The concept of Hellenistic religion as the late form of Ancient Greek religion covers any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of the people who lived under the influence of ancient Greek culture during the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire (c. 300 BCE to 300 CE). There was much continuity in Hellenistic religion: people continued to worship the Greek gods and to practice the same rites as in Classical Greece.
Change came from the addition of new religions from other countries, including the Egyptian deitiesIsis and Serapis, and the Syrian godsAtargatis and Hadad, which provided a new outlet for people seeking fulfillment in both the present life and the afterlife. The worship of deified Hellenistic rulers also became a feature of this period, most notably in Egypt, where the Ptolemies adapted earlier Egyptian practices and Greek hero-cults and established themselves as Pharaohs within the new syncretic Ptolemaic cult of Alexander III of Macedonia. Elsewhere, rulers might receive divine status without achieving the full status of a god and goddess.
Many people practiced magic, and this too represented a continuation from earlier times. Throughout the Hellenistic world, people would consult oracles, and use charms and figurines to deter misfortune or to cast spells. The complex system of Hellenistic astrology developed in this era, seeking to determine a person's character and future in the movements of the sun, moon, and planets. The systems of Hellenistic philosophy, such as Stoicism and Epicureanism, offered a secular alternative to traditional religion, even if their impact was largely limited to educated elites.
Remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, south-central Greece.
Central to Greek religion in classical times were the twelve Olympian deities headed by Zeus. Each god was honored with stone temples and statues, and sanctuaries (sacred enclosures), which, although dedicated to a specific deity, often contained statues commemorating other gods.
The city-states would conduct various festivals and rituals throughout
the year, with particular emphasis directed towards the patron god of
the city, such as Athena at Athens, or Apollo at Corinth.
The religious practice would also involve the worship of heroes,
people who were regarded as semi-divine, such as Achilles, Heracles,
and Perseus. Such heroes ranged from the mythical figures in the epics
of Homer to historical people such as the founder of a city. At the local level, the landscape was filled with sacred spots and monuments; for example, many statues of Nymphs were found near and around springs, and the stylized figures of Hermes could often be found on street corners.
Magic was a central part of Greek religion and oracles would allow people to determine divine will
in the rustle of leaves; the shape of flame and smoke on an altar; the
flight of birds; the noises made by a spring; or in the entrails of an
animal. Also long established were the Eleusinian Mysteries, associated with Demeter and Persephone.
People were indoctrinated into mystery religions through initiation
ceremonies, which were traditionally kept secret. These religions often
had a goal of personal improvement, which would also extend to the afterlife.
In the aftermath of the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek culture spread widely and came into much closer contact with the civilizations of the Near East and Egypt. The most significant changes to impact on Greek religion were the importation of foreign deities and the development of new philosophical systems. Older surveys of Hellenistic religion tended to depict the era as one of religious decline, discerning a rise in scepticism, agnosticism and atheism, as well as an increase in superstition, mysticism, and astrology.
There is, however, no reason to suppose that there was a decline in the traditional religion.
There is plenty of documentary evidence that the Greeks continued to
worship the same gods with the same sacrifices, dedications, and
festivals as in the classical period. New religions did appear in this period, but not to the exclusion of the local deities, and only a minority of Greeks were attracted to them.
New religions of the period
The Egyptian religion which follows Isis
was the most famous of the new religions. The religion was brought to
Greece by Egyptian priests, initially for the small Egyptian communities
in the port cities of the Greek world. Although the Egyptian religion found only a small audience among the Greeks themselves, her popularity spread under the Roman empire, and Diodorus Siculus wrote that the religion was known throughout almost the whole inhabited world.
Almost as famous was the cult of Serapis, an Egyptian deity despite the Greek name, which was created in Egypt under the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Serapis was patronized by the Greeks who had settled in Egypt. This
religion involved initiation rites like the Eleusinian Mysteries. Strabo wrote of the Serapeion at Canopus near Alexandria as being patronized by the most reputable men.
The religion of Atargatis (related to the Babylonian and Assyrian Inanna and Phoenician Baalat Gebal), a fertility and sea goddess from Syria, was also popular. By the 3rd century BCE her worship had spread from Syria to Egypt and Greece, and eventually reached Italy and the west. The religion following Cybele (or the Great Mother) came from Phrygia to Greece and then to Egypt and Italy, where in 204 BCE the Roman Senate permitted her worship. She was a healing and protecting goddess, and a guardian of fertility and wild nature.
