KINGS AND CONSULS
Eight Essays on Roman History,
Historiography and Political Thought
JAMES H. RICHARDSON
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available at the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Richardson, James H., 1976- author. | Richardson, James H., editor.
Title: Kings and consuls : eight essays on Roman history, historiography, and political thought / James H. Richardson.
Description: New York : Peter Lang, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019059969 (print) | LCCN 2019059970 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789973860 (paperback) | ISBN 9781789974157 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789974164 (epub) | ISBN 9781789974171 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Rome--Historiography. | Rome--Politics and government--Historiography.
Classification: LCC DE8 .R53 2020 (print) | LCC DE8 (ebook) | DDC 937--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059969
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059970
Cover image: La table claudienne (detail), Collection de Lugdunum, musée & théâtres romains, num. inv.: br.002. Photo © Jean-Michel Degueule, Christian Thioc.
Cover design by Peter Lang Ltd.
ISBN 978-1-78997-386-0 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78997-415-7 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-78997-416-4 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78997-417-1 (mobi)
© Peter Lang AG 2020
Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,
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James H. Richardson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this Work.
All rights reserved.
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For Peter Wiseman
About the author
James H. Richardson is Associate Professor of Classics at Massey University. He is the author of The Fabii and the Gauls: Studies in Historical Thought and Historiography in Republican Rome and the co-editor of a number of volumes, including Priests and State in the Roman World and The Roman Historical Tradition: Regal and Republican Rome.
About the book
From the beginning, kings ruled Rome; Lucius Brutus established freedom and the consulship. So wrote the Roman historian Tacitus in the second century AD, but the view was orthodox. It is still widely accepted today.
But how could the Romans of later times have possibly known anything about the origins of Rome, the rule and subsequent expulsion of their kings or the creation of the Republic when all those events took place centuries before anyone wrote any account of them? And just how useful are those later accounts, those few that happen to survive, when the Romans not only viewed the past in light of the present but also retold stories of past events in ways designed to meet contemporary needs?
This book attempts to assess what the Romans wrote about the early development of their state. While it may not, in the end, be possible to say very much about archaic Rome, it is certainly possible to draw conclusions about later political ideas and their influence on what the Romans said about their past, about the writing of history at Rome and about the role that stories of past events could play even centuries later.
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Contents
CHAPTER 1 The People and the State in Early Rome
CHAPTER 2 The King and the Constitution: Elections and Hereditary Succession in Regal Rome
CHAPTER 3 The Oath per Iovem lapidem and the Community in Archaic Rome
CHAPTER 4 Rome’s Treaties with Carthage: Jigsaw or Variant Traditions?
CHAPTER 5 Ancient Historical Thought and the Development of the Consulship
CHAPTER 6 The Roman Nobility, the Early Consular Fasti and the Consular Tribunate
CHAPTER 7 ‘Firsts’ and the Historians of Rome
CHAPTER 8 L. Iunius Brutus the Patrician and the Political Allegiance of Q. Aelius Tubero
Bibliography
Index
The dedication of this book to him hardly suffices to express my gratitude to Peter Wiseman, not only for his teaching and supervision, but also for years of advice and encouragement. The book owes its existence to Peter in more ways than one; indeed, it was even he who first suggested, after kindly reading a draft of the essay that forms Chapter 2, that I should try to publish a collection of my papers on early Rome. It is an additional pleasure and privilege to be able to offer it to him in the year, if not quite on the occasion, of his eightieth birthday.
Thanks are also due to Philip Dunshea, the commissioning editor at Peter Lang, for his help with organising the project and for his supportive approach from the very start, Lucy Melville, for seeing the book through the various stages of production and the press’ anonymous referees for all their useful feedback. With such excellent advice from so many different sources, it goes without saying that all the problems and errors that remain are entirely my own. The research and writing of Chapters 1, 2 and 6 were greatly helped by a Marsden grant and I am extremely grateful to the Royal Society of New