Talk:Roman Kingdom

Suggested additions

This article is a good summary of the traditional history as presented in Livy but I feel like it could use more input from modern scholarship. There are some archeological findings that date from this era and some significant commentary from modern historians, some of whom are listed as "further reading" but not used as sources.

The traditional account is notable and much more detailed than anything we can piece together from archaeology so I think it's fine to include it here in this level of detail. That said, it's much more of a literary tradition than a historical one and there should probably be more than a few passing references to the fact that most modern historians consider nearly all of the details of this account to be fiction. The consensus seems to be that the kingdom was a real state but that little information about its history and structure survived by the time its history was written down, which happened more than three centuries after the kingdom's end and more than five centuries after its (claimed) foundation.

If no one objects, I'd like to add a few sections to the end, one for archaeology and one for modern analysis. Both will probably be short since there's seemingly very little reliable evidence from this era. I need to review sources and relearn Wikipedia so this probably won't happen soon but I'll post draft here before going live. Stoiccowls (talk) 04:39, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

There's a great deal of difference between stating that the literary tradition is highly embellished with popular stories, some of which may have been borrowed from other sources, and calling it "mostly fiction", although some scholars are happy to ignore that distinction. A more mainstream view would be that we do not know the basis for the main narrative traditions, because the archaeology of the period can do little more than suggest the background against which the history related by the various sources is set.

I haven't gone through the article this morning to see to what extent, if any, it includes Cornell's The Beginnings of Rome, but having recently reread that, I note that while the chronology presented by Roman sources is very much in doubt, there is good reason for accepting some of the basic narrative of the Roman kings in terms of the establishment of institutions and construction of various works. Cornell carefully notes (on several occasions) that for the most part, archaeology cannot be used to "confirm" the accounts in Roman myth (and I note, "myth" does not equal "fiction", and should not be used to imply unreality).

I also note that your criticism of the article in terms of being based on Livy suggests that it is in need of additional Roman-era sources. I believe that Dionysius has a great deal to say about the Roman kings, while Plutarch wrote lives of Romulus and Numa Pompilius; there may be some useful information in his life of Poplicola as well. I seem to recall that the antiquarians are also sources for the Roman kingdom, in particular Cicero and Varro; likely others. Livy is merely the best-known source, as his account is relatively concise and straightforward (Dionysius can be quite wordy, and he tends to digress a lot, while the antiquarians weren't constructing narratives), but he is hardly the only important source that should be cited.

Any article about the individual kings should mention specific facts cited to their Roman (or Greek) authors, and critical sources such as Cornell will discuss reasons for accepting or rejecting particular traditions, such as the historicity of Romulus, the date of the so-called Servian walls, and many other details. There is every reason to include such discussion here. P Aculeius (talk) 12:25, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! I admittedly need to read more critical commentary to understand the broader consensus and I have a copy of Cornell and Lomas on order already. The current article never cites either at all, however.

Calling it myth rather than fiction is more accurate and I'll be more careful to make the distinction. I've most recently read Beard's SPQR and she makes a fairly convincing argument that most details of the early king's reigns are deeply implausible and full of anachronisms from the late republic era. Certainly, no one can take seriously that the average Roman king ruled for more than three decades or that ancient Rome was at total peace with its neighbors for more than four decades at any point. The broad strokes of the narrative may have some grounding in fact but many of the individual details are suspect, at best. That said, if such views are a minority view I won't give them undue weight.

I'm not prepared to add additional classical sourcing to the traditional narrative, thought it would be great if someone had time to do so. I'm not positive that everything here ultimately sources to Livy; the article mostly cites more recent historical compilations. These sources, I assume, cite Livy heavily but may reference the other historians. I don't have either Everett or Matyszak so I wasn't planning to touch sections cited to those works. I have reread Livy recently, however, and I'm fairly confident that nearly every word of this article could have been sourced directly to him, so it's unclear to me what these other sources have added. Stoiccowls (talk) 18:38, 23 August 2024 (UTC)