Another mystery religion was focused around Dionysus. Although rare in mainland Greece, it was common on the islands and in Anatolia. The members were known as Bacchants, and the rites had an orgiastic character. Linked to this was the last of the Greco-Roman Gods and Goddesses, Antinous, who was syncretized with Osiris, Dionysus, and other deities.
These newly introduced religions and gods only had a limited impact within Greece itself; the main exception was at Delos, which was a major port and trading center. The island was sacred as the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and by the 2nd century BCE was also home to the native Greek religions that follow Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, Hermes, Pan, and Asclepius. But there were also cult centers for the Egyptian Sarapis and Isis, and of the Syrian Atargatis and Hadad. By the 1st century BCE, there were additional religions that followed Baal and Astarte, a Jewish Synagogue and Romans who followed the original Roman religions of gods like Apollo and Neptune.
Coin depicting Antiochus IV Epiphanes; the Greek inscription reads ΘΕΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΝΙΚΗΦΟΡΟΥ / ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ ("King Antiochus, image of God, bearer of victory").
Another innovation in the Hellenistic period was the institution of
cults dedicated to the rulers of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The first of
these was established under Alexander the Great, whose conquests of the Achaemenid Empire,
power, and status had elevated him to a degree that required special
recognition. His successors continued his worship to the point where in Egypt under Ptolemy I Soter, we find Alexander being honored as a god. Ptolemy's son Ptolemy II Philadelphus proclaimed his father a god, and made himself a living god.
By doing so, the Ptolemies were adapting earlier Egyptian ideas in Pharaonic worship. Elsewhere, practice varied; a ruler might receive divine status without the full status of a god, as occurred in Athens in 307 BCE, when Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Demetrius I Poliorcetes were honored as saviors (soteres)
for liberating the city, and, as a result, an altar was erected; an
annual festival was founded; and an office of the "Priest of the
Saviours" was introduced.
Temples dedicated to rulers were rare, but their statues were often
erected in other temples, and the kings would be worshiped as
"temple-sharing gods."
There is ample evidence for the use of superstition and magic in this period. Oracular shrines and sanctuaries were still popular. There is also much evidence for the use of charms and curses. Symbols would be placed on the doors of houses to bring good luck or deter misfortune for the occupants within.
Charms, often cut in precious or semi-precious stone, had protective power. Figurines, manufactured from bronze, lead, or terracotta, were pierced with pins or nails, and used to cast spells. Curse tablets made from marble or metal (especially lead) were used for curses.
Astrology — the belief that stars and planets influence a person's future — arose in Babylonia, where it was originally only applied to the king or nation. The Greeks, in the Hellenistic era, elaborated it into the fantastically complex system of Hellenistic astrology familiar to later times. Interest in astrology grew rapidly from the 1st century BCE onwards.
An alternative to traditional religion was offered by Hellenistic philosophy. One of these philosophies was Stoicism,
which taught that life should be lived according to the rational order
which the Stoics believed governed the universe; human beings had to
accept their fate as according to divine will, and virtuous acts should be performed for their own intrinsic value. Another philosophy was Epicureanism,
which taught that the universe was subject to the random movements of
atoms, and life should be lived to achieve psychological contentment and
the absence of pain. Other philosophies included Pyrrhonism which taught how to attain inner peace via suspension of judgment; Cynicism (philosophy), which expressed contempt for convention and material possessions; the Platonists who followed the teachings of Plato, and the Peripatetics who followed Aristotle.
All of these philosophies, to a greater or lesser extent, sought to
accommodate traditional Greek religion, but the philosophers, and those
who studied under them, remained a small select group, limited largely
to the educated elite.
The decline of Hellenistic Judaism started in the 2nd century CE,
and its causes are still not fully understood. It may be that it was
eventually marginalized by, partially absorbed into or became
progressively the Koine Greek speaking core of Early Christianity centered on Antioch and its traditions, such as the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch.
Greek mathematics refers to mathematics texts and ideas stemming from the Archaic through the Hellenistic and Roman periods, mostly from the 5th century BC to the 6th century AD, around the shores of the Mediterranean. Greek mathematicians lived in cities spread over the entire region, from Anatolia to Italy and North Africa, but were united by Greek culture and the Greek language. The development of mathematics as a theoretical discipline and the use of deductive reasoning in proofs is an important difference between Greek mathematics and those of preceding civilizations.
