target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_ede87daf-8746-51b6-b7f1-b0dd586fdfa3">7 As Feeney 2007, 91–2 says: ‘If the ancient tradition had fixed on 1000 as the “real” date [of Rome’s foundation], then these scholars would all be focusing on the exiguous human remains at Rome from around 1000 as “corroboration.”’
8 The phrase ‘will to believe’ was used by Finley of those who insist that ‘the tradition of the expedition against Troy must have a basis of historical fact’; Finley commented: ‘In the absence of literary or archaeological documentation, there is no immediate control over this will to believe’ (1964, 2). In 1979, Wiseman used the phrase with reference to the writings of Rome’s republican historians: ‘Nowadays we have learned to pay lip-service, at least, to the danger of accepting annalistic material as reliable, but the will to believe is still strong’ (1979b, 52–3). In 2016, Wiseman devoted a short chapter to the topic (29–37); as he puts it there: ‘If you want to believe in something strongly enough, you may find it easy to overlook the arguments against it’ (34). Note Billows 1992, 194 on the coverage of early Rome in The Cambridge Ancient History: ‘Too often … [the] rules of logic are dispensed with by authors seeking to make a partisan case.’
9 Cornell 1995, 16: ‘Given what we now know about the extent and uses of writing in archaic Rome, the burden of proof clearly lies on those who wish to deny the authenticity of a public document cited in our sources.’ It does not follow, of course, that evidence for Roman literacy proves the authenticity of any early public document recorded in the sources (consider, for instance, Romulus’ treaty with Veii, mentioned by Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.55.6). Cf. Momigliano 1969, 15: ‘why should the Romans say that two yearly praetores or consules replaced the king, if that was not the truth? How could they forget the character of the momentous change from monarchy to Republic?’ On Cornell’s approach, see Wiseman 1996, 312–13, on Momigliano’s, Wiseman 1995, 105.
10 Bispham and Cornell 2013, 175–8 for Pictor’s possible sources; cf. also Cornell 1995, 9–16; Oakley 1997a, 22–72 (with a focus on later times); Forsythe 2005, 69–77; Armstrong 2016, 21–39; Rich 2018, passim, etc.
11 Livy 6.1.2, 6.1.10; cf. Plut. Numa 1.2; on the documentary evidence mentioned in the literary sources, see Ampolo 1983a; on the treaties, see Richardson 2017, 264–71.
12 Diod. 14.115.6, 14.116.8–9; Livy 5.41.10–43.1, 5.55.3–5; Plut. Cam. 22.6, 31–32.3, etc.
13 For example, Roberts 1918; Ogilvie 1965, 6 n. 1 (‘I believe …’); Heurgon 1973, 249: ‘“most of [the archives] perished”, says Livy, and the Romans, one supposes, set about reconstituting them immediately after … we should think not of masses of annals that could have been destroyed in the fire, but of a few inscriptions on stone or bronze, which might have survived … In any case, if they were made up again, to reconstruct a hundred years is not beyond the powers of memory of a primitive people.’
14 Scullard 1980, 408: ‘It has sometimes been maintained that all the old temples perished in the fire. Archaeological research has shown that this is not true in the main … And if the Gauls spared the temples they probably spared the archives and records which they contained.’ Cornell 1995, 318: ‘the belief that the scarcity of documentary sources for early Roman history was due to their destruction at the hands of the Gauls … is a false solution to a non-existent problem. The important point to make about records in relation to the sack is not that so many ancient documents, buildings, monuments and relics were destroyed, but rather that so many of them survived. The best explanation of all the evidence is that the Gauls were interested in moveable booty … They ransacked the place, and made off with whatever they could carry … This conclusion is in line with common sense and is moreover consistent with the fact that no archaeological trace of the Gallic disaster has yet been positively identified.’ And earlier, 24: ‘we know that many important documents, not to speak of buildings and monuments, did, in fact, escape. In any case it is unlikely that the Roman authorities, who were careful to send the Vestal Virgins and their sacred cult objects to Caere, did not take similar precautions to protect their archives when they heard news of the impending Gallic attack.’ See also Delfino 2009; Rich 2013a, 149; Rich 2018, 22–3.
15 See Chapter 6 in particular.
16 Livy 8.40.3–5: nec facile est aut rem rei aut auctorem auctori praeferre. vitiatam memoriam funebribus laudibus reor falsisque imaginum titulis, dum familiae ad se quaeque famam rerum gestarum honorumque fallente mendacio trahunt; inde certe et singulorum gesta et publica monumenta rerum confusa. nec quisquam aequalis temporibus illis scriptor exstat quo satis certo auctore stetur. [It is not easy to prefer one account to another or one authority to another. I think the record has been corrupted by funeral speeches and false inscriptions for the masks of ancestors, as each family claims for itself with deceitful lies the fame of deeds and honours; assuredly as a result both the achievements of individuals and the public records of events have been thrown into disorder. Nor is there extant any writer contemporary with those times on whose authority it would be sufficient to depend.] On this problem, see also Cic. Brut. 62: et hercules eae quidem exstant: ipsae enim familiae sua quasi ornamenta ac monumenta servabant et ad usum, si quis eiusdem generis occidisset, et ad memoriam laudum domesticarum et ad illustrandam nobilitatem suam. quamquam his laudationibus historia rerum nostrarum est facta mendosior. multa enim scripta sunt in eis quae facta non sunt: falsi triumphi, plures consulatus, genera etiam falsa et ad plebem transitiones, cum homines humiliores in alienum eiusdem nominis infunderentur genus; ut si ego me a M’. Tullio esse dicerem, qui patricius cum Ser. Sulpicio consul anno x post exactos reges fuit. [[Funeral speeches] are certainly extant: for the families themselves used to keep them as their marks of honour and as memorials, and for use when any member of the family died, both as a record of the house’s distinctions and to illustrate its nobility; and yet, by these eulogies, our history has been made quite faulty. For many things are written in them which did not happen: false triumphs, too many consulships, even false genealogies and transitions to the plebs, as men of humbler birth were mixed into another family of the same name, as if I should say that I was descended from M’. Tullius, who was a patrician consul with Ser. Sulpicius ten years after the expulsion of the kings.]
17 Livy 26.49.3, 30.19.11, 33.10.8, 36.38.5–7, 38.23.8, 39.41.6, 40.29.8, 42.11.1, etc.
18 Livy 7.9.5: quaesita ea propriae familiae laus leviorem auctorem Licinium facit. [The glory that he seeks for his own family makes Licinius an authority of lesser weight.]
19 See Chapter 6.
20 Cornell 1995, 10 on Cic. Brut. 62 and Livy 8.40.2 (n. 16 above); cf. Smith 2011a, 26 and Glinister 2017, 71 on Cic. Brut. 62.
21 See in particular Rich 2005 and Rich 2013b.
22 Smith 2011a, 31.
23 Cornell 1986, 80, 82; Oakley 1997a, 31–2, 39–40; Cornell 2005, 49, 52; Glinister 2017,
