Beginning of Writing & Greek cities of Southern Italy and Sicily & -- The emergence of Rome

The surviving texts of the eighth through the fifth centuries are generally…

• short

• difficult to interpret

• hard to date

• and overall not very informative

Writing was inscribed on…

• stone

• bronze

• pottery

• the languages in which they are written are often not well understood today

The texts identify..

• the occupants of tombs

• the owner or makers of an object

• the dedication of gifts place in temples and shrines

• No evidence survives of a bureaucratic use for writing, such as occurs in some other Mediterranean societies

• Even so, writing in Italy was closely associated with the elites of its cities, and the earliest written texts accompany their activities

Greek city-states

• city states, in Greek, polis, are a kind of settlement and a form of political military, and social organization

• several became notably powerful, dominating extensive hinterlands and large populations

• These Greek cities made sharp distinctions between citizens and non citizens

• Greek cities of Sicily and Magna Graecia suffered from sharp internal divisions

• During the sixth century Sybaris was the

issues and conflict within city states:

• narrow oligarchies, composed of the descendants of the first settlers, for a long time controlled the best land and the public offices

• strife between oligarchs and the mass of citizens, as well as the sharper divide between Greek and non-Greek, made the internal stability of many cities precarious

• civil wars and coups were common, and could result in the establishment of a tyranny, the personal rule of a single individual backed by an armed following

Why was the location of Rome favorable?

• water was plentiful, and defense easy.

• the Tiber river

• Two of the most important routes in central Italy passed by the site, one from the salt pans at the mouth of the Tiber along the banks of the river into the interior, and the other the coastal road from Etruria to Campania, which crossed the Tiber by a ford here, the closest place to the sea where this was possible

• Three hills that proved especially important in early Rome: the Capitol, the Palatine, and the Velia. The hills allowed Rome to remain protected, like a fortress

• The marsh valley that separated these hills would become the Forum Romanum (Roman Forum), the city’s political and religious center

the Forum Boarium

• a small plain gave access to the Tiber ford; this plain would become the Forum Boarium, the chief market and harbor of urban Rome

• find of Greek pottery on the site of the Forum Boarium show that the inhabitants of Rome were in contact with distant places and that the plain along the Tiber River had already taken up its later role as market and port.

• Later this area would be the site of the Ara Maxima, an altar dedicated to the Greek hero Heracles and associated with commerce; his cult may have been established here as early as the eighth century

the Forum Romanum

• The marsh valley that separated the hills would become the Forum Romanum (Roman Forum), the city’s political and religious center

• The civic and religious center of the city

• the huts were cleared and the valley’s lowest areas were drained and filled

• The Forum would serve as the chief place for large public assemblies and ceremonies in the city

• the Forum also became Rome’s most prominent building site

• the Regia was erected along its edge

the Comitium and Curia Hostilia

• both were crucial to the functioning of the roman state

• The Comitium: a public/sacred space where officials would summon citizens to vote, to hear legal cases, and to make important public decisions

• Curia Hostilia: served as one of the meeting places for the council of elders known as the senate

hamlets

• small clusters of huts that were inhabited for centuries before Rome became a city

• Some shared cemeteries

atria or atrium

large reception rooms that would mark Roman aristocratic houses for centuries