Origins and etymology
Greek mathēmatikē ("mathematics") derives from the Ancient Greek: μάθημα, romanized: máthēma, Attic Greek:[má.tʰɛː.ma]Koinē Greek:[ˈma.θi.ma], from the verb manthanein, "to learn". Strictly speaking, a máthēma could be any branch of learning, or anything learnt; however, since antiquity certain mathēmata (mainly arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmonics) were granted special status.
The origins of Greek mathematics are not well documented. The earliest advanced civilizations in Greece and Europe were the Minoan and later Mycenaean
civilizations, both of which flourished during the 2nd millennium BC.
While these civilizations possessed writing and were capable of advanced
engineering, including four-story palaces with drainage and beehive tombs, they left behind no mathematical documents.
Though no direct evidence is available, it is generally thought that the neighboring Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations had an influence on the younger Greek tradition. Unlike the flourishing of Greek literature
in the span of 800 to 600 BC, not much is known about Greek mathematics
in this early period—nearly all of the information was passed down
through later authors, beginning in the mid-4th century BC.
Greek mathematics allegedly began with Thales of Miletus (c. 624–548 BC). Very little is known about his life, although it is generally agreed that he was one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. According to Proclus, he traveled to Babylon from where he learned mathematics and other subjects, coming up with the proof of what is now called Thales' Theorem.
An equally enigmatic figure is Pythagoras of Samos (c. 580–500 BC), who supposedly visited Egypt and Babylon,and ultimately settled in Croton, Magna Graecia, where he started a kind of brotherhood. Pythagoreans supposedly believed that "all is number" and were keen in looking for mathematical relations between numbers and things. Pythagoras himself was given credit for many later discoveries, including the construction of the five regular solids.
However, Aristotle refused to attribute anything specifically to
Pythagoras and only discussed the work of the Pythagoreans as a group.
Almost half of the material in Euclid's Elements is customarily attributed to the Pythagoreans, including the discovery of irrationals, attributed to Hippasus (c. 530–450 BC) and Theodorus (fl. 450 BC). The greatest mathematician associated with the group, however, may have been Archytas (c. 435-360 BC), who solved the problem of doubling the cube, identified the harmonic mean, and possibly contributed to optics and mechanics. Other mathematicians active in this period, not fully affiliated with any school, include Hippocrates of Chios (c. 470–410 BC), Theaetetus (c. 417–369 BC), and Eudoxus (c. 408–355 BC).
Greek mathematics also drew the attention of philosophers during the Classical period. Plato (c. 428–348 BC), the founder of the Platonic Academy, mentions mathematics in several of his dialogues. While not considered a mathematician, Plato seems to have been influenced by Pythagorean ideas about number and believed that the elements of matter could be broken down into geometric solids. He also believed that geometrical proportions bound the cosmos together rather than physical or mechanical forces. Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC), the founder of the Peripatetic school,
often used mathematics to illustrate many of his theories, as when he
used geometry in his theory of the rainbow and the theory of proportions
in his analysis of motion.
Much of the knowledge about ancient Greek mathematics in this period is
thanks to records referenced by Aristotle in his own works.
Hellenistic and Roman periods
A fragment from Euclid's Elements (c. 300 BC), considered the most influential mathematics textbook of all time
Greek mathematics reached its acme during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods, and much of the work represented by authors such as Euclid (fl. 300 BC), Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC), Apollonius (c. 240–190 BC), Hipparchus (c. 190–120 BC), and Ptolemy (c. 100–170 AD) was of a very advanced level and rarely mastered outside a small circle. Examples of applied mathematics around this time include the construction of analogue computers like the Antikythera mechanism, the accurate measurement of the circumference of the Earth by Eratosthenes (276–194 BC), and the mathematical and mechanical works of Heron (c. 10–70 AD).
Several centers of learning appeared during the Hellenistic period, of which the most important one was the Mouseion in Alexandria, Egypt, which attracted scholars from across the Hellenistic world (mostly Greek, but also Egyptian, Jewish, Persian, among others).
Although few in number, Hellenistic mathematicians actively
communicated with each other; publication consisted of passing and
copying someone's work among colleagues.
Later mathematicians in the Roman era include Diophantus (c. 214–298 AD), who wrote on polygonal numbers and a work in pre-modern algebra (Arithmetica), Pappus of Alexandria (c. 290–350 AD), who compiled many important results in the Collection, Theon of Alexandria (c. 335–405 AD) and his daughter Hypatia (c. 370–415 AD), who edited Ptolemy's Almagest and other works, and Eutocius of Ascalon (c. 480–540 AD), who wrote commentaries on treatises by Archimedes and Apollonius.
