of chronology Rome would have been founded in the twelfth century bc (although that does of course depend on how the fall of Troy gets dated). See Wiseman 1995, 160–8 for sixty-one different versions of the foundation myth of Rome. All these dates, the more familiar one of 753 included, are unhistorical; they are not based on evidence, but instead on various calculations and synchronisms; see Feeney 2007, 86–100. Bickerman’s classic paper (1952) is also relevant in this context.
2 See Cato FRHist 5 F66 (= Serv. Aen. 5.755; Isid. Orig. 15.2.3); Varro Ling. 5.143. For the performance of this ritual by Romulus, see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.88.2; Plut. Rom. 11.2–3. Further evidence can be found in Carandini 2006, 183–219, and also 433–4 on the ritual itself.
3 Isid. Orig. 15.2.5: ubi portam vult esse, aratrum sustollat et portet, et portam vocet. [Where [the founder] wants there to be a gate, let him lift the plough and carry [portet] it, and call it a gate [portam].] Varro, however, thought that gates were named from the carrying of goods through them (Ling. 5.142). See further Maltby 1991, 486.
4 Varro Ling. 5.143. For further ideas along these and other lines, see the evidence collected in Maltby 1991, 655.
5 See the entirely anachronistic discussion in Cic. Rep. 2.5–11 of Romulus’ choice of site. But Cicero’s Romulus lived in a literate and enlightened age, see Rep. 2.18–19; cf. Wiseman 2008, 125–6.
6 See, for instance, Virgil’s imaginative depiction of the founding of Carthage in book one of the Aeneid; at 1.425 there is an allusion to the ploughing ritual; the very next line reads: iura magistratusque legunt sanctumque senatum. [They choose laws and magistrates and a venerable senate.]
7 Note especially Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.3–29 (on which, see Wiseman 2009, 81–98); also Plut. Rom. 13; Livy 1.8.1 on Romulus’ establishment of law, 1.8.4–5 on the big, and consequently empty, city that Romulus supposedly built. The literary evidence is collected in Carandini 2011a; see also Franciosi 2003, 3–57.
8 According to Serv. Aen. 7.709, after Romulus and Titus Tatius made their treaty, the Sabines received Roman citizenship, although they were not given the right to vote and so could not elect magistrates; for the election of magistrates in Romulus’ day, see also Iunius Gracchanus ap. Ulp. Dig. 1.13.1.pr.
9 An overview of Carandini’s ideas about the origins of Rome can be found in his book, Rome: Day One (2011b). The significance of the title is obvious.
10 Varro Ling. 5.143; Plut. Rom. 11.1.
11 Carandini 2011b, 50.
12 For Alba Longa as an urbs, see, for example, Cic. Rep. 2.4; Livy 1.3.3, 1.29.4–6; Virg. Aen. 8.47–8.
13 Dionysius (Ant. Rom. 1.86.1, 1.87.1, 2.3.1, 2.4.1 and 2.30.2) in fact has Romulus seek and follow the advice of his grandfather Numitor, the king of Alba Longa, when founding Rome. See Livy 1.7.3 for Romulus performing rituals ‘in the Alban manner’ (Albano ritu).
14 See, for example, Aen. 5.755: interea Aeneas urbem designat aratro [meanwhile Aeneas marks out the city [urbem] with a plough]; for the Tyrians and Carthage, see n. 6 above.
15 Some time ago, Castagnoli 1958, 9; more recently, Wiseman 2004, 141; Rüpke 2007, 181–2; Wiseman 2013, 248. For another example of the Roman tendency to imagine that rituals performed in much later times had been performed from a very early date, see Richardson 2017.
16 Carandini aside, see for instance Grandazzi 2010 on the ritual itself.
17 See, for example, Fulminante 2014, 66–104, although the influence of the work of Carandini and his followers is palpable; on Rome’s earliest walls, see Bernard 2012; the reconstruction and identification of several of the buildings Fulminante discusses are optimistic to say the least; see, for instance, Moormann 2001; Wiseman 2008, 271–92. See n. 56 below as well.
