11 TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. A tomb of the Tarchna family has been found at Caere, with the Latin equivalent of the name as Tarquitius, which is probably the same as Tarquinius. Thus the Tarquins may have come to Rome from Caere rather than from Tarquinii. See M. Cristofani, La tomba delle iscrizioni a Cerveteri (1965), appendix 1. Additional support is given to Priscus’ existence by the consideration that Etruscan influence is shown by archaeology to have continued at Rome throughout the sixth century: so why not two Tarquins, as the Romans believed?
12 THE VULCI PAINTING AND MASTARNA. For the painting see F. Messer-schmidt, Nekropolen von Vulci (1930), A. Momigliano, Claudius (1961) 11 ff., 85 f., A. Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins (1965), 220 ff., M. Cristofani, Dialoghi di Archeologia, 1967, 186 ff. The emperor Claudius in a speech (the Table of Claudius, discovered at Lyons in 1528: ILS, 212, Smallwood, Documents… of Gaius, Claudius and Nero (1967), 369; cf. Tacitus, Ann., xi, 23 ff.) quotes the Roman tradition that Servius Tullius was the son of Ocresia, a war captive, but prefers the Etruscan version that Servius was the same as Mastarna who came to Rome after his friend and leader Caelius Vibenna had been killed, and was honoured when one of the hills was named the Caelian after him. The Etruscan version is illustrated by the Vulci painting, though not all details are clear. Three other groups in the painting show single combats in which men from Volsinii, Sovana, and (?) Falerii, are being killed by three warriors who presumably came from Vulci (their names, and those of the towns of the vanquished, are painted in). One important aspect of the painting is that it reveals the existence of Etruscan historical traditions, separate from the Roman: thus Mastarna became known to the Romans only much later, though his discoverer is uncertain: see T. J. Cornell, Amali di Pisa, iii, 6 (1976), 432 ff.
There is no need to follow G. De Sanctis (SR, I, 375, 446 ff.) who regarded Mastarna as a duplicate of Lars Porsenna (p. 75), or L. Pareti (St. Etr., v, 154 ff.) who carried the argument further by identifying Mastarna with both Porsenna and Servius Tullius, who are considered to be reduplications of one person, as are the two Tarquins whom they succeeded.
Macstarna is the Etruscan form of the Latin word magister, and therefore appears to be a title rather than a personal name. That, however, does not necessarily mean that this anonymous hero did not perform the acts attributed to ‘Macstarna’, while if Claudius was right his name will have been Servius and he may well stand in that part of the sixth century to which tradition assigned Servius. Ogilvie (Early Rome, 88), however, is inclined to place him, together with the Vibennae, in the late rather than the earlier sixth century and to regard him as an adventurer who seized the superior magistracy at Rome during the chaos following the fall of the Tarquins.
For the Vibenna inscription from Veii and two others (from Bolsena and Vulci) see M. Pallottino, St. Etr., xii, 455 ff. and the works listed by W. V. Harris, Rome in Etruria (1971), 11, n. 7.
A. Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins (1965), ch, v, has put forward the imaginative theory that Rome was in fact ruled by a series of conquering Etruscan kings from Tarquinii, Caere, Vulci, Veii and Clusium. It is perhaps sufficient here to refer to A. Momigliano’s review of this book (JRS, 1967, 211 ff. = Quarto Contrib., 487 ff.) and on this point to his conclusion that ‘the theory… seems to me to be without the slightest foundation in our evidence’. For Alföldi’s restatement of his theory see Römische Frühgeschichte (1976), 168 ff.