Although none of these mathematicians, save perhaps Diophantus, had
notable original works, they are distinguished for their commentaries
and expositions. These commentaries have preserved valuable extracts
from works which have perished, or historical allusions which, in the
absence of original documents, are precious because of their rarity.
Most of the mathematical texts written in Greek survived through
the copying of manuscripts over the centuries. While some fragments
dating from antiquity have been found above all in Egypt, as a rule they do not add anything significant to our knowledge of Greek mathematics preserved in the manuscript tradition.
Euclid, who presumably wrote on optics, astronomy, and harmonics, collected many previous mathematical results and theorems in the Elements, a canon of geometry and elementary number theory for many centuries. Menelaus, a later geometer and astronomer, wrote a standard work on spherical geometry in the style of the Elements, the Spherics, arguably considered the first treatise in non-Euclidean geometry.
Archimedes made use of a technique dependent on a form of proof by contradiction
to reach answers to problems with an arbitrary degree of accuracy,
while specifying the limits within which the answers lay. Known as the method of exhaustion, Archimedes employed it in several of his works, including an approximation to π (Measurement of the Circle), and a proof that the area enclosed by a parabola and a straight line is 4/3 times the area of a triangle with equal base and height (Quadrature of the Parabola).
Archimedes also showed that the number of grains of sand filling the
universe was not uncountable, devising his own counting scheme based on
the myriad, which denoted 10,000 (The Sand-Reckoner).
The most characteristic product of Greek mathematics may be the theory of conic sections, which was largely developed in the Hellenistic period, starting with the work of Menaechmus and perfected primarily under Apollonius in his work Conics.The methods employed in these works made no explicit use of algebra, nor trigonometry, the latter appearing around the time of Hipparchus.
Ancient Greek mathematics was not limited to theoretical works
but was also used in other activities, such as business transactions and
in land mensuration, as evidenced by extant texts where computational procedures and practical considerations took more of a central role.
Although the earliest Greek
mathematical texts that have been found were written after the
Hellenistic period, most are considered to be copies of works written
during and before the Hellenistic period. The two major sources are
Byzantine codices, written some 500 to 1500 years after their originals, and
Despite the lack of original manuscripts, the dates for some Greek
mathematicians are more certain than the dates of surviving Babylonian
or Egyptian sources because a number of overlapping chronologies exist,
though many dates remain uncertain.
Capitoline Wolf, sculpture of the she-wolf feeding the twins Romulus and Remus, the most famous image associated with the founding of Rome. According to Livy, it was erected in 296 BC. Romulus and Remus on the House of the She-wolf at the Grand Place of Brussels
The founding of Rome was a prehistoric event or process later
greatly embellished by Roman historians and poets. Archaeological
evidence indicates that Rome developed from the gradual union of several
hilltop villages during the Final Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Prehistoric habitation of the Italian Peninsula occurred by 48,000 years ago, with the area of Rome being settled by around 1600 BC. Some evidence on the Capitoline Hill possibly dates as early as c. 1700 BC and the nearby valley that later housed the Roman Forum had a developed necropolis by at least 1000BC. The combination of the hilltop settlements into a single polity by the later 8th centuryBC was probably influenced by the trend for city-state formation emerging from ancient Greece.
Most modern historians doubt the existence of a single founder or
founding event for the city, and no material evidence has been found
connecting early Rome to Alba or Troy. Most modern historians also
dismiss the putative Aeneid dynasty at Alba Longa as fiction. The
legendary account was still much discussed and celebrated in Roman
times. The Parilia Festival on 21 April was considered to commemorate the anniversary of the city's founding during the late Republic and that aspect of the holiday grew in importance under the Empire until it was fully transformed into the Romaea in AD121.
The year of the supposed founding was variously computed by ancient
historians, but the two dates seeming to be officially sanctioned were
the Varronian chronology's 753 BC (used by Claudius's Secular Games and Hadrian's Romaea) and the adjacent year of 752 BC (used by the Fasti and the Secular Games of Antoninus Pius and Philip I). Despite known errors in Varro's calculations, it is the 753BC date that continues to form the basis for most modern calculations of the AUCcalendar era.
Western Europe during its Middle Bronze Age, with the Apennine Culture in blue
The conventional division of pre-Roman cultures in Italy deals with cultures which spoke Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages. The Italic languages, which include Latin, are Indo-European and were spoken, according to inscriptions, in the lower Tiber Valley.
