toriography between mythic and historic time is not like the blue line in ice hockey,
static and highly visible, but more like the offside rule in soccer, in which an imag-
inary line can be activated anywhere in one half of the pitch by the relative — often
highly disputed — movements of the players.^97 What ancient scholars were doing
with their demarcations between myth and history is not what a modern historian
might be doing, even if it has some apparent overlaps. Ancient scholars use this
way of talking partly as a generic marker, and also as a source of authority, to show
that they know how their tradition works and that they can manipulate these
authoritative markers in independent ways. Most importantly, as we shall now see
in our discussion of the foundation of Rome, the fact that this interface between
myth and history was a live issue enabled them to do creative work at the various
extremities where myth and history could be said to meet, or to diverge.
THE FOUNDATION OF ROME:
MYTH OR HISTORY?
The fundamental question of whether to say that the city was founded in mythical
or historical time immediately presents itself.^98 When the Greeks, in the fourth
century b.c.e., first started writing about the foundation of the city of Rome, the
inhabitants of the city themselves must have had no idea whatever of the age of
their city.^99 And even if, unimaginably, they had had some tradition about how old
their city was, the Greeks would not have paid it any attention. Scholars often
write as if the Greek tradition on early Rome shows the Greeks helpfully report-
ing their occasional glimpses of what the Romans were really thinking, but this is
very far from being the case.^100 The Greeks took matters into their own hands and
placed the foundation of the city in the age of heroes, occasionally before the Tro-
jan War, but usually at the time of the nostoi,the homecomings from the Trojan
Wa r.^101 Down into the third century, the same theme was played with different
variations: Rome got its name from a granddaughter of Aeneas called Rhome, or
else the city was founded by a son of Aeneas called Rhomos or a grandson of
Aeneas called Rhomos or a son of Odysseus and Circe called Rhomos or a grand-
son of Aeneas called Romulus.^102 There were all kinds of notional dates for the fall
of Troy before Eratosthenes managed to impose something like a canonical date in
the form of “1184 b.c.e.,” but whatever time frame was being used in any given
case, these authors are positing a Roman foundation epoch on the borderlands of
mythical time, a generation or two after Troy.
This time period, however, is of course three or four or five hundred years
- Myth into History I: Foundations of the City