13 DIANA’S AVENTINE TEMPLE. The attempt by A. Alföldi (Early Rome, 85 ff.) to assign this temple to a date after 500 BC as a mere imitation of the federal sanctuary at Aricia has been rejected by A. Momigliano (Terzo Contrib., 641 ff.) and R. M. Ogilvie (Livy, 182 f.). This is only one item in Alföldi’s main thesis, namely that Rome in fact gained predominance among the Latin cities only in the fifth century, and that the picture of Rome’s earlier leadership which is given by Livy is a deliberate and false invention by the annalist Fabius Pictor which has imposed itself on later writers. For discussion and rejection of this ingenious theory see A. Momigliano, Quarto Contrib., 487 ff, Ogilvie, Cl. Rev., 1966, 94 ff, A. N. Sherwin-White, Rom. Cit., edn 2, 190 ff. and M. Pallottino, Comptes Rendus, 1977, 216 ff. Pallottino’s article provides an excellent survey of the recent archaeological work which demonstrates the economic and cultural importance of sixth-century Rome and also assesses the historicity and achievements of Servius Tullius. See further below, p. 471 n 1.
Granted that the Aventine cult of Diana goes back to Servius and the sixth century, its temporal relation to the Arician cult remains uncertain. Momigliano argued that it was the original cult, designed to unite Latium in a common bond with Rome (thus, e.g., old excavations at Aricia provided little evidence for cult before c. 500 BC); however, the evidence does not seem sufficiently conclusive to dismiss the priority of Aricia (cf. Ogilvie, Early Rome, 68). Ogilvie also stresses the connection between the Aventine cult and the Greek city of Massilia: Strabo (iv, 180) records that Diana’s statue was set up in the same way as that of Artemis (= Diana) at Massilia, which in turn derived from Ephesus. The emperor Claudius referred to rites which should be paid to Diana ‘according to the laws of the king (Servius) Tullius’ (ex legibus Tulli regis, Tacitus, Ann. xii, 8); these rites may therefore have been influenced by the federal cult of Artemis at Ephesus and more directly by that at the Greek colony at Massilia.
14 THE REGIA. See F. E. Brown, Les Origines de la République romaine (Entretiens Hardt, xiii (1966), 47 ff. (Cf. some qualifications by A. Drummond, JRS, 1970, 200); Rendiconti Pont. Accad. di Arch., xlvii, 1974–5, 15 ff. The interpretation of the sixth-century developments remains uncertain. It seemed (cf. Brown, op. cit.) that only in the rebuilding of c. 500 was the plan established which the Regia then retained throughout the Republic, but this now seems less certain (cf. Rendiconti). On the rex sacrorum see below, p. 467 n. 5.
15 COMITIUM AND VOLCANAL. See F. Coarelli, Par. Pass., xxxii, 1977, 166 ff.
16 TEMPLES AT SANT’OMOBONO. Beside Gjerstad, Early Rome, see A. Sommella Mura, Par. Pass. xxxii, 1977; M. Pallottino, Comptes Rendus, 1977, 216 ff.; and G. P. Sartono and P. Virgili, Archclogia Laziale, ii, 1979, 41 ff.
17 ETRUSCAN INSCRIPTIONS IN ROME. For the three inscriptions see E. Gjerstad, Early Rome, iv, 494; M. Pallottino, Testimonia Linguae Etruscae, edn 2, (1968), 24; Stud. Etr., xxii (1952–3), 309. A bowl of c. 525 BC carries the words ni araziia laraniia, while the name uqno is inscribed on another fragment and may recall Aucno, the legendary founder of Mantua. For a fourth inscription see p. 529.
18 THE TRIUMPH AND SPOLIA OPIMA. On the triumph see L. B. Warren, JRS, 1970, 49 ff.; H. S. Versnel, Triumphus (1971), on which cf. D. Musti, JRS, 1972, 163 ff. The triumph may have developed from a simpler ceremony in which a victorious king dedicated as a trophy the armour of a defeated foe to Jupiter Feretrius at a shrine on the Capitol. The nature of such trophies is obscure: there were said to be three spolia opima, prima, secunda, and tertia (?offered to Jupiter Feretrius, Mars and Quirinius): Varro, Festus, 202L. The early shrine or temple of Jupiter Feretrius was very small and contained only a sceptre and a flint (silex); the latter was used in the fetial ceremonies for the declaration of war (p. 66). The epithet was probably derived from ferre rather than ferire (cf. foedus ferire): cf. Ogilvie, Livy, 70 f. A denarius of 50 BC shows Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, standing in the temple and holding the spolia opima (Crawford, RRC, n. 439).
