Talk:Founding of Rome

Untitled, Sanger

Wow! This is a great article! -- Larry_Sanger (talk) 10:51, 25 February 2002 (UTC)

I'll second that! I wish there were some External links on this material. Wetman (talk) 13:31, 4 December 2003 (UTC)

Article as of 25 February 2002. Ifly6 (talk) 14:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Names of Rome

add 3 name of rome.

pubblic, religious, secret. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.23.167.160 (talk) 01:50, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Archive

This is the most thorough treatment of this topic that I have ever seen anywhere. 1307-100 14:03, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The article is fine, but the author is biased. ¶ For he/she, the legend is part of a "propaganda" agenda. ¶ He/she should study a little more about Myths and their role in the rise and fall of nations. Studying Mircea Eliade should help. ¶ Obviously, from time to time, there are "historians" and politicians that pretend to use myths for ideological purposes. They still do it now when they try to desacre ancient myths and when they explain that "human has always been corrupt". ¶ The roman mythical origin is synctactically correct in its symbolism; and to attribute a dark intention to it is unjust and seemes part of an agenda to wipe out anything which is sacred and to diminish the greatness of Rome. ¶ Is it because we don't want any other Benito Mussolini? Or because we are christians and "rome persecuted christians"? Or are we so contaminated by a dark and dirty vision of our own past? Rome is not Caligula, nor Nero, but Numa Pompilius and Marcus Aurelius. ¶ Rome lasted one thousand years, and you still can note the positive influence of Rome in western Europe, and that was because of a strong root this tree had. --Ccho 16:50, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

"Rome is not Caligula, nor Nero, but Numa Pompilius and Marcus Aurelius." - This is incorrect. Rome was both Caligula and Numa Pompilius, Nero as well as Marcus Aurelius. Rome was neither good nor evil, it merely was. -Silence 20:49, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

picture

Is the propaganda picture from WWII really the best to head this article? The article is about the founding of Rome, not anything WWII related. Maybe something less blood thirsty would work better? How about She-wolf_suckles_Romulus_and_Remus.jpg at the top of the article? --345Kai 06:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. ­24.202.236.110 03:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree also. Paul August ☎ 03:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the sentence "Its beginning took place at 6:49, its middle at 7:47 and its end at 8:51." from the third paragraph (the one beginning with "According to Lucius Tarrutius of Firmum...") of the part "the date of the founding of rome" for it was an irrelevant information making reading harder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.122.13.173 (talk) 00::44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Than change it lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.7.23.172 (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Vandalism Report

Section History & Archeology: On 21 February, 79.97.43.127 erased some paragraphs and wrote: "nope ITS ALL A LIE >:[". I have undone his/her contribution. Best wishes!--Alpinu (talk) 21:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggested meaning of "Rome"

In part the article currently reads:

"Some have suggested an Etruscan word, "rhome", meaning "hard", cognate with Greek "ῥώμη, rhōmē", strength, vigor."

Since Etruscan was a non-Indo-European language, how can it have had a cognate with Greek, as opposed to a loanword borrowed from one by the other? "Cognate" implies a common descent from a parent language. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 04:42, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The word is Greek, not Etruscan. Dionysios mentions the relationship with a Greek woman named Rhome. The Etruscan word connected with Rome is rumon meaning river (see Bonfante's glossary on line) i.e. the Tiber. The secret name of Rome was perhaps Rumon, however I am presently unable to quote a reference, I just rely on schooltime memories. I shall try and research the topic.Zanzan32 (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Problems

This article states as they were ascertained facts a heap of dubious and problematic points. The most disturbing fact is that nothing is referenced and none of the underlying problems is highlighted. Is this not a blatant case of OR?

The statement that original Romans were Celts or Germans because they were fairhaired is ridicolous (if not racist). Who is this R. Owen?

What is most amazing is that such an article has been rated B by Wikipedia and has been here for almost 5 years! This fact raises questions about the competence of the people involved.Zanzan32 (talk) 10:19, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

S. B. Platner article Septimontium can give an idea of the complexities. What looks certain is that the hills were settled much earlier than the actual foundation narrated in histories. Mycenean Greeks on the Palaltine Hill, Sabine sacrani from Reate, Etruscnas on the Caelium...: it looks Latins came laterthan others and founded a new settlement where there had already been living people for centuries...

Cf. Varro and Properce on Caelius Vibenna (Tusco duce nobili, galeritus Lycmon, Lycomedius), the name of the 3 original tribes and of Rome itself.Zanzan32 (talk) 04:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I checked the link provided here to the article Tarrutius. It clearly states the dates were 771 for Romuls and 754 for Rome. Would the editors here be willing to fix this?

