although some have responded to this by dismissing what Polybius found in favour of what the Romans themselves had to say. But that is to champion later reconstruction over early evidence. This matter is discussed in Chapter 3.
In Livy’s work a comparable piece of early evidence can be found. Livy records the content of an early inscription in which, it would appear, the chief magistrate of the state was called the praetor maximus. That name is ←16 | 17→inconsistent with later Roman accounts (including Livy’s own), in which the chief magistracy of the state was the consulship, and it is also difficult to reconcile with the collegiality and power-sharing that were associated with the consulship. As with Polybius’ evidence, some have responded by dismissing what Livy relates in favour of those Roman accounts, but that is again to champion later reconstruction over what appears to be a good piece of early evidence. These matters are addressed in Chapters 3, 5 and 6.
Evidence of this kind is significant, not only because it is contemporary with early times, but also because it raises doubts about what the Romans themselves said in much later times. Scattered throughout the literary evidence is a small body of material that is incompatible with the general account of events that is found in Livy, Dionysius and the rest. It does not automatically follow, of course, that this material is therefore reliable, but it seems less likely that it should have been invented. And what Polybius says about the content of Rome’s first treaty with Carthage is certainly based on early evidence and what Livy says about the praetor maximus appears to be so too.
Another important early document is the so-called Lapis Satricanus, an inscription from the late sixth century bc that, in this case, actually happens to survive. This inscription provides evidence for a group of people who defined themselves with reference simply and only to one individual. Circumstances such as these are difficult to reconcile with ideas of fully developed states and citizenship (see Chapters 1 and 3). And if the literary evidence contains a few stray stories that appear to involve comparable groups, stories that some accounts struggle to accommodate or cannot adequately explain, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they may conceivably reveal something of earlier circumstances (whether only in the context of story-telling and the development of the Roman account, or of actual historical realities).
There is also early inscriptional evidence that confirms the existence of the position of rex [king] at Rome.37 This evidence appears to associate the rex with religious matters but, beyond that, its value is actually quite limited: the powers of this rex, the way in which he acquired them and the manner in which he exercised them are all unknown. It cannot even ←17 | 18→be assumed that they were his for life. On the other hand, the significance of the very act of setting up such an inscription should not be overlooked. That alone is important evidence.
There is one other type of evidence that has the potential to be contemporary with early times. Whatever the origins and original nature and purpose of such structures as the curiae and the tribes may have been, their names appear to have been kept in continuous use and thus preserved unchanged. The tribes that Romulus was said to have set up are problematic and they were clearly mysterious even in antiquity,38 but the tribal system that Servius Tullius was said to have established is potentially much more helpful. Some of the Servian tribes – the earliest, it seems – were named after gentes (‘clans’ is the usual translation, although it does come with baggage). This would seem to suggest that some gentes or perhaps individual members of them were especially prominent and influential, and that possibility is not at all incompatible with the sorts of circumstances implied by the Lapis Satricanus and by some of what Polybius has to say about Rome’s first treaty with Carthage.
When brought together, even if only loosely (but that is often all that is really possible), much of this evidence suggests that this was a world where the idea of the city-state was inchoate, and where powerful individuals and their followers and families could assert themselves, act independently and perhaps even take control of the pre-urban settlement and its inhabitants and, later, the city. The possibility that powerful individuals might have established themselves as ‘kings’ of some description (the meaning of the word need not have been stable or uncontested), on occasion no doubt by force of arms, whether actual or merely understood,39 certainly seems more plausible than the Roman account of an elective monarchy, stable ←18 | 19→and indeed static from the start; that idea is undoubtedly anachronistic, certainly for early times, and also unhistorical, envisaging as it does little or no change.
This is not, of course, to deny the possibility that some men may have ruled Rome by popular consent or that some may have come to power following the rule of another member of their own family. Given the nature of the evidence, it is impossible to know how Rome’s kings had acquired their powers or even, for that matter, what powers they had. If it happened that, later on, towards the end of the sixth century, there was growing resistance to the idea that Rome should continue to be ruled by one man, a period of change, uncertainty and perhaps even experimentation when it came to the replacement of the king and the creation of the earliest magistracies would hardly be surprising, as different groups sought to secure influence for themselves and also to set limits on the powers and activities of others, and as the new city-state began to develop and assert itself. It goes without saying that this is all necessarily tentative and hypothetical, but the Romans’ own account is no less a matter of later reconstruction.
As will become apparent, no attempt is made here to offer any sort of detailed or systematic account of the history of early Rome, even within the narrow scope of the concerns of this book. This is because the evidence simply does not allow for it. The extant literary evidence is demonstrably problematic and there is simply insufficient reliable material to permit anything more than a few conjectures about early circumstances (which is precisely why a series of essays offers a suitable way to approach things). And – to address in advance that other expectation – the issues with which this book is primarily concerned are ones to which the archaeological evidence for the early inhabitation of the site of Rome contributes little. The results of the archaeological work that has been carried out during the last thirty or so years may have made sections of Cornell’s The Beginnings of Rome obsolete, but Cornell’s assessment of the value of the archaeological evidence remains unaffected by that: ‘archaeology,’ he says, ‘cannot tell us much about the details of social structure or institutions … If we want to know about the earliest institutions of the Roman state, it is to the literary sources that we must turn.’40
←19 | 20→←20 | 21→
1 Pinsent 1971, 272.
2 Wiseman 1996, 315.
3 See most notably Wiseman 1996; McDonnell 1997; Oakley 1997b. Since Cornell’s book contains large sections of material reworked from his contributions to The Cambridge Ancient History, it is also worth noting the comments of Billows 1992, 193–4 in his review of that volume.
4 Armstrong 2016, 1.
5 Carandini is immensely prolific; the specific work with which Armstrong compares Cornell’s book is his Rome: Day One (Carandini 2011b); this work is described simply as ‘optimistic’ (Armstrong 2016, 1), which hardly seems sufficient to describe a work of what may be called selective faith. Cornell, it should be noted, does not follow Carandini; see Cornell 1995, 30; Cornell 2012; Cornell 2014b.