19 GAMES. Several Etruscan tomb paintings show Games which resemble the traditional Roman Games, e.g. the Tomb of the Augurs (wrestlers) and the Tomb of the Olympiads (runners, horse racing) at Tarquinii, and the Tomb of the Monkey (horsemen, wrestlers, athletes, boxers) at Clusium. The early fifth-century Tomb of the Bigae at Tarquinii shows not only a variety of games but also wooden stands for the spectators at each side. See, e.g., A. Stenico, Roman and Etruscan Painting (1963), plates 7, 17–19, 34–43.
The Ludi Romani, which were attributed to the Tarquins (Livy, i, 35, 7; Dion. Hal., vi, 95) were celebrated annually on 13 September, the birthday of
the Capitoline temple. Before they started, the images of the gods were carried in procession through the streets to the Circus. Beside these regular Games, special votive games might be held to celebrate some special victory or occasion (seven such are recorded before 350 BC).
20 THE SERVIAN WALL. For the existing remains see G. Säflund, Le mure di Roma (1932); E. Gjerstad, Early Rome, iii, 26 ff.; E. Nash, Pict. Dict. Anc. Rome (1962), ii, 104 ff; Roma Medio-Repubblicana (1973). The greater part of the remains belong to the fourth century (an earlier wall is presupposed in Varro, de Ling. Lat., v, 48). On the strength of a piece of Attic red-figure pottery Gjerstad would date the agger to c. 475. But this sherd could be three or four decades earlier and there is evidence for an earlier phase of construction, so that the first agger could well have been built by Servius Tullius, as tradition demands.
21 VITICULTURE. Pips of grapes are not found before Gjerstad’s period IV, commencing c. 625 BC: thus viticulture was probably introduced by the Etruscans. See Gjerstad, Early Rome, iv (1966), 342 f.
22 GREEK POTTERY IN ROME. See E. Gjerstad, Early Rome, iv (1966), 514 ff.
23 OSTIA. Considerable remains of the Roman colony planted at Ostia in 338 BC survive, but nothing much earlier has yet been found. This does not rule out earlier settlements which would have lain outside Roman Ostia and near the medieval salt-beds. See R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia, edn 2 (1973).
24 THE FALISCANS The early development of the Faliscans resembled that of the Romans: inhumers had mingled with Villanovan incinerators. Their language was very close to Latin. Their chief city was Falerii Veteres (Cività Castelana). See M. W. Frederiksen and J. B. Ward-Perkins, PBSR, 1957, 67 ff. Closely related was Capena, and not far off was Lucus Feroniae (at Scorano), a market town which lay at an important river crossing, where an annual festival (in honour of Feronia, an Italic woodland goddess) and market were held. See G. D. B. Jones, PBSR, 1962, 191 ff. On Decima cf. p. 448 n. 44.
25 GABII. Gabii lay near Torre di Castiglione, some twelve miles from Rome. Existing remains are not earlier than the third or fourth century, but seventh-century pottery resembles Alban pottery (cf. the tradition that Gabii was a colony of Alba: Dion. Hal., i, 84). Cf. L. Quilici, Civiltà del Lazio primitivo, 186 f. Gabii was too strong to be absorbed by Rome without negotiation and an agreement (Livy, i, 54; Dion. Hal., iv, 57). The tradition is confirmed by Gabii’s later peculiar relationship to the Roman state: ager Gabinus remained juridically distinct from ager Romanus, and the Gabine robe (cinctus Gabinus) was worn by Roman officials as a sacred vestment on certain occasions. Ogilvie (Livy, 209 f.), however, is inclined to believe that the shield is more likely to have been a trophy from the capture of Gabii after its revolt in the Latin War in 338 BC. On the site see now Archaelogia Laziale, 1978. 47 ff.
