J. H. Richardson

Dorsuo and the gauls

IN THE EARLY FOURTH CENTURY B.C. a band of Gauls descended upon Rome and sacked the city. It was an event of magnitude,1 and the tradition of it was appropriately embellished with tales of Roman valour and piety. The historicity of many of these tales, however, has proved to be highly questionable. The numerous incompatible variants surrounding the career of Camillus and the expulsion of the Gauls from Rome have long been noted; the famous tale of the geese, who raised the alarm when the Gauls attempted to seize the Capitol by stealth may well be nothing more than an aetiological explanation for certain rites; Cicero knew a version of events in which the Gauls ascended the Capitol through tunnels; and Skutsch has shown that there was a tradition, of which Ennius may have been aware, that the Gauls captured the entire city, including the Capitol.2 In spite of all this, there is one story associated with the Gallic sack that has yet to be subjected to a thorough, sceptical analysis: the tale of Dorsuo.3 First let us consider Livys account, for it has been accorded a certain canonical status. Amongst the Roman defenders besieged on the Capitol was an individual whom Livy calls C. Fabius Dorsuo.4 Livy claims that an annual sacrifice performed by the gens Fabia, the clan to which Dorsuo belonged, was due at this time. Not wishing to let the ritual go unobserved, Dorsuo donned his toga in the manner

Authors, Archaeology, and Arguments: Evidence and Models for Early Roman Politics

Abstract Ancient history begins and ends with the ancient evidence. The evidence represents not only the foundation of the discipline, but the material out of which any argument must be built, and it is not possible to go further than it allows. This is part of the reason why the nature and value of the evidence for early Rome have long been, and remain, matters of considerable and sometimes contentious debate. The best evidence, simply because it is contemporary, is arguably the archaeological, but the sorts of questions that archaeological evidence can answer are often of little help when it comes to matters such as the politics and political structures of early Rome, which are the focus of this collection. For such matters, it is still necessary to work with the literary evidence. However, since the historical value of the literary evidence is so hotly contested, the uses to which that evidence is put and the conclusions that are drawn from it inevitably vary considerably. Despite more than a century of research, there is still nothing even remotely resembling a consensus on how the literary sources should best be handled. This paper explores some of the problems with the evidence for early Rome, considers something of the limits and uses of that evidence, as well as introduces the contributions that make up this collection of studies on power and politics in early Rome.