ancient Rome Historical sources on early Romeancient state, Europe, Africa, and Asia

The regal period (753–509 bc) and the early republic (509–280 bc) are the most poorly documented periods of Roman history because historical accounts of Rome were not written until much later. Greek historians did not take serious notice of Rome until the Pyrrhic War (280–275 bc), when Rome was completing its conquest of Italy and was fighting against the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy. Rome’s first native historian, a senator named Quintus Fabius Pictor, lived and wrote even later, during the Second Punic War (218–201 bc). Thus historical writing at Rome did not begin until after Rome had completed its conquest of Italy, had emerged as a major power of the ancient world, and was engaged in a titanic struggle with Carthage for control of the western Mediterranean. Fabius Pictor’s history, which began with the city’s mythical Trojan ancestry and narrated events up to his own day, established the form of subsequent histories of Rome. During the last 200 years bc, 16 other Romans wrote similarly inclusive narratives. All these works are now collectively termed “the Roman annalistic tradition” because many of them attempted to give a year-by-year (or annalistic) account of Roman affairs for the republic.

Although none of these histories are fully preserved, the first 10 books of Livy, one of Rome’s greatest historians, are extant and cover Roman affairs from earliest times down to the year 293 bc (extant are also Books 21 to 45 treating the events from 218 bc to 167 bc). Since Livy wrote during the reign of the emperor Augustus (27 bc–ad 14), he was separated by 200 years from Fabius Pictor, who, in turn, had lived long after many of the events his history described. Thus, in writing about early Rome, ancient historians were confronted with great difficulties in ascertaining the truth. They possessed a list of annual magistrates from the beginning of the republic onward (the consular fasti), which formed the chronological framework of their accounts. Religious records and the texts of some laws and treaties provided a bare outline of major events. Ancient historians fleshed out this meagre factual material with both native and Greek folklore. Consequently, over time, historical facts about early Rome often suffered from patriotic or face-saving reinterpretations involving exaggeration of the truth, suppression of embarrassing facts, and invention.

The evidence for the annalistic tradition shows that the Roman histories written during the 2nd century bc were relatively brief resumes of facts and stories. Yet in the course of the 1st century bc Roman writers were increasingly influenced by Greek rhetorical training, with the result that their histories became greatly expanded in length; included in them were fictitious speeches and lengthy narratives of spurious battles and political confrontations, which, however, reflect the military and political conditions and controversies of the late republic rather than accurately portraying the events of early Rome. Livy’s history of early Rome, for example, is a blend of some facts and much fiction. Since it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction in his works and doing so involves personal judgment, modern scholars have disagreed about many aspects of early Roman history and will continue to do so.