The etymology of Roma is from ruma, breast, cf. ficus ruminalis, Porta Rumina.Zanzan32 (talk) 13:49, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Original research?

The whole of that lengthy paragraph about eclipse dates looks like OR. Havelock Jones (talk) 23:30, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

An almost identical section is included in Ab urbe condita, where I have also flagged it as OR. Havelock Jones (talk) 09:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't remember E.J. Bickerman in his Chronology of the Ancient World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968) discussing the importance of eclipses & the date of the founding of Rome at any significant length, mostly that the ancient Romans disagreed as to the year which is why they rarely used A.U.C. dating, & instead indicated the year by the names of the presiding consuls. Unfortunately I don't have access to that book at the moment, nor Gary Forsythe's A Critical History of Early Rome (Berkeley: University of California, 2005) which also discusses the differing dates & how they are estimates or guesses based on the assumption that Rome was founded by refugees from Troy. (Forsythe's book is at home, & I'm at work.) In any case, the expert consensus is that any date prior to c. 300 BC is unreliable, & moreover any date seriously offered for a precise year Rome was founded comes either from a late Republican tradition, or the industrious efforts of an unreliable source. Notable assertions deserve mention; the rest are not important. -- llywrch (talk) 16:21, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Day of founding

• "all versions agreed that the city was founded on April 21"
• "Rome was founded on the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi, which was April 21, as universally agreed."

Well, at least one author seems to differ, as we can see here:

589. SK - Rome was founded by Romulus according to the reckoning of Fabius Pictor, the most ancient of all Roman writers. This date is confirmed according to the account of the secular games held by the ancient Romans most religiously. This happened shortly before the beginning of the 8th Olympiad, on the feast of their goddess Pales, on the 10th day of April. However the feast of Pales, according to Varro's account, was a full 5 years earlier than it is according to Fabius.

— James Ussher, Annals of the World, p. 95, Source

Nevermind his calculations of the Earth creation at 4004 BC, the point is that it's a considerable source, coupled with the lack on inline citations on this section makes me think this should be better worded ou reworded. ZackTheJack (talk) 17:41, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the archbishop is simply in error, or perhaps he was trying to perform some kind of calculations to determine the "real" (astronomical) date, which isn't how the festival dates on the calendar worked: they were established in relation to fixed points of the month, and retained these positions within the month after the Julian reform. The "feast of Pales" is the Parilia, which was observed April 21. Although a day was added to Aprilis in the Julian reform, only dates after the Ides were affected, and then only by one day. I'm not aware of any ancient sources, or any post-1800 scholars, who give the date as April 10; I don't know that such a thing doesn't exist, but in contributing to articles associated with Roman festivals and holidays, I can't recall seeing an alternate date. H.H. Scullard in Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic doesn't mention any date alternate to April 21, and the Calendar of Filocalus from the 4th century indicates that April 21 was still celebrated as the dies natalis of Rome. Of course the correct way to state this is that the Romans celebrated the founding on that day, not that the city was founded on that day, which is a fact not recoverable. Ancient sources do differ on the year, though. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:33, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Archaeology pushes Rome back about a century

See [1] "evidence of infrastructure building had been found, dating from more than 100 years earlier. The daily Il Messagero quoted Patrizia Fortini, the archaeologist responsible for the Forum, as saying that a wall constructed well before the city's traditional founding date had been unearthed.

The wall, made from blocks of volcanic tuff, appeared to have been built to channel water from an aquifer under the Capitoline hill that flows into the river Spino, a tributary of the Tiber. Around the wall, archaeologists found pieces of ceramic pottery and remains of food.

"The examination of the ceramic material was crucial, allowing us today to fix the wall chronologically between the 9th century and the beginning of the 8th century," said Fortini." Dougweller (talk) 14:42, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Hellanicus of Mytilene

Wasn't the Trojan refugee story firstly written by Greek historian Hellanicus of Mytilene? Virgil just made it beautiful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyferz (talk • contribs) 19:00, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Removed "back-formation" claim of etymology

For WP:V, WP:SOURCES & WP:UNDUE, Also could have added WP:NPOV. It's a very interesting idea, so I'm all for it being undone, so long as adequate verification can be provided. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 05:49, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

An interesting challenge. My initial response to the removal was more or less "wtf? everyone knows that's true..." But the only source offered for the claim (see article history) asserts that "Romulus" is a back-formation, without further argument. I've looked for verification of the rest, online; but have found nothing. And even if verified, this would shed no light on the possible etymology of "Rome". Haploidavey (talk) 11:51, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

