. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. roic ancestors. Every family had itstraditions, as glorious and as authentic as those of thedescendants of Brian Boru. When literature came intofashion and needy Greek scribes offered a plausible stilus toany rich patron, Roman history began to exist, sometimesbearing respectable Roman names but always written inGreek. It is thus that we get the series of heroic actionsattributed to Fabii and Horatii and deeds of wicked prideascribed to ancestral Claudii. Whatever it may cost us inpangs for the fate of pretty tales I fe
. The grandeur that was Rome; a survey of Roman culture and civilisation:. roic ancestors. Every family had itstraditions, as glorious and as authentic as those of thedescendants of Brian Boru. When literature came intofashion and needy Greek scribes offered a plausible stilus toany rich patron, Roman history began to exist, sometimesbearing respectable Roman names but always written inGreek. It is thus that we get the series of heroic actionsattributed to Fabii and Horatii and deeds of wicked prideascribed to ancestral Claudii. Whatever it may cost us inpangs for the fate of pretty tales I fear we must not scrupleto use the knife freely in this region of literary history. Aglance at the following coincidences will help to allay ourscruples: Tarquin the Roman tyrant was driven out in thesame year as Hippias the Athenian tyrant (510 );the Twelve Tables at Rome were drawn up in the sameyear as the code of Protagoras at Thurii (451 ); 300Fabii died to a man in the battle of Cremera just about thesame time as 300 Spartans died to a man with Leonidas at24. THE BEGINNINGS OF ROMEThermopylae in 480 To put it briefly : Nothing anteriorto the Gallic invasion of 390 and very little for nearlyanother century can be accepted on literary evidence alone. 50 far as we can read the stones, the earliest Rome con-sisted of a settlement on the Palatine Hill, with a citadeland a temple on the Capitol, and with a forum or market onthe low ground between them. On the Esquiline Hill was aplebeian settlement. It was a pastoral and agricultural com-munity, expressing wealth in terms of cattle, ploughing andreaping so much of the Campagna as their farmers couldreach in a day or their armies protect. From the very earliesttimes the community consisted of a few great houses ofpatrician blood with numerous clients and slaves. In everyhouse the father was king absolute, with power of life anddeath over his sons, daughters, and slaves. Daughters passedfrom the hand of the father
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