Les origines de Rome: Tradition et histoire by Jacques PoucetReview by: L. Richardson, Jr.The American Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 1 (Feb., 1988), pp. 127-128Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1865708 .

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Ancient 127

257.) Rome: Ecole Francaise de Rome. 1985. Pp. xvii, 274.

TFhe f'atalistic character of' the Etruscan world view is described by Seneca: "'Fhe difference between us [the Romans] and the Etruscans is this: while we believe that lightning is released as a result of the collision of' clouds, they believe that clouds collide in order to cause lightning. For since they attribute everything to the gods' will, they believe, not that things have a meaning insof'ar as they occur, but rather that they happeni because they must have a meaning" (Natural Questions 32.2). In their view of history the Etruscan people had been allotted a limited nunmber of' saecula, at the end of' which period the Etruscan "name" would disappear. In the last f'ew years the appearance of surveys of Etruscan history by K. W. Weeber, Mario TForelli, and Michael Grant has provided a modern pattern of their internal political development and of their international relations. Details are hard to recap- ture, for, although the Etruscans were the most literate people in Europe after the Greeks (thirteen thousand inscriptions have come down to us so far, ranging in date f'ronm the seventh to the first century B.C.), they left no literature. A picture of' their history must (terive f'rom archaeological, artistic, epigraphic, and(l linguistic evidence, supplemented by scattered ref'erences ill (;reek and Ronman writ- ings.

lTheir art, on which we depend for evidence, must be read historically; at the same time, it must be placed in a historical context. In the present book Francoise-H111ne Massa-Pairault attempts to do this, following the social approach to the history of art identified in Italy with the work of Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, whose influence has deeply marked the present generation of Etruscan and Roman scholars. As Bianchi Bandinelli pointed out, many aspects of' Etruscan culture can be explained by the persistently aristocratic nature of, its society from the eighth century B.C. on1. Artisans depended not only on models f'rom abroad but also oni the tastes and requirements of their patrons. TFhe sub- ject of the present work is the relationship of the work of' art to its patrons and the reflection of' a certain social anid political ideology in its iconogra- phy.

'Fhe chronological range is broader than the title would imply. Part 1 examines the role of' the artisan in the developing Etruscan city, using the example of' archaic Rome as a likely parallel. An illustration of the results to be obtainecl f'rom an iconographical study is provided by an examnination of' the mytho- logical compositions of the architectural decorations f'rom the temples at Pyrgi, the ancient port of Cerveteri. 'Fhe subject matter of' the earliest temple is seen' as signif'ying the archaic tradition of' the

monarchy, with the regular course of the dawn and the sun as the symbol of the stable rhythm, activity, and immortality of the king; this symbolism reflects the contemporary Greek philosophical idea of the close relation between the physike and the politike. The terra-cotta decoration of the later Femple A (the Seven against TFhebes) would instead refer symbolically to conflicts between aristocratic fami- lies, such as those that exploded at the end of the sixth century B.C. in Etruria.

TFhe model for such an understanding of the Etruscan transformation of Greek myth, based on the Etruscan view of history expressed above, is provided by a monument examined in part 2. TFhe "Franwois Tomb" at Vulci, family tomb of Vel Saties, an Etruscan general who celebrated a triumph over the Romans during the bitter fighting in the fourth century B.C., was decorated with wall paintings pic- turing various moments of history intimately con- nected in the Etruscan vision of time. A scene from Greek mythology (Achilles' sacrifice of the TFrojan prisoners) faced, as an obvious parallel, a scene from the early history of Vulci. Related to this heroic past is the heroic present shown by the portrait of Vel Saties in his triumphal costume; his reading of the bird omens ref ers to the f uture. Other parallels symbolically join figures from Greek mythology with members of the Saties f amily. As Filippo Coarelli points out, details of the interpretation may vary, but the method is sound (Coarelli, in Dialoghi di Archeologgia [1983]: 43-69). Massa-Pairault collects, tabulates, and discusses evidence from inscriptions, sculpture, engraved bronze mirrors, tombs, and coinage to show how the Francois tomb reflects the emergence of a new "middle class" alongside the older aristocracy and how the situation affected the status of craft workers and their patrons.

Part 3 deals with the last flowering of Etruscan art, craftsmanship, and "national" consciousness before the end of their autonomy, with eastern Hellenistic and Italic styles and themes, and with the Etruscans' final Romanization as reflected in the monuments, including the thousand or so decorated funerary urns of this period from Volterra and other north- ern Etruscan cities. TFhe author is at her best in dealing with this material, on which she has previ- ously done important work; some of her suggestions will surely be taken up by scholars. Unfortunately, the mass of detail, unverifiable hypotheses based on obscure literary references, and the lack of a real conclusion make the book difficult to read and limit its usef ulness for readers attempting to discover how the Etruscans saw their world.