On the other hand, the Roman belief that Romulus named the city after himself (Livy 1.7) seems relevant. Haploidavey (talk) 12:44, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

That's certainly my impression as well, however, the content's only reference does not appear to pass muster. Also, the content itself asserted that "Romulus" was a back-formation. It was not at all npov. Even if it read "according to..." I would probably still have removed it, if that was the only authority cited, for the above reasons. As for the claim itself, I'll keep on the lookout for something reliable to cite. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 08:54, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Archaeology

Section expanded and improved by including relevant content copied from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome "Earliest history"" in edit of 16:15, 26 February 2017‎Rjdeadly (talk) 22:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

The first sentence in the lead of the section is contradicted by the second. Since the second one has no cite, I removed it.Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 23:01, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible the 814 date of Timaes refereed to Aeneas rather then Romulus?

Thus lining up with his Date for Dido and the founding of Carthage?--JaredMithrandir (talk) 02:52, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

This sentence appears to be in error: "The Greek historian Timaeus, one of the first to write a history to include the Romans, stated that Rome was founded in the 38th year prior to the first Olympiad, or 814/3 BC;"

Timaeus dated the founding of Carthage to 38 years before the first Olympic Games. I was surprised to see this article claim Timaeus dated Rome's founding in exactly the same way. As the claim is not sourced, I suspect that it is an error. The only sources that preserve the chronology of Timaeus are Popmpeius Trogus (through Justin), Diodorus, and Plutarch. A nice English translation of Justin is available at attalus.org . --Cadwallader (talk) 17:45, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Timaeus is known to have been the author of the first date of Rome’s foundation – 814/3 BC, placing it at the same time as the founding of Carthage, that is, in the thirty-eighth year before the first Olympiad. As to the original point, Timaeus would not have referred to Aeneas: Already in his earlier writings Timaeus had developed an elaborated scheme of more than 400 years between Troy’s fall and Rome’s foundation... one can suggest that Timaeus initially followed Duris’ canon, in which Troy fell in 1334/3 BC, but that he subsequently accepted the later date of 1254/3 BC. Either way, Timaeus places some ten generations between the fall of Troy and the founding of the city. The synchronism with Carthage was also the point. It was a common practice in early Greek historiography and in part it was because older was better. In general the claims of these early historians cannot be read without criticism. Cf Arcadian claim that they, as a people, predate the Moon. Ifly6 (talk) 14:07, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Overlinking of "Italy" in Introduction

I did not mean to give the impression of edit warring. The intro previously said "... Rome, Italy..." with both Rome and Italy as links. I removed comma-Italy as it disrupted the flow of the sentence, and then made an earlier occurrence of "Italy" a link in deference to whatever previous editor thought a link was appropriate. Later I checked the page and found that "Italy" was not a link. I thought this was some editing error on my part, so made a second edit to put it in. Only then did I check the diffs and discover that Cote d'Azur considers it overlinking. I tried to Revert but got it wrong, so simply did a reverse edit. Got even that description wrong. Too bad. 59.102.43.183 (talk) 06:31, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Pushed rewrite from User:Ifly6/Founding of Rome

I pushed a rewrite to this article from User:Ifly6/Founding of Rome, emphasising the archaeology then going through the main themes from the myths with sourcing. Ifly6 (talk) 15:24, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Nilsson, Olympen, 1964, p. 264.

@FrinkMan: In the citation for Martin P Nilsson's Olympen (Nilsson, Olympen, 1964, p. 264.) what is the publisher and which edition of the book are you citing? I imagine it isn't the Swedish first edition from 1919 because that doesn't seem to have relevant text. Ifly6 (talk) 20:58, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Is it this (apparently rare) edition? https://worldcat.org/title/1164134613. Ifly6 (talk) 21:03, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

@Ifly6: Yes, that's the one, the second edition from 1964. Martin P. Nilsson published the first edition in 1919 and the second in 1964 when he was almost 90 years old. It's written in Swedish, I don't know if there's a translation. The chapter is called "Romerska sagor" (Roman sagas) and the spelling used is "Romos".

Here's a link to an online book store that used to sell it (currently sold out):

https://www.bokus.com/bok/9789172976276/olympen/ FrinkMan (talk) 21:40, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

This is the specific edition:

https://worldcat.org/title/936926807

It's been reprinted several times since 1964. FrinkMan (talk) 01:14, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I've added that it is in Swedish and that the 1964 date reflects a second edition. If there's any more information what would help identify the book as well as possible feel free to add it. Ifly6 (talk) 03:03, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

WP:BIAS

Apparently, going back as far as 2006 (above), the article has pushed the bizarrely hard line expressed in the current lead:

Contrary to the gradual account given by material evidence, the Romans believed...

