Gary Forsythe
John Connelly (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520226517
- eISBN:
- 9780520940291
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520226517.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
During the period from Rome's Stone Age beginnings on the Tiber River to its conquest of the Italian peninsula in 264 B.C., the Romans in large measure developed the social, political, and military ...
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During the period from Rome's Stone Age beginnings on the Tiber River to its conquest of the Italian peninsula in 264 B.C., the Romans in large measure developed the social, political, and military structure that would be the foundation of their spectacular imperial success. This account draws from historical, archaeological, linguistic, epigraphic, religious, and legal evidence to trace Rome's early development within a multicultural environment of Latins, Sabines, Etruscans, Greeks, and Phoenicians. The book charts the development of the classical republican institutions that would eventually enable Rome to create its vast empire, and provides discussions of topics including Roman prehistory, religion, and language. The book offers a revisionist interpretation of Rome's early history through its innovative use of ancient sources. The history of this period is notoriously difficult to uncover because there are no extant written records, and because the later historiography that affords the only narrative accounts of Rome's early days is shaped by the issues, conflicts, and ways of thinking of its own time. This book provides an examination of those surviving ancient sources in light of their underlying biases, thereby reconstructing early Roman history upon a more solid evidentiary foundation.Less
During the period from Rome's Stone Age beginnings on the Tiber River to its conquest of the Italian peninsula in 264 B.C., the Romans in large measure developed the social, political, and military structure that would be the foundation of their spectacular imperial success. This account draws from historical, archaeological, linguistic, epigraphic, religious, and legal evidence to trace Rome's early development within a multicultural environment of Latins, Sabines, Etruscans, Greeks, and Phoenicians. The book charts the development of the classical republican institutions that would eventually enable Rome to create its vast empire, and provides discussions of topics including Roman prehistory, religion, and language. The book offers a revisionist interpretation of Rome's early history through its innovative use of ancient sources. The history of this period is notoriously difficult to uncover because there are no extant written records, and because the later historiography that affords the only narrative accounts of Rome's early days is shaped by the issues, conflicts, and ways of thinking of its own time. This book provides an examination of those surviving ancient sources in light of their underlying biases, thereby reconstructing early Roman history upon a more solid evidentiary foundation.
Emma Blake
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199697090
- eISBN:
- 9780191745300
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697090.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
This chapter uses the evidence from west-central Italy, home to two of the peninsula's strongest regional groups before the rise of Rome — the Etruscans and the Latins — to demonstrate that the ...
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This chapter uses the evidence from west-central Italy, home to two of the peninsula's strongest regional groups before the rise of Rome — the Etruscans and the Latins — to demonstrate that the regional groups of the first millennium bce may be traced from earlier than previously thought, and were the outcome of intra-regional social networks in place by the Final Bronze Age or earlier. It proposes that these networks are visible archaeologically in the distribution of certain categories of easily traceable foreign objects, which will have circulated along the paths of the hypothesized networks, moving between sites (nodes). It begins by suggesting that social networks may be a better way to identify incipient regional groups than expressive actions of identity. It then discusses the methods for detecting these social networks through artefact distributions, and concludes with the west-central Italy case study.Less
This chapter uses the evidence from west-central Italy, home to two of the peninsula's strongest regional groups before the rise of Rome — the Etruscans and the Latins — to demonstrate that the regional groups of the first millennium bce may be traced from earlier than previously thought, and were the outcome of intra-regional social networks in place by the Final Bronze Age or earlier. It proposes that these networks are visible archaeologically in the distribution of certain categories of easily traceable foreign objects, which will have circulated along the paths of the hypothesized networks, moving between sites (nodes). It begins by suggesting that social networks may be a better way to identify incipient regional groups than expressive actions of identity. It then discusses the methods for detecting these social networks through artefact distributions, and concludes with the west-central Italy case study.