It was once thought that Faliscan – spoken north of Veii on the right
bank of the Tiber – was a separate language, but inscriptions discovered
in the 1980s indicate that Latin was spoken more generally in the area.
Etruscan speakers were concentrated in modern Tuscany with a similar language called Raetic spoken on the upper Adige (the foothills of the eastern Italian Alps).
When drawing a connection between peoples and their languages, a
reconstruction emerges with Indo-European peoples arriving in various
waves of migrations during the first and second millennia BC: first a
western Italic group (including Latin), followed by a central Italic
group of Osco-Umbrian dialects, with a late arrival of Greek and Celtic on the Italian peninsula, from across the Adriatic
and Alps, respectively. These migrations are generally believed to have
displaced speakers of Etruscan and other pre-Indo-European languages;
although it is possible that Etruscan arrived also by migration, almost
certainly before 2000 BC.
The start of the Iron age saw a gradual increase in social
complexity and population that led to the emergence of proto-urban
settlements in central and northern Italy writ large. These proto-urban
agglomerations were normally clusters of smaller settlements that were
insufficiently distant to be separated communities; over time, they
would unify.
There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the area of modern Rome from at least 5,000 years ago, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures any Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites. Traces of occupation have been found in the general region – including Lavinium and the coast near Ardea – going back to the 15th century BC. The area was home to the Apennine and Proto-Villanovan cultures before the advent of the more regional Latial culture.
Bronze Age
Archaeological evidence suggests that Rome developed over a long period, but it was definitely occupied by the middle of the Bronze Age. Core samples have shown that the terrain of Bronze-Age Rome differed greatly from what is present now. The area of the Forum Boarium north of the Aventine Hill
was a seasonally dry plain that simultaneously provided a safe inland
port for the era's seafaring ships, a wide area for watering horses and
cattle, and a safe ford of the Tiber with shallow and slow-flowing water even if Tiber Island had not yet formed, one of the river's major fords between Etruria and Campania.
This advantageous but exposed location was closely flanked by the
Capitoline, which at that time rose sharply from the more easterly bank
of the Tiber and provided a ready citadel for defense and for control of the salt production along the river and at its mouth. The other hills and the marshes between them provided similarly defensible points for settlement.
Accordingly, thick deposits of manure and ancient pottery shards have been discovered in the Forum Boarium from the middle of the Bronze Age.
Current evidence suggests that there were three separate bronze-using
settlements on the Capitoline during the period 1700–1350 BC and in the
neighboring valley that later became the Roman Forum from 1350–1120 BC. Some 13th centuryBC
structures indicate that the Capitoline was already being terraced to
manage its slope. Evidence in the Final Bronze Age around 1200–975 BC is
clearer, showing occupation of the Capitoline, Forum, and adjacent
Palatine. Excavations near the modern Capitoline Museums
suggest the construction of fortifications and some scholars have
speculated that settlements also existed on the other hills, especially
the Janiculum, Quirinal, and Aventine. The Capitoline currently seems to have been the earliest settled
but it is debated whether the settlements on the other hills were
independent, colonies of the Capitoline settlement, or formerly separate
villages already consolidated into a single polity. By 1000 BC, a necropolis existed in the Forum for cremation graves. By the early Iron Age c. 900 BC, graves started to be placed into the ground. Other cemeteries appear on the Esquiline, Quirinal, and Viminal Hills by the 9th century, containing pottery, imported Greek wares, fibulae, and bronze objects.
Remains from huts on the Palatine have been found that date to the 9th
or 8th centuries BC, with accelerating development by the early to
middle 8th century BC.
Eighth and seventh centuries BC
Model of archaic Rome, 6th century BC
By this time, four major settlements emerged in Rome. The nuclei
appeared on the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Quirinal and Viminal, and
the Caelian, Oppian, and Velia.
There is, however, no evidence linking any settlement on the Quirinal
hill with the Sabines, as is alleged by some ancient accounts.
The area of the Forum also was converted at this time into a
public space. Burials there discontinued and portions of it were paved
over. Votive offerings appear in the comitium
in the eighth century, indicating a more central religious cult, and
other public buildings appear to have been erected around that time. One
of those buildings was the domus publica (the official residence of the pontifex maximus), which is now believed to have been constructed between 750 and 700 BC. Religious activity started also in this period on the Capitoline hill, suggesting a connection to the ancient cult of Jupiter Feretrius. Other offerings discovered indicate Rome's connections outside Latium, with imported Greek pottery from Euboea and Corinth.