...Almost no historians take these myths as historical and there is no evidence of Alba Longa's historicity. The alleged royal line connecting Romulus and Remus to Aeneas is almost certainly an antiquarian fiction from the third century BC.

a) The Romans didn't believe anything in contrast to modern archaeology they had no access to. They did their best with what information and items they had at hand. b) There absolutely is evidence of settlement in the Alban hills. The article may intend to say 'no evidence of a powerful city-state ruled by an exiled Hittite client dynasty' but that isn't what the current (mistaken) overstatement actually means. c) Similarly, of course absolutely all modern historians don't accept the entirety of the Romulus/Remus myths as historical. By the same token, though, archaeology has kept pushing back the date of a fairly powerful settlement to the roughly Romulan era and, depending on the dating of the ancient Palatine walls, there's absolutely no reason not to think the archaeological account is entirely in keeping with a guy building up the initial hillfort there during the mythological timeframe.

I'm just going to trim the worst excesses of the phrasing, but the article would greatly benefit from a rewrite that only clearly expresses what the traditional account said, clearly expresses what modern archaeology has found (with caveats if some dating is meaningfully contested), and drops the massive chip off its shoulder that thinks there's a serious either/or being debated instead of a gradual process of research that might potentially end in some sort of reconciliation. — LlywelynII 15:11, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok, ok, I know what I said

But as tendentious as some of the phrasing here is, I just saw that the even more prominent History of Rome article has things like using Livy—with no other corroboration or discussion whatsoever—for a straightforward claim that Rome's name does in fact derive from a guy named Romulus.

Of course, that's just nuts. Maybe we can get an exchange going where the editors there help tone down the overstatements and bitterness here xD while y'all help them be less credulous and generally silly. — LlywelynII 11:23, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly the main reason why I rewrote the article in the way you seemed to have criticised, ie a huge emphasis on the archaeological material and a general playing down of the literary accounts, is because huge portions of Wikipedia relating to early Rome – basically everything prior to maybe the 2nd century – are like that: Livy said Romulus was a guy who founded Rome, Livy and DH say L Junius Brutus founded the republic (when numerous scholars like Wiseman and Richardson doubt his existence), the waters miraculously rose or fell or whatever during the siege of Veii because Livy said so, etc. As to your edits in the main article, I've been rather busy over the holidays so haven't yet been able to comment in depth. Of what I had seen yesterday I have few objections. However, I think some of your interpretations of the language are very tendentious. Eg Contrary to the gradual account given by material evidence, the Romans believed... is merely a statement that the Romans' beliefs are not consistent with the gradual account... not that the Romans had modern archaeological evidence and rejected it that gradual account anyway. (In my opinion, that interpretation is about as tendentiousness as reading the reworked lede from yesterday where it says The Parilia Festival on 21 April was considered to commemorate the anniversary of the city's founding by the late Republic to mean that the late republic founded the city.)

I don't think this somewhat accusatory statement of a "massive chip" is at all warranted: drops the massive chip off its shoulder that thinks there's a serious either/or being debated instead of a gradual process of research... There are two stories that need to be covered here: how Rome was actually founded and what the ancients (Romans and Greeks included) thought had happened. The pre-rewrite version covered myths then, rather sparsely, archaeology; I think it helps a layperson's understanding to place actual facts first rather than falsehoods. Someone should not come out of the article thinking Mr Rome, descended from a line of Alban kings from Aeneas, a prince of Troy, actually founded the city in 753 BC and fought the Sabines etc. The structure of the article – this serious either/or which I do not believe is at all serious – is a necessary result of the need to cover both what we actually know about the founding of Rome from archaeology and the fact that what the Romans said about that founding was wrong (except in the eyes, it seems, of Carandini). Ifly6 (talk) 22:57, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Having read through some of the edits you did, I have largely no substantive objections except to a single portion relating to how the ancients fixed the date of the city. It was more mechanical and conjectural than "we have this (presumably true) list of kings just count back"; scholars generally believe they literally just did 7  ×  35. The sheer arbitrariness of the Roman tradition's chronology also belies the notion of anything being placed correctly (emphasis on "correctly"). Ifly6 (talk) 23:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

literally just did... No, that was specifically with reference to Varro. Other writers may have placed the dates in those other years because of separate traditions concerning the kings and still others relied on Greek and astronomical dating.

