Kings and Consuls. James Richardson

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the one founder, there is further reason to be suspicious.

      The idea that Rome was the work of many founders and was for that reason superior was inevitably strengthened by the Romans’ belief that they had – somewhat uniquely – elected their kings and so had been able to choose the best men for the job. It was an established view, on the other hand, that hereditary succession leads to bad rulers. It can hardly be a coincidence that only one of Rome’s kings was said to have been bad and that that king was also the only one said to have acquired his position on hereditary grounds. But, if the Romans always chose their kings, how else could such a man have ever come to power?

      Although the Romans later believed that their kings had been immediately replaced with magistrates known as consuls, there is good evidence to show that that was not the case. The consulship may have actually been created as late as the fourth century bc (see Chapters 3, 5 and 6). That means that the anti-monarchic ideology that was associated with it must have developed at a later date and in a different context. The most obvious context in which the Romans might have found it useful to set their republican institutions in direct opposition specifically to the rule of kings is when they came into conflict with the kings of the Hellenistic world. The benefits of such a reinterpretation are obvious. When, for instance, ←13 | 14→the Romans later did away with the ancient and illustrious Macedonian monarchy, they established annually elected magistrates in its place and thus were able to present their actions as a benefaction. The Macedonian people, they claimed, were now free (see Chapter 5). That, of course, involved a definition of freedom no Hellenistic king could possibly entertain.

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      Rome and Carthage had long had dealings with one another and they had on several occasions made treaties with each other. Polybius got access to a number of these, which had evidently been inscribed on bronze, and he discussed the terms of them in his work. Given the considerable lengths of time involved (Polybius dated the earliest treaty he found to the first year of the republican period), as well as the partisan nature of some accounts, the fact that there are uncertainties, inconsistencies and even incompatible claims in the evidence for Rome’s early dealings with Carthage is perfectly understandable. The record may well be incomplete too, although gaps often do tend, by their very nature, to be undetectable.

      Given these circumstances, the confidence with which so many have written on this topic in modern times may well come as a surprise. No less extraordinary is the method that is widely employed when dealing with this material. Despite the many and often obvious problems, the evidence is treated not only as reliable but also as complete. No one source preserves intact the whole record of Rome’s dealings with Carthage, but it is usually assumed that the several different sources have somehow managed to do this between them. All that needs to be done is for the different pieces of that record to be picked out of those different accounts and put back together. The fact that the pieces are often selected and reassembled to suit ←15 | 16→the desired reconstruction is neither here or there, apparently, nor is the fact that some of the pieces are incompatible with one another.

      It is worth repeating that the extant literary evidence for early Rome consists of a mix of material, some of which is older, but some newer, some of which is based on evidence, but a good part of which owes its existence to argumentation, reconstruction, interpretation and even invention. It needs to be handled accordingly.

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      So where does this leave early Rome? Polybius’ research into Rome’s treaties with Carthage turned up some early material which he presented in his work (some of this was evidently newly discovered and the implications of that for the efforts or attitude of Rome’s first historians should not be overlooked, nor should the absence of this material from subsequent works). Some of what Polybius found is especially significant because it seems to be inconsistent

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