The first evidence of a wall appears in the middle or late eighth century on the Palatine, dated between 730 and 720 BC. It is possible that the circuit of the wall marked out what later Romans believed to be the original pomerium (sacred boundary) of the city. The discovery of gates and streets connected to the wall, with the remains of various huts, suggest that Rome had by this time:
acquired a defined boundary ... [and] a more sophisticated level of
social and political organisation ... the use of the Forum as a public
space point[s] to the development of [a] shared civil and ritual space[]
for the inhabitants of all communities, demonstrating an increasing
level of centralisation.
Like other Villanovan proto-urban centres, this archaic Rome was
likely organised around clans that guarded their own areas, but by the
later eighth century had confederated. The development of city-states was likely a Greek innovation that spread through the Mediterranean from 850 to 750 BC.
The earliest votive deposits are found in the early seventh century on
the Capitoline and Quirinal hills, suggesting that by that time a city
had formed with monumental architecture and public religious
sanctuaries. Certainly, by 600 BC, a process of synoikismos
was complete and there had been formed a unified Rome – reflected in
the production of a central forum area, public monumental architecture,
and civic structures – can be spoken of.
Ancient tradition and founding myths
Excavation on the Palatine Hill has found the foundations of a hut believed to correspond to the Hut of Romulus, which the Romans themselves preserved into late antiquity
By the late Republic, the usual Roman origin myth held that their city was founded by a Latin named Romulus on the day of the Parilia Festival (21 April) in some year around 750BC. Important aspects of the myth concerned Romulus's murder of his twin Remus, the brothers' descent from the god Mars and the royal family of Alba Longa, and that dynasty's supposed descent from Aeneas, himself supposedly descended from the goddess Aphrodite and the royal family of Troy. The accounts in the first book of Livy's History of Rome and in Vergil's Aeneid were particularly influential. Some accounts further asserted that there had been a Mycenaean Greek settlement on the Palatine even earlier than Romulus and Remus, at some time during the 12th century BC.
Modern scholars disregard most of the traditional accounts as myths. There is no persuasive archaeological evidence for either the Romulan foundation or for the idea of an early Greek settlement.
Even the name Romulus is now generally believed to have been
retrojected from the city's name – glossed as "Mr Rome" by the
classicist Mary Beard – rather than reflecting a historical or actual figure. Some scholars, particularly Andrea Carandini,
have argued that it remains possible that these foundation myths
reflect actual historical events in some form and that the city and Roman Kingdom were in fact founded by a single actor in some way. This remains a minority viewpoint in present scholarship
and highly controversial in the absence of further evidence, with the
arguments made by Carandini and others appearing to rest on highly
tendentious interpretations of what is currently known with certainty
from scientific excavations.
The Romans' origin myths,
however, provide evidence of how the Romans conceived of themselves as a
mixture of different ethnic groups and foreign influences, reflecting the reality of Latium being a mixing ground between Etruscan, Apennine, and Greek civilizations. It also served as a measure of societal control, with the patricians
partially justifying their long dominance of Roman institutions by
their supposed descent from Alba Longan nobility and other legendary
figures.
The Romans took the foundation of their own new cities seriously,
undertaking many rituals and attributing many of them to remote
antiquity. They long maintained the Hut of Romulus,
a primitive dwelling on the Palatine attributed to their founder,
although they had no firm basis for associating it with him
specifically.
While the Romans believed that their city had been founded by an eponymous founder at a specific time, when that occurred was disputed by the ancient historians. The earliest dates placed it c. 1100BC out of a belief that Romulus had been Aeneas's grandson. This moved Rome's foundation much closer to the fall of Troy, dated by Eratosthenes to 1184–83 BC; these dates are attested as early as the 4th centuryBC. Romulus was later chronologically connected to Aeneas and the time of the Trojan War by introducing a line of Alban kings, which scholars consider to be entirely spurious.
Ancient attempts to date the foundation of the city were based on the
length of the republic, counted by the number of consuls, followed by
subtracting of an estimated regal period. Modern scholars, however, largely reject the estimates of the length of the regal period as synthetic calculations.