If it really was just you, (a) please stop being so sweeping with these edits and phrasing when you seem to be missing some very important nuances and (b) please do take some time to help trim the overstatements in the other (worse) direction at History of Rome when you have a minute. It'd be very helpful. — LlywelynII 18:34, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Plutarch

• Plutarch, "Life of Romulus", Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, Ch. 11–12.

apparently presents a separate tradition from Varro that includes derivation from a Greek equivalent and astronomical claims including an eclipse.

• Grafton, A.T.; et al. (April 1986), "The Horoscope of the Foundation of Rome", Classical Philology, vol. 81, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 148–153, JSTOR 269789.

provides a secondary source for discussion of the details, although it is worth noting that both Grafton and Swerdlow apparently (badly) misread Plutarch as saying the various astronomical phenomena occurred at Rome when he's clearly talking about Greek and Hellenistic records. (Fwiw, NASA has a 1st millennium BC chart of solar eclipses for Rome but not for Athens, the Aegean, or Egypt. Most likely in context, though, the eclipse is the mystical add-on to the legend rather than the hard date for an actual historical synchronicity.) In any case, the Greek date provided is the 3rd year of the 6th Olympiad which we (slightly mis)place at 754 BC but is actually exactly equivalent to 753 BC given where the Greeks were breaking their years at the time. Worth noting, too, that Plutarch repeats the Parilia date (21 April) but also a separate tradition where the founding occurred on the 30th of the month, making it a new moon and establishing that the 'eclipse' mentioned would've needed to've been a solar one.

In any case, the separate tradition should eventually be added here with the appropriate context and corrections. I'll add the secondary cite and Plutarch's name to the chart for now, but there's more at both sources above & elsewhere. — LlywelynII 18:34, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Plutarch isn't misread. Grafton and Swerdlow (1985) p 456: Plutarch ... also reports a further tradition that Rome was founded by Romulus on the thirtieth of the (lunar) month, at a conjunction of the sun and the moon in which there was an eclipse, thought to be the one seen by Antimachus... of Teos... this would presumably be 21 April 753 BC but in fact no solar eclipse was visible in Rome or in the Mediterranean within several years of this date. Although this is not strictly Varronian, I agree with you that the eclipse is [a] mystical add-on to the legend: the mere (false) assertion of synchronism with a eclipse is of little value. Just in the same way the assertion that the United States declared independence in the shadow of an eclipse on 4 July 1776 that is not meaningful evidence that independence occurred on that day (even if that is the correct date). Ifly6 (talk) 20:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, but no idea what you're talking about.

Plutarch was misread. The quote you provided has absolutely nothing to do with the provided source (even if the authors are apparently the same) and the provided source does in fact limit the area under their consideration to Rome, as stated. If they had it right a year earlier and then bungled it... well... if anything, that's worse than it was before.

The note on American independence appears to confuse things in several different ways. I'm aware you think the entire idea of George Washington is a myth created to justify subsequent exploitation by the American ruling class, but it would still be useful information to know that the legends specifically connected him to a specific natural event that could be precisely dated. If and when subsequent archaeology might establish that some form of George Washington had actually existed, then that hard date from the natural event could be used to create a rough timeframe for other elements of the account. In the Roman case, the "hard" date is useless because it's entirely false and a provable later add-on instead of any kind of preserved lore; it's not useless because Romulus—if he ever existed—isn't a heavenly body himself and the founding of Rome—if it ever occurred—wasn't itself an eclipse.

In any case, the separate tradition should eventually be added here with the appropriate context and corrections. — LlywelynII 19:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand this response. I'm not saying you should omit mention of an eclipse. I'm saying that it should be at no time used, especially in Wikivoice™, to date the founding of Rome. (This is why I made edits to that effect saying that no solar eclipses occurred c. 753 in the Mediterranean.) As to this portion: If and when subsequent archaeology might establish that some form of George Washington [Romulus?] had actually existed, then that hard date from the natural event [the eclipse] could be used to create a rough timeframe for other elements of the account. The eclipse is fictional. It has nothing to do with when Rome was founded or when "Romulus" existed. Let's say we find archaeological proof that Rome was founded on 21 April 753 with a stone commemorating the founding in Archaic Latin using the Egyptian calendar. The eclipse will still have nothing to do with it... because there wasn't one (ie [the eclipse] is not meaningful evidence that [the founding] occurred on that day (even if that is the correct date)). Ifly6 (talk) 02:13, 15 January 2024 (UTC)