- I call this an “extraordinary shift,” but it attracts oddly little attention, apart
from Asheri 1991 – 92, 69. - Cornell 1995, 125, comes close to spelling this assumption out: “Problems
arose, however, when Roman historians and antiquarians in the second [sic] century
b.c.began to examine the chronological implications of these pleasing anecdotes. The
work of Hellenistic chronographers had made this possible, and the discrepancies that
emerged were problematic, not to say embarrassing. The discoverythat several cen-
turies separated Romulus from Aeneas made it necessary to fabricate the dynasty of
Alban kings” (emphasis added). - Gruen (1992, 20) frames the issue very well.
- The phrasing of Momigliano (1989, 83) is typical: “We simply do not know
why Roman tradition chose to fix the date of the birth of Rome in the eighth century.”
But this way of putting it begs the question of whether it was Romans who chose this
date. - On this Capitoline/Republican era, see Mommsen 1859, 197 – 200. We return
to this era at the beginning of chapter 5. - Purcell 2003, 29.
- Skutsch 1985, 316: “The only dating possible before a foundation date for the
city was more or less fixed by the antiquarians was post primos consulesor ab aede in
Capitolio dedicata.” Purcell 2003, 29, confusingly adduces Timaeus’s foundation date
as confirmation that it was “possible for such ways of thinking to ante-date formal his-
tory.” But Timaeus waswriting “formal history,” even if from outside the city. And
even if it was possible for Timaeus to come up with a time frame for a Roman founda-
tion date, it is not proved that it was possible or desirable for Romans at the time,
before their own “formal history,” to do so. - Cf. Cornell 1995, 218 – 21. We return in chapter 5 to the importance of such
constitutional changes as interval markers in chronologies at Rome (pp. 140 – 41). - On this point I recommend the fine argument of De Cazanove (1992, esp. 91).
As he shows (92 – 93), the evidence of Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom.1.74 strongly implies that
the first people to give historical foundation dates were not working back from the fall
of the monarchy at all. - De Cazanove 1992, 85 – 86. The dates vary from Timaeus’s “814 b.c.e.” to
Cincius’s “728 b.c.e.” - De Cazanove 1992, 98: “La durée de la période royale a donc été déduite de la
date assignée à la fondation, et non l’inverse.” - Walbank 1957 – 79, 1:668 – 69.
- On this debate, see the conclusive arguments of Cornell (1975).
- For the Roman stage hypothesis, and for an account of modern discussion of
the dramatic form of the story, see Wiseman 1998, chap. 1; for the theory of Diocles
modeling the story on Sophocles’ Tyro,see von Holzinger 1912; Frier 1999, 261 – 62.
notes to pages 88 – 91. 249