From Claudius's Secular Games in AD47 to Hadrian's Romaea in AD121, the official date seems to have used the chronology established by Varro in the late 1st centuryBC, placing Rome's founding in 753BC. Augustus's Fasti running to AD13 and the Secular Games celebrated at Rome's 900th and 1000th anniversaries under Antoninus Pius and PhilipI, meanwhile, used dates computed from a foundation a year later in 752BC. Despite known errors in Varro's work, it is the former date that has become the most repeated in modernity and is still used for computing the AUCcalendar era.
By the late Republic, the founding had also become closely associated with the Parilian Festival celebrated annually on April 21. This festival was originally concerned with the purification of shepherds and herds of sheep
in the countryside around Rome, but eventually became so associated
with Rome's foundation myth that it was restructured as the urban Romaea
in AD121. The association with Romulus may have arisen from the twins' supposed foster parents Faustulus and Acca Larentia, who initially raised them as shepherds.
A fresco from Pompeii depicting the foundation of Rome. Sol riding in his chariot; Mars descending from the sky to Rhea Silvia lying in the grass; Mercury shows to Venus the she-wolf suckling the twins; in the lower corners of the picture: river-god Tiberinus and water-goddess Juturna. 35–45 AD.
In the best known form of the legend, Romulus and Remus are the grandsons of Numitor, the king of Alba Longa. After Numitor is deposed by his brother Amulius and his daughter Rhea Silvia is forced to become a Vestal virgin, she becomes pregnant – allegedly raped by the war godMars – and delivers the two illegitimate brothers. Amulius orders that the children be left to die on the slopes of the Palatine or in the Tiber River, but they are suckled by a she-wolf at the Lupercal and then discovered by the shepherd Faustulus and taken in by him and his wife Acca Larentia. (Livy combines Larentia and the she-wolf, considering them most likely to have referred to a prostitute, also known in Latin slang as a lupa or she-wolf.)
Faustulus eventually reveals the brothers' true origins, and they
depose or murder Amulius and restore Numitor to his throne. They then
leave or are sent to establish a new city at the location where they had
been rescued.
The twins then come into conflict during the foundation of the
city, leading to the murder of Remus. The dispute is variously said to
have been over the naming of the new city, over the interpretation of auguries,[63] whether to place it on the Palatine or Aventine Hill, or concerned with Remus's disrespect of the new town's ritual furrow
or wall. Some accounts say Romulus slays his brother with his own hand,
others that Remus and sometimes Faustulus are killed in a general
melee. Wiseman and some others attribute the aspects of fratricide to the 4th-century BC Conflict of the Orders, when Rome's lower-class plebeians began to resist excesses by the upper-class patricians.
Romulus, after ritualistically ploughing the generally square course of the city's future boundary, erects its first walls
and declares the settlement an asylum for exiles, criminals, and
runaway slaves. The city becomes larger but also acquires a mostly male
population. When Romulus' attempts to secure the women of neighbouring settlements by diplomacy fail, he uses the religious celebration of Consualia to abduct the women of the Sabines.
According to Livy, when the Sabines rally an army to take their women
back, the women force the two groups to make peace and install the
Sabine king Titus Tatius as comonarch with Romulus.
The story has been theorised by some modern scholars to reflect
anti-Roman propaganda from the late fourth century BC, but more likely
reflects an indigenous Roman tradition, given the Capitoline Wolf
which likely dates to the sixth century BC. Regardless, by the third
century, it was widely accepted by Romans and put onto some of Rome's first silver coins in 269 BC. In his 1995 Beginnings of Rome, Tim Cornell
argues that the myths of Romulus and Remus are "popular expressions of
some universal human need or experience" rather than borrowings from the
Greek east or Mesopotamia, inasmuch as the story of virgin birth,
intercession by animals and humble stepparents, with triumphant return
expelling an evil leader are common mythological elements across Eurasia
and even into the Americas.
Aeneas
Eighteenth century painting by Pompeo Batoni depicting Aeneas fleeing from Troy. Aeneas carries his father.Aeneas's route in Virgil's Aeneid. The epic poem was written in the early first century BC.
The indigenous tradition of Romulus was also combined with a legend
telling of Aeneas coming from Troy and travelling to Italy. This
tradition emerges from the Iliad's prophecy that Aeneas's descendants would one day return and rule Troy once more.
Greeks by 550 BC had begun to speculate, given the lack of any clear
descendants of Aeneas, that the figure had established a dynasty outside
the proper Greek world. The first attempts to tie this story to Rome were in the works of two Greek historians at the end of the fifth century BC, Hellanicus of Lesbos and Damastes of Sigeum,
likely only mentioning off hand the possibility of a Roman connection; a
more assured connection only emerged at the end of the fourth
century BC when Rome started having formal dealings with the Greek
world.
