Livy’s Kings and the Phases of Latium Vetus

Abstract

Developments in the archaeology of Early Rome have greatly improved Livy’s status as an historian, even of the regal period of Rome, from the dire assessments of the previous generation of scholars (e.g. Cornell 1986). I go a step further to suggest that the break indicated in Livy between the first three kings and their successors corresponds to the development of urbanism at Rome ca. 625, and that the earlier kings can be associated with a developmental phase dating to ca. 750-625. To the exceptional single archaeological discoveries of the lapis niger at the beginning of the last century and an early wall encircling the Palatine in the early 1980s (Carandini and Carafa), one can now add evidence that is more impressive cumulatively. The replacement of a single large “huts” (capennae) with complexes integrating domestic spaces and workshops (Rystedt, Bietti Sestieri and de Santis), a votive deposit on the Capitoline (possibly associated with a primitive temple), an “extra-urban” sanctuary and a necropolis on the Esquiline, the appearance of luxury items in graves, and signs of the earliest roads combined with the more high-profile evidence suggest not only the credibility of the Roman tradition of kings, but that a defined aristocracy and a proto-urban settlement had arisen at the time of or shortly after the traditional date of Rome’s founding ca. 750 BC (Carandini and Capelli).T.J. Cornell has argued, however, that the period of the kings needs to be compressed to accommodate placing them after the urbanisation of Rome ca. 625 BC and because just short of 250 years is an impossibly long period for the reign of only seven kings (1995: 121-122). While I argue that it is not necessary to demonstrate the reliability of traditions surrounding particular kings or even the traditional group taken as a whole, the proto-urban phase of Rome roughly corresponds with these stories, especially as they appear in Livy. In addition to features of this phase (the early walls and sanctuaries mentioned above) dating to the period between 750 and 625, aristocratic warrior burials testify to the cultivation of ancestor remembrance based on individual heroic deeds, precisely the grounds upon which Tullus Hostilius seems to have become king in Livy’s account (1.22.1). Moreover, the monumental urban transformation combined with the almost immediately subsequent disappearance of burial distinctions seems to correspond in outline to Livy’s claim that a new public spiritedness and building programme followed the ascendancy of Tarquinius Priscus (1.38.5-7). My argument is thus that the proto-urban evolution (warrior aristocrats, religion without monumentalization, huts transitioning into houses) of the years between 750 and 625 anticipated and made possible the urban monumental revolution of the years following 625 (monumental temples and walls, the formal laying out of the Circus and the Forum) and that traditions of the kings reported broadly coheres with these phases. While we may need more kings, there is no need to down date the regal period as a whole to accommodate the archaeological record.ReferencesA.M. Bietti Sestieri and A. De Santis. 2001. “L’Edificio della i Eta del Ferro di Fidene (Roma): Posizione nell’Abitato, Tecnica Costruttiva, Funzionalita in Base alla Distributzione Spaziale dei Materiale e degli Arredi.” In J.R. Brandt L. Carlsson, eds. From Huts to Houses: Transformations of Ancient Societies. Stockholm.Carandini, A. and P. Carafa. 2000. Palatium e Sacra Via I. Rome.Carandini, A. and R. Cappelli, eds. 2000. Roma, Romulo, Rema, e la fondazione della Citta. Rome. Cornell, T.J. “The Value of the Literary Tradition Concerning Archaic Rome.” In K.A. Raaflaub, ed. Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of Orders. Princeton.________. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 B.C.). Oxford and New York.E. Rystedt, “Huts vis-a-vis Houses: A note on Acquarossa.” In J.R. Brandt L. Carlsson, eds. From Huts to Houses: Transformations of Ancient Societies. Stockholm.