462 Parshia Lee-Stecum
sources hostile to Rome could configure the ethnic diversity of the Romans in terms of
mongrel descent:
The early history of the Romans is still unknown to almost all Greeks, and some false beliefs
based on haphazard rumours have gained ground and deceived most of them: that the
founders of Rome were wanderers and barbarians, without homes and not even free, and that
in time she gained dominance everywhere not through piety or justice or other virtues, but
by accident and through some random, unjust fortune, which bestows the greatest goods
upon the most undeserving.This is obviously quite different from the mythic genealogies of Rome’s ruling houses,
but so is Dionysius’ answer to the hostile account. Dionysius defends the integrity of
the Romans by unifying their identity as Greeks: “I undertake to prove that they were
Greeks and came together from neither the smallest nor the least significant of peoples”
(Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 1.5.1; Lee-Stecum 2005: 23–4). Writing in the aftermath
of Rome’s annexation of the last Hellenistic kingdom, Dionysius is describing a differ-
ent world from that of the Middle Republic. His text is deeply sympathetic to (even
apologetic on behalf of) the Roman elite and Roman imperialism (Gabba 1991). How-
ever, his single-note treatment of Roman ethnicity is not representative of the Roman’s
own accounts even in the late Republican and early Imperial periods (first centuries
andCE).
The early first centuryBCEfurther extended the Italian ethnicities of Rome’s elite. The
Social War (90–89BCE) and its outcome determined the articulation of Romano–Italian
identities in the years to follow. Notwithstanding genealogical connections drawn among
Roman elite families and some Italian communities, entry to political and religious office,
and the Senate, was restricted in the middle–late Republic. While so-called “new men”
(novi homines) from outside the existing Senatorial order could run for office and, with
sufficient social prestige, financial support, and patronage, win access to magistracies and
Senate, only those with Roman citizenship were eligible. This included Cato the Elder
(from Tusculum) and Cicero (from Arpinum), both of whom were the first in their family
to enter the Senate and rise to the consulship. However, before 90BCE, “new men” were
relatively rare, those who rose to the highest political offices even rarer, and the use of
the termnovus homoitself suggests that these newcomers were never quite fully accepted
as social equals by those claiming descent from older senatorial stock. More particularly,
however, a large number of wealthy and locally powerful families from Italian cities, with
only limited citizenship rights or none at all, were excluded from participation in the
Roman ruling elite. Broadly described as “allies” of Rome (socii, and hence “Social” War),
these included communities of the Picentes, Marsi, Samnites, and others who maintained
political autonomy from Rome in return for their military support. Individuals from such
communities could be granted Roman citizenship and even join the senatorial elite, but
this was rare and difficult (Wiseman 1971: 24).
The incidental causes of the war that broke out between the Italian allies and Rome
in 90BCEcontinue to be debated. However, exclusion from the full rights and preroga-
tives of a Roman ruling class that often claimed shared descent with the communities it