The Struggle for Rome: The Place of History in the Roman Republic

例如，罗马共和制历史与公元5世纪希腊历史的一个不同之处在于，没有当代资料。当修昔底德和色诺芬写下他们自己打仗的战争时，第一位罗马历史学家在罗马共和国成立三百年后写下了他的作品。因此，有时人们认为，这一早期时期的许多历史都是通过将当代问题和事件倒退到更早时期而创造出来的，或者至少是通过将当代问题和事件倒退到更早时期来美化的。因此，有人认为，共和国早期的民间纷争不应被理解为对现实的描述，而应被理解为反映了当代已故共和罗马的关切。这项研究将询问这种倒退的证据，并将争辩说，认为这要么是使早期罗马历史完全不可靠，要么仅仅是表面的粉饰，可以剥离以揭示事实真相，没有承认罗马人思考他们的过去的复杂方式，以及他们建立的那种历史罗马人影响当代行为的方式。罗马人有能力在富有成效的对话中将过去和现在放在一起的一些最早的证据可能会在宗教日历的构建中找到，至少在公元5世纪初，在那里，庆祝更早罗马的节日与可能代表共和国建立的节日并列在一起。在整个共和国，通过各种媒体和几种流派来表彰和庆祝模范人物；例如，在共和国末期，硬币上的形象将成为参照一个人的过去美化自己的重要方式。家庭历史、仪式和庆祝活动，如葬礼，往往是高度公开的事务，也加强了私人身份，并以有趣的方式与公民身份联系在一起。通过所有这些和更多的方式，罗马人回到了他们的过去，在不断的重新审视和再创造的过程中，产生了关于他们的起源、基础和稳定以及最终权力的斗争的复杂而丰富的描述。在公元二世纪，提比略和盖乌斯·格雷克斯两兄弟担任了平民论坛的职位，这是一个古老的职位，它的建立是平民试图推翻贵族贵族权力的首批胜利之一。他们的任期导致了两人的死亡，并接近革命。学者们经常争辩说，我们的来源描述教团斗争的方式在很大程度上要归功于他们对格拉基的观察，这其中有一定的真理成分，但也确实，整个格拉昌三人组事件也在很大程度上归功于对更古老冲突的历史记忆。另一个例子是，在罗马战争中，不断积累的胜利不能掩盖灾难的时刻和胜利的加速影响。罗马对战争的描述，以及成功或失败通过铭文、建筑和日历本身永久刻在城市结构中的方式，加强了外部冲突和征服的中心地位。在后来的《共和国》中，我们看到了军事自传的发展，这些自传将历史学家的权威与胜利者的宣传结合在一起。这一叙述将利用所有可用的证据，既提供我们如何了解早期罗马和共和国的描述，也将比较意大利的历史记忆和身份认同的证据。最终，它将展示在极度不稳定和怀疑的时代创造罗马持久形象的斗争，并展示罗马历史记忆的坚韧和成功。

One fact differentiates Roman Republican history from the history of fifth century Greece, for example, and that is the fact that there is an absence of contemporary sources. Whilst Thucydides and Xenophon wrote about wars in which they fought themselves, the first Roman historian wrote his work three hundred years after the foundation of the Roman Republic. It has sometimes been assumed that a good deal of the history of this early period therefore was invented or at least embellished through the retrojection of contemporary issues and events into an earlier period. Thus it is argued that civil dissension in the early Republic must be understood not as a description of reality, but as a reflection of the concerns of contemporary late Republican Rome. This research will interrogate the evidence for such retrojection, and will argue that to regard this either as rendering early Roman history wholly unreliable, or as merely a superficial gloss which can be stripped off to reveal the factual truth fails to acknowledge the complex ways in which Romans thought about their past, and the way that the kinds of historical Rome they constructed affected contemporary behaviour.Some of the earliest evidence for the Roman ability to set past and present alongside each other in a fruitful dialogue may be found in the construction of a religious calendar, at least by the early 5th 1 century, where festivals which celebrated an even earlier Rome were juxtaposed with festivals that may have represented the foundation of the Republic. Throughout the Republic, exemplary individuals were identified and celebrated through a variety of media and in several genres; towards the end of the Republic for instance, the imagery on coins would become an important way of glorifying oneself with reference to one's past. Family histories, rituals and celebrations such as funerals, which were often highly public affairs, also reinforced private identities and linked in interesting ways with civic identity. In all these ways and more, Romans returned to their past, and in a constant process of revisiting and reinventing produced a complex and rich account of their origins, foundation and struggle to stability and eventual power.Two examples show how the past informed the present. In the second century, two brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, held the office of tribune of the plebs, an ancient office whose establishment was the one of the first victories in the attempt by the plebeians to break down the power of the aristocratic patricians. Their tenure of office led to the death of both, and near revolution. Scholars have often argued that the way that our sources describe the Struggle of the orders owes much to their observation of the Gracchi, and there are elements of truth in that, but it is also true that the whole episode of the Gracchan tribunates also owes much to historical memory of older conflicts.As another example, in Roman warfare, the steady accumulation of victories cannot mask moments of disaster and the accelerating impact of victory. Roman accounts of war, and the ways in which success or failure are permanently etched in the fabric of the city through inscriptions and buildings and the calendar itself, reinforce the centrality of external conflict and conquest. In the later Republic, we see the development of military autobiographies which combine the authority of the historian with the propaganda of the victor.Using the full range of available evidence, this account will both provide an account of how we know about early Rome and the Republic, and will compare the evidence for historical memory and identity in Italy. Ultimately it will illustrate the struggle to create a lasting image of Rome in times of profound instability and doubt, and show the tenacity and success of the Roman historical memory.