B. Lukács

Subcommittee of Matter Evolution

of the

Geonomic Scientific Committee

of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

&

CRIP RMKI

H-1525 Bp. 114. Pf. 49.

lukacs@rmki.kfki.hu

One reason of the success of ancient Rome is discussed from evolutionary viewpoint. I would like to call attention that Rome was the only city in the region with trial origin.

Rome was the capitol of a great empire two millenia ago; and still is in some sense: it is the center of the Catholic Church. Also, it is the capitol of Italy. In some sense it is a capitol for 2750 years.

It may not be a world record. While Babylon was continuously a capitol for mere 1300 years, Memphis had to share the title with Thebes, and Athens was a local city from IIIrd century to XIXth, Erivan, capitol of Armenia, can claim also a cca. 2750 year span of capitolship (with some historical troubles, of course). However, there is a difference. 2750 years ago Erivan started as the capitol of the Armenian nation, and it is that even now; while Rome started as a city, and grew as the Urbs of Orbis continuously.

Of course, in such a process always one city remains the winner; and later one may explain that the result was inevitable; or, oppositely, may think if it was a mere chance and now we might learn Oscan instead of Latin at universities. The present study wants to list some arguments that in the first half of the first millenium BC Rome was not simply one of the Latin cities. While this in itself may be trivial, also arguments will be given that Rome was not simply the most promising city of Latinum; it was not of merely Latinum. But in two ways.

When King Lars Porsenna about 508 BC tries to occupy Rome and all Latium, in the middle of Italy 3 languages of 2 families meet. North of the Tiberis the language is Etruscan; not even Indo-European. For a while South of the Tiberis, on the Western shore, an area of Latin speakers comes, and farther to South, around Capua, comes an Etruscan superstrate maybe with an Oscan-Umbrian-Sabellian substrate. Sabin (most probably a member of the Oscan-Umbrian-Sabellian group) dominates West of Latium.

Osc-Umber-Sabell and Latin-Faliscan together form the Italicus family; and they are close relatives. However they were not the same language. Instead of elaborate argumentation, I cite the lines 11-14 of the Cippus Abellanus (the first relevant lines), from 2nd century BC, with a mirror translation to Latin:

Sakaraklúm Herekleís úp slaagíd púd íst íním teerúm púd úp eísúd sakaraklúd íst púd anter teremníss ehtrúís íst... =

=Sacellum Herculis quod apud limitem est enim terra quae apud hoc sacellum est inter terminos externos est...

I emphasize, this is a mirror translation. Etymologic correspondences are clear; however recent Slavic languages differ less than IInd century Oscan and Latin. And note that "apud" goes with accusative while "úp" with locative. Also, observe that Latin "qu" corresponds here to Oscan "p". While this is a rather trivial difference (appearing between Gaelic languages; also in Roumanian vs. other Neolatins, moreover Mycenaean "q" developed into Classical Greek "p" also), it is a difference enough. So, Latin, Sabin & Etruscan were 3 distinct languages. It was easy enough for a Latin speaker to develop a partial passive understanding of Sabin or vice versa, more or less via the same guessing method as now between different Slavs; but this is definitely nontrivial for active speech. Oscan "íním" may well be the correct etymologic pair of "enim", but in Latin the text needs "et" or "-que". And Etruscan, as told, was not even Indo-European. Since the Etruscan-Latin language border was the River Tiberis, while the Latin-"Sabin" one the "River" Allia or Anio, Rome was rather near to the trifurcation. So much about pure geography.

Rome has elaborated its official prehistory. In this Chapter I recapitulate that; nothing does explicitly contradict it, albeit also no tangible evidences are available either.

1) Before the Siege of Troy Anchises is a Dardan chief; his son is Aeneas. According to Demetrius of Scepsis, the Aiolian, Scepsis was Aeneas' capitol [1].

2) According to Eratosthenes, the Fall of Troy is 1184 BC; as far as we know this date is good up to a decade. According to Greek and Roman tradition Aeneas survives and is fleeing.