26 EARLY ROMAN SOCIETY AND INSTITUTIONS. See H. Stuart Jones, CAH, vii, ch. xiii; P. de Francisci, Primordia Civitatis (1959), a very detailed work in Italian; papers by A. Momigliano in Terzo and Quarto Contributi; F. De Martino, St. d. cos. rom., 1, edn 2 (1972), which may overemphasize economic and class-division factors (cf. E. S. Staveley, JRS, 1960, 250 ff.) but often provides useful summaries of other scholars’ views together with bibliographies.
The vexed question of the priority of familia or gens need not concern us here. Cf. De Martino, op. cit. 4 ff
27 PRIVATE PROPERTY. Not only the belief of the later Romans but also the need to explain the differentiation between patricians and plebeians require the assumption that private property was widespread if not completely unrestricted in early Rome. Possibly some land may still have been entailed within the gentes. The implications of the words here-dium and mancipatio are not clear. In the Twelve Tables heredium, hereditary estate, meant ‘orchard’ (hortus), not ‘fields’ (Pliny, Nat. Hist., xix, 50), while mancipatio could be thought to have implied originally that only moveable objects (manu capere) could be sold.
28 PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. Political distinction: see Livy, i, 8, 7; cf. i, 34, 6; iv, 4, 7; Cicero, de rep., ii, 8, 14; 12, 23; Dion. Hal., ii, 8, 1–3; 12, 1. Racial or conquered: see, e.g., J. Binder, Die Plebs (1909); W. Ridgeway, Proc. Br. Acad., 1907; R. S. Conway, CAH, iv, 466 ff; A. Piganiol, Essai sur les origines de Rome (1916); rejected by H. Stuart Jones, CAH, vii, 421 ff. and by H. J. Rose, JRS, 1922, 106 ff, who has disposed of the view that the plebeians were matrilineal, the patricians patrilineal, together with many other social and religious differences which are often taken to denote differences of race (the patricians themselves consisted of a blend of races). Mommsen: see Röm. Forsch., i (1864), 69 ff., Röm. Staatsr., iii (1887), 3 ff F. De Martino (St. d. cos. Rom., edn 2, (1972), i, 66 ff.) discusses various views that have been advanced from the time of Machiavelli to those of Alföldi and Momigliano (on the last two see below n. 39). See now also J. C. Richard, Les Origines de la plèbe romaine (1978).
29 ECONOMIC DIFFERENCES. This aspect is stressed in most recent discussion. See E. Meyer, s.v., Plebs, in Conrad (ed.), Handwörterbuch d. Staatswissenchaft, E. Meyer, Röm. Staat und Staatsgedanke, edn 2 (1961), 33 f.; F. De Martino, St. d. cos. Rom., edn 2, (1972), i, 79 ff. The view of K. J. Neumann (Die Grundherrschaft d. röm. Rep.) followed by Ed. Meyer (Kleine Schriften, i (1924), 351 ff), that the Etruscans introduced serfdom into Latium, has not been generally accepted.
30 DIVISION INTO ORDERS. Although some passages (e.g. Livy, x, 8: ‘vos [patres] solos gentem habere’) seem to point to the original exclusion of the plebeians from the citizen body, this view cannot be maintained: see, e.g. H. Stuart Jones, CAH, vii, 417 f. Similarly the general consensus of opinion now inclines to a late date (fifth century) for the real hardening of the class distinctions between patricians and plebeians; see the basic article by H. Last, JRS, 1945, 30 ff. This is so completely accepted by P. de Francisci that in his large study of pre-Republican Rome (Primordia Civitatis) he does not even discuss the question except, in passing, at the end (pp. 777 f). Such a view, however, should not be allowed to obscure the fact that during the regal period the patricians claimed many special privileges, even if the sharpest confrontation developed only after the fall of the monarchy. Cf. J. Heurgon, Rise of R., 110 ff. For the recent view of A. Momigliano and further discussion see p. 459 n. 39.
