Augustan period, and the multiplication of those distortions over time, are hard to
push aside, yet each was a coherent and in its own way fascinating reconstruction
of early Rome (Fox 1996).
At this stage we should first give some indication of our own chronological
definitions, and within those some idea of what claims the ancients made. Rome had
two founding myths. One told how Aeneas escaped from Troy and came by a difficult
path to the shores of Italy, where his son founded the city of Alba Longa a few miles
from Rome. The other told how the twins Romulus and Remus, after a miraculous
escape from an early death, came to found the city of Rome, and how one of them,
Romulus, killed his brother and ruled Rome alone. These two myths could be made
compatible by making Romulus and Remus distant descendants of Aeneas. Aeneas’
mythical adventures belonged to the very distant past, but this was located to what
we call the twelfth century bcby ancient scholars. Rome itself was founded, again
according to ancient scholars, in what we call 753 bc, and for Romans, this was the
date from which their history ran forward; year one, in other words. There were
seven kings, who ruled Rome to 509 bc, when the last king, Tarquinius Superbus,
was expelled, and the Roman republic began, characterized by two annually elected
officials called consuls. On the whole, we tend to think of the Rome of the kings
as archaic Rome, making some allowance for the fact that there is archaeological
evidence for a settlement at Rome back at least as far as the tenth century bc. The
first century of the republic, or the early republic, ends with two watershed moments:
the capture and destruction by Rome of Veii, its great Etruscan neighbor, in 396 bc,
and the capture and destruction of Rome by the Gauls in 390 bc(Cornell 1995
gives valuable guidance on all the above).
Archaeology
For the earliest periods the evidence is predominantly archaeological, and here we
are in a stronger position. Not only is the material evidence more rewarding than
the literary evidence because of its bulk and contemporaneity, we also know more
about aspects of the material culture of this period than we do about subsequent
periods because of the intensity of excavation, and the nature of the preservation of
material (C. Smith 1996a for a survey). One important element of the archaeolo-
gical evidence which is also borne out by the literary sources, and has a significant
impact on archaic religion, is the intimate relationship between Rome and its hin-
terland Latium. The community of language (Latin), the overwhelming similarity of
archaeological material, and indeed the contemporaneity of urban development –
most towns build temples, monumental houses, and walls at roughly the same time- suggest that one may supplement the archaeological record at Rome, where mas-
sive subsequent building in antiquity and of course until the present day has
obscured the earlier regions of the city, with information gathered from the surrounding
region.
In brief, the more or less uniform material of the tenth and ninth centuries bc,
largely found in burials, is supplemented in the eighth century by imports either of
34 Christopher Smith