Political Power in Mid-Republican Rome fourthcenturies.Forthat,ifitwereworthattemptingatall,wewouldhave
tostart,assuggestedalready,fromthehistoryofnames,notasreconstructed
intheAugustanFasti,butasactuallyusedatthetime,notjustinRomebut
inLatiumandneighbouringareas.AsCiceroalreadywarnsus,therewere
TulliibothinRomeandArpinum,onceaVolsciantown.Forallweknow,
thenowfamous recordedonanarchaicinscriptionfrom
SatricumcouldjustaswellhavebeenaSatricanasaRoman,orevenaSabine
(seeH.VersnelinC.M.Stibbeetal.,LapisSatricanus[],–);andinto
whatfamiliaorgensshouldwefitthe‘‘TiberiusClaudiussonofGaiusfrom
Antium,madecuratorofthecity’’attestedatEntellainSicilyinthefirsthalf
ofthethirdcentury?(SeenowM.Corsaro,‘‘LapresenzaromanaaEntella:
unanotasuTiberioClaudiodiAnzio,’’Ann.Sc.N.Sup.Pisa[]:).
Moreover,personswiththename‘‘Claudius,’’initsEtruscanform(‘‘Klavtie’’
or‘‘Clavtie’’),turnupinthefifthcentury..atAlériainCorsicaandatthe
endofthefourthatCaere;seeJ.JehasseandL.Jehasse,La nécropole préromaine
d’Aléria(),,areferencewhichIowetoT.J.Cornell,towhomIam
gratefulforgenerous(andsceptical)commentsonthischapter.Asforthese
‘‘Claudii,’’ J. Heurgon, ap. Jehasse, , speaks engaginglyof ‘‘la vitalité ex-
pansionnistedecesClaudes,’’descendingfromtheirSabinehomeland.But
surely,inseeingalltheattestedClaudii,inRomeandelsewhere,asmembers
ofanoriginalgens Claudia,weareindulginginaclassicexampleofmythic
history,andreallyoughttostartagain.
Whatweshoulddoistoworkbackfromthehistoricalperiod,first(inmy
view)revisingourconceptionsof ititself,andthenexaminingwhattypes
ofsocialandpoliticalstructurearealreadypresupposedbywhatwefindat
eachstage.Inlookingatthesestructures,thesheersizeofmid-republican
Rome,asbothacityandacommunity,becomesmoreandmoresignificant.
ItismuchtoberegrettedthatChesterG.Starr’ssmallbutverysuggestive
book,The Beginnings of Imperial Rome: Rome in the Mid-Republic(), has
never been published on this side of the Atlantic, and has never reallyat-
tractedtheattentionwhichitdeserves.Inworkingbackintothelaterarchaic
community,theantiquarianevidence,asdeployedbyCoarelliandTorelli,
isacrucial,butalso,inevitably,acontroversial,tool.(Perhapsthetimehas
comeforacollectionandcriticalstudyofthescatteredreportsonearlyRome
inPliny’sNatural History.)Butwearenotconfinedtolaterreportsofbuild-
ings,worksofart,triumphs,showsandothermanifestationsofcommunal
life.Thearchaeologicalevidencecollected,notperhapsintheclearestway,
inRoma Medio Repubblicana()remainstobeusedtothefull,asdothere-
sultsofCoarelli’sworkontheForumandnowtheForumBoarium.Aswas
notedbriefly,animageofmid-republicanRomecanperhapsnowbegained