LARISSA BONFAN'ITE

New York University

JACQUES POUCETr. Les orignes de Rome: Traditionl et histoire. (Publications des Facultes Universitaires

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128 Reviews of Books

Saint-Louis, number 38.) Brussels: Facultes Universitaires Saint-Louis. 1985. Pp. 360.

Jacques Poucet's thesis is that not only is the histo- ricity of the traditions about pre-Etruscan Rome- Rome from the time of Evander through the reign of Ancus Marcius-questionable but those tradi- tions can be shown to be false, riddled with contra- dictions and improbabilities, or the residue of an ancient Indo-European system of religion and gov- ernment. 'The rejection of the historicity of Numa Pompilius and implicit acceptance of that of Servius Tullius is significant; Poucet is an ardent disciple of Georges Dumezil.

It has been observed that the destruction wrought by the Gauls in their sack of Rome at the beginning of the fourth century must have been so complete that little in the way of records or archives could have survived. Certain archaeological evidence also supports the totality of the devastation. In his pref- ace Livy expresses serious doubts about the early traditions about the city, finding them more suited to poetic inventions than historical fact. And today very few do not believe that the early record has been heavily interpolated to serve a variety of ends. Poucet's choice of a cutoff point seems rather arbi- trary; he believes in the historicity of the Etruscan domination in Rome but that everything prior to that is a f;abrication of some sort.

The book is divided in half. The first half exam- ines the actual question of historicity; the second is an analysis of the various elements and impulses that contribute to the invention of such a contrived national record. The first is divided into two chap- ters: "rFhe Historicizing Approach" and "The Quest for Confirmation, the Appeal to Data outside the Tradition." TFhe second of these is divided into subchapters on linguistics, religion, political and social institutions, ethnological comparisons, the "new comparative mythology," and archaeology. This is the heart of the argument; the rest is philo- sophical and literary speculation. But in a painstak- ing examination of each class of evidence Poucet finds nothing to confirm any substantial part of the historical tradition and much to contradict it. He is particularly interested in the Sabines and the place assigned them in the Romulean city, which he sees as completely without foundation, disproved above all by the lack of any archaeological record. He tends to stress archaeological material when it is lacking and to ridicule it when it is contradictory. He believes there was no strong Sabine element in Rome before the sixth, perhaps late sixth, century (pp. 85-86).

But the salt route attested by the Via Salaria is certainly very old. Every river of suitable size and course the length of Italy has salt pans at its mouth, and the mountain peoples used the rivers as high-

ways to come down to the sea to get the salt. That traffic would go back at least to neolithic times. Rome's reason for existence was that it was the lowest point on the course of the Tfiber at which a clumsy ferry could cross with relative safety. Within Rome the salt road ran down the ridge of the Quirinal hill and along the forum side of the Capitoline to the ferry slip at the mouth of the Cloaca brook. On the far bank of the Tiber it continued as the Via Campana/Portuensis, and the salt pans were at the river mouth. Rome's early existence was tied to the maintenance of the ferry and the sale of provisions to those coming for salt. 'These would have been chiefly the Sabines and their relations, the mountain people living along the left bank of the Tiber upstream from Rome. TFhe facts that the Quirinal, down which the salt road ran, and the neighboring Viminal were called colles whereas all the other hills of Rome were called montes and that the people who lived there made up the Collina, one of the four original tribes of Rome, seem to set this area apart. That it should also have been the location of a number of shrines dedicated to gods considered Sabine by the Romans is further confir- mation of this. If the Sabines were not part of the original amalgam of Rome, they must have been an early addition. Poucet needs to read Louise Adams Holland's Janns and the Bridge (1961).

L. RICHARDSON, JR.

Duke University

ARTHUR D. KAHN. The Education of Julius Caesar: A Biographly, A Reconstruction. New York: Schocken. Pp. x, 514. $28.50.

It is often said that, given our evidence, it is impos- sible to write the biography of any Roman politician except Cicero. The problem is compounded with a book called "The Education of . ..," which ought, perhaps, to be an autobiography like its model; only so can the effects of events on a young mind be reliably estimated. Arthur D. Kahn warns us there is much speculation in this work; after a frankly imag- inative picture of Caesar aged four, it turns to a detailed historical account of him and his age, in which people nonetheless scowl, blush, and (too frequently) giggle without benefit of evidence.

That is a convention that can be discounted. Kahn has read widely in both the ancient and modern literature, as many details reveal; he is aware of new work on social and economic history (less so on Roman religion, which is conventionally described as in decline). 'There are few actual errors, although I doubt that Roman books smelled of leather or Roman ladies knitted. Judgments on Caesar himself are mostly sensible, although we really ought to be warned that the sources are such that dispute rages

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