31 THE FETIALES. See Livy, i, 24, 4 ff., 32, 5 ff. (with Ogilvie, Livy, 110 ff, 127 ff.). The procedure described by Livy is undoubtedly very old, but the formulae which he preserves were mediated to him via a second-century antiquarian tradition and so have been subjected to some distortion. Negotiations for making peace treaties were handled by two Fetiales: the pater patratus (presumably the ‘father’ acting for the state as a whole) and the verbenarius who carried sacred grasses which had been torn, with earth, from the citadel, thus providing the envoy with a piece of his own country which he could take as protection against foreign influences in enemy territory. How later Romans adapted this primitive procedure to later needs, including wars overseas, has been discussed by F. W. Walbank, JRS, 1941, 86 ff., Cl. Ph. 1949, 15 ff. and by J. W. Rich, ‘Declaring War in the Roman Republic in the period of Transmarine Expansion’, Latomus, vol. 159, 1976, 56 ff.
32 THE THREE TRIBES. The names Ramn(ens)es, Titi(ens)ses and Luceres were derived by later annalists from Romulus, Titus Tatius and perhaps an Etruscan king Lucumo. See J. Heurgon, Rise of R., 120. f. for pre-Etruscan origin (contrast Ogilvie, Livy, 80, for Etruscan origin).
33 THE CURIAE. See Dion. Hal., ii, 7; 3–14; 21–3. See A. Momigliano, JRS, 1963, 109 ff. (= Terzo Contrib., 571 ff.); F. De Martino, St. cos. rom., 1, edn 2, 146 ff; R. E. A. Palmer, The Archaic Community of the Romans (1970). Momigliano lucidly poses the problems involved. De Martino, in line with his view of the early evolution of Rome, sees the curiae as a stage in the slow process of the transformation of a gentile structure into a unitary form. Palmer sees the curiae as originally separate ethnic groups which gradually fused together to form the earliest community of Rome (cf. Ogilvie, Early Rome, 51 f.); they were not phratries, clans or military units; but were earlier than
the three tribes which were military non-ethnic units, under the later kings and early Republic the reactionary Comitia Curiata dominated by the patres is to be contrasted with a progressive Comitia Centuriata headed by its officers, later consuls. For a criticism of Palmer’s often very speculative views see A. Drummond, JRS, 1972, 176 ff. For the view that the Comitia Curiata had been preceded by a Comitia Calata (which later seems to have been a special form of both Comitia Curiata and Comitia Centuriata; cf. Aulus Gellius, xv, 27) see J. Heurgon, Rise of R., 123 f.
34 PATRES CONSCRIPTI. The implications of this term have been endlessly debated in both ancient and modern times. The general view was that the patres were the original patricians (members of the maiores gentes) and the conscripti the plebeians later added to the Senate. It is uncertain whether the phrase means ‘enrolled fathers’ (conscripti being an adjectival qualification) or patres et conscripti (cf. the phrase qui patres qui conscripti). In the former case early virtual automatic membership (the privilege of certain families) will have been supplemented by the inclusion of other important members of the community, and then the whole body was enrolled as patres. Alternatively the Senate came to comprise patres, who did not need formal enrolment, and non- patres who had to be enrolled (conscripti): these need not be identified with the minores gentes nor strictly with the plebeians, who may not have been so clear-cut a group in the very early period. For the latter view see A. Momigliano, Quarto Contrib., 423 ff.: the existence of a group of conscripti, who were neither patricians nor plebeians (but who later merged with the plebeians) would help to explain the presence in the Fasti of the early Republic of names of consuls that are apparently plebeian: they would have been conscripti (cf. ch. iii, n. 2). Ogilvie (Early Rome, 59) believes that under the monarchy all members of the Senate were automatically patricians, but that this ceased with the establishment of the Republic, when patrician status was restricted.
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