The First Wars of Rome (753-290 BC).
Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 22384 |
| Format | 16 x 24 |
| Détails | 498 p., 3 maps, 9 color ill., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782251450469 |
What can we know about Rome's early wars? What was the significance of Roman defeats in these military conflicts, all of which were later rewritten as undeniable Roman victories? Certainly, the history of the earliest Roman wars is known only through accounts written several centuries after the events. Faced with significant documentary gaps, their authors nevertheless did not give up on reconstructing the history of the wars that allowed the Romans to gradually assert themselves as a hegemonic power in Italy. These historians even composed very detailed and often coherent accounts of these military conflicts, drawing on family and public archives, inscriptions, as well as oral accounts. According to the ancients, these sources frequently diverged, to the point that the preserved accounts present different versions of the same events. Furthermore, each work reflects the choices of its author as well as his singular reinterpretation of the Roman past, which evolves according to the orientation of his work and the period in which he writes (from that of Augustus to the early Christian times). In a process of plotting archaic history, these historians sometimes exaggerated the number and scope of Roman victories, denied the existence of defeats that other authors nevertheless admitted, rewrote entire episodes inspired by Greek history and considered, more broadly, the first wars of Rome as the beginning of a process of conquest that predestined the city to govern the known world. Based on an exhaustive catalog of the confrontations reported in the texts between 753 and 290 BC. BC (747 entries), this study proposes to analyze the logic of rewriting the first Roman wars, and in particular the complex issues presented by the narrative of defeats and victories, their alternation as well as the intrigue constructed around these adventures.
What can we know about Rome's early wars? What was the significance of Roman defeats in these military conflicts, all of which were later rewritten as undeniable Roman victories? Certainly, the history of the earliest Roman wars is known only through accounts written several centuries after the events. Faced with significant documentary gaps, their authors nevertheless did not give up on reconstructing the history of the wars that allowed the Romans to gradually assert themselves as a hegemonic power in Italy. These historians even composed very detailed and often coherent accounts of these military conflicts, drawing on family and public archives, inscriptions, as well as oral accounts. According to the ancients, these sources frequently diverged, to the point that the preserved accounts present different versions of the same events. Furthermore, each work reflects the choices of its author as well as his singular reinterpretation of the Roman past, which evolves according to the orientation of his work and the period in which he writes (from that of Augustus to the early Christian times). In a process of plotting archaic history, these historians sometimes exaggerated the number and scope of Roman victories, denied the existence of defeats that other authors nevertheless admitted, rewrote entire episodes inspired by Greek history and considered, more broadly, the first wars of Rome as the beginning of a process of conquest that predestined the city to govern the known world. Based on an exhaustive catalog of the confrontations reported in the texts between 753 and 290 BC. BC (747 entries), this study proposes to analyze the logic of rewriting the first Roman wars, and in particular the complex issues presented by the narrative of defeats and victories, their alternation as well as the intrigue constructed around these adventures.