The ancient Roman annalists, historians, and antiquarians faced
an issue tying Aeneas to Romulus, as they believed that Romulus lived
centuries after the Trojan War, which was dated at the time c. 1100 BC. For this, they fabricated a story of Aeneas's son founding the city of Alba Longa and establishing a dynasty there, which eventually produced Romulus.
In Livy's first book he recounts how Aeneas, a demigod of the Trojan royal Anchises and the goddess Venus, leaves Troy after its destruction during the Trojan War
and sailed to the western Mediterranean. He brings his son – Ascanius –
and a group of companions. Landing in Italy, he forms an alliance with a
local magnate called Latinus and marries his daughter Lavinia, joining the two into a new group called the Latini; they then found a new city, called Lavinium. After a series of wars against the Rutuli and Caere, the Latins conquer the Alban Hills and its environs. His son Ascanius then founds the legendary city of Alba Longa, which became the dominant city in the region.
The later descendants of the royal lineage of Alba Longa eventually
produce Romulus and Remus, setting up the events of their mythological
story.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus similarly attempted to show a Greek
connection, giving a similar story for Aeneas, but also a previous
series of migrations. He describes migrations of Arcadians into southern Italy some time in the 18th century BC, migrations into Umbria by Greeks from Thessaly, and the foundation of a settlement on the Palatine hill by Evander (originally hailing also from Arcadia) and Hercules, whose labour with the cattle of Geryon was placed in the Forum Boarium by the Romans.
The introduction of Aeneas follows a trend across Italy towards Hellenising their own early mythologies by rationalising myths and legends of the Greek Heroic Age into a pseudo-historical tradition of prehistoric times;
this was in part due to Greek historians' eagerness to construct
narratives purporting that the Italians were actually descended from
Greeks and their heroes. These narratives were accepted by non-Greek peoples due Greek historiography's prestige and claims to systematic validity.
Archaeological evidence shows that worship of Aeneas had been established at Lavinium by the sixth century BC. Similarly, a cult to Hercules had been established at the Ara Maxima in Rome during the archaic period. By the early fifth century BC, these stories had become entrenched in Roman historical beliefs. These cults, along with the early – in literary terms – account of Cato the Elder,
show how Italians and Romans took these Greek histories seriously and
as reliable evidence by later annalists, even though they were
speculations of little value.
Much of the syncretism, however, may simply reflect Roman desires to
give themselves a prestigious backstory: claim of Trojan descent proved
politically advantageous with the Greeks by justifying both claims of
common heritage and ancestral enmity.
Other myths
By the time of the Pyrrhic War
(280–275 BC), there were some sixty different myths for Rome's
foundation that circulated in the Greek world. Most of them attributed
the city to an eponymous founder, usually "Rhomos" or "Rhome" rather
than Romulus.One story told how Romos, a son of Odysseus and Circe, was the one who founded Rome. Martin P. Nilsson
speculates that this older story was becoming a bit embarrassing as
Rome became more powerful and tensions with the Greeks grew. Being
descendants of the Greeks was no longer preferable, so the Romans
settled on the Trojan foundation myth instead. Nilsson further
speculates that the name of Romos was changed by some Romans to the
native name Romulus, but the same name Romos (later changed to the
native Remus) was never forgotten by many of the people, so both these
names were used to represent the founders of the city.
Another story, attributed to Hellanicus of Lesbos by Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
says that Rome was founded by a woman named Rhome, one of the followers
of Aeneas, after landing in Italy and burning their ships.
That by the middle of the fifth century Aeneas was also allegedly the
founder of two or three other cities across Italy was no object.
These myths also differed as to whether their eponymous matriarch Roma
was born in Troy or Italy – i.e. before or after Aeneas's journey – or
otherwise if their Romus was a direct or collateral descendant of
Aeneas.
Myths of the early third century also differed greatly in the
claimed genealogy of Romulus or the founder, if an intermediate actor
was posited. One tale posited that a Romus, son of Zeus, founded the
city.
Callias posited that Romulus was descended from Latinus and a woman
called Roma who was the daughter of Aeneas and a homonymous mother.
Other authors depicted Romulus and Romus, as a son of Aeneas, founding
not only Rome but also Capua. Authors also wrote their home regions into
the story. Polybius, who hailed from Arcadia, for example, gave Rome not a Trojan colonial origin but rather an Arcadian one.
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