3) According to Roman tradition, Aeneas reaches the sea-shore of later Latium, and makes an alliance with a local chief, Latinus, whose daughter, Lavinia, he marries. Then Latinus is killed in a battle (or miraculously vanishes); Aeneas is the chief of the tribe in a new capitol, Lavinium. (The place name appears in early Roman history, and is believed to belong to a place near Pretica di Mare, some 20 km south of Rome.) Aeneas dies soon, and Lavinia rules for her minor son, Ascanius (or, according to the Iulia gens, including the Iulius Caesars, Iulus). So, as Classical Roman historians elaborated, the Lavinium Kings go as

Then Ascanius founds a new capitol. Lavinium is left to Lavinia, and we are not interested in the fate of the Lavinium Kings. Surely, a male relative of Lavinia (second husband? younger brother of Ascanius? a half-brother?) continues. Ascanius goes to the shore of the Lacus Albanus (Lago Albano), and there he starts Alba Longa. The King List of Alba Longa is quite preserved in Roman literature. Of course, some of the kings can be interpolations of historians, and they are not preserved in external sources (except for some Greek ones, most probably copying Romans). The variation is not large, so most probably all extant lists go back to a Clasical Roman consensus of historians. This consensus list may have been completely fictitious, of course, but it is at least self-consistent. You can find such a list, e.g., at [2]; I tried to collect maximally non-redundant variants, as

The succession in Alba Longa seems fairly within family, at least until Numitor. At the death of Proca Amulius usurps the throne from Numitor, his elder brother, and tries to stop the branch of Numitor by killing Numitor’s sons and nominating Numitor's only daughter, Rea Silvia, as Vestal Virgin. However Rea Silvia bears twins, who are put into the Tiberis. They survive, at the site of Rome. When they grow up and collect a sufficient number of outlaws, they found the city Rome, very near but opposite to Veii of the Etruscans. Just before or just after Romans kill the usurper Amulius and put Numitor to the throne of Alba Longa.

Then the succession is unclear. From the above list I guess Numitor c. 65 year old in 752. His only child is cca. past childbearing age. However royal kins may live. The Alban royal lineage lasts cca. 80 more years; for that most probably 3 kings are needed. The name of the last king of Alba Longa is preserved by Titus Livius [3]. The structure of this name is the same as that of the Roman kings from the second one (praenomen+nomen)and different from those of the earlier Alban kings. A new habit in Latium about 725?

The name Silvius/a often appears in the Alban dynasty. Frazer [4] had some ideas about this: deification of great oaks or such.

Alba Longa was very near to the Lake of Nemi, and to the sacred forest of Aricia; also, Alba was a hilly region deep within Latium. So Etruscan & Sabin influences of the Alban dynasty could be minimal. Also, we may (or may not) assume that Alba Longa may have had some overlordship (religious?) on other Latin communities.

The traditional year of the foundation of Rome is 753; and nobody in classical antiquity gives any other date than April 21. Recently there are good arguments [5] that the foundation should be brought upward, but not more than by 5 years; however for the present purposes this is ignorable. While formally Rome does not start as a successor of Alba Longa, its third king burns Alba and accepts all Albans as Roman citizens. However, in contrast to Alba Longa, Rome is not deeply within the Latin sphere. Remember that Rome is just opposite to the Etruscan territory across the Tiberis, some kilometers only from nearby Veii. Also, the site is not far from the Sabin territory.

When Romulus is collecting his band, he may take some Sabins. Although contemporary Etruscan civilisation is rather urbane, even the acceptance of Etruscan younger sons/outlaws are not impossible. We will return to this in due course.

During the reign of the founder King some Sabin immigrants arrive, with their own King. While the Sabin King dies, the people seems to have remained. And later the 5th, 6th and 7th Kings have strong Etruscan backgrounds. This is the proper place to give the Roman King List:

It is usual to question this list on the grounds that the ruling times are too long. However note that the succession is not the medieval European one: in this list there is no father-son succession. Regular father-son successions would lead to cca. 20 years of ruling time in average [6], [7] but now there is a possibility that the new King was elected rather young. Remember such dynasty founders as Sargon of Akkad, with 56 years of rule.

The name of the 1st King raises the same problem as the name of the city. The etymology of Roma was a mystery even in Classical Antiquity. There is no explanation from Latin. There are even explanations from Etruscan, where the name is Ruma; but of course you cannot expect good etymology from an unknown language.

The name of the 2nd King is obviously not Latin, but a "p"-Italics, so "Sabin". In Latin it would be cca. Quinctilius.

The 3rd and 4th Kings seem Latin.

Then come the "Etruscan" Kings. We will return to this problem in details.

However even now we can see that Rome may have been formed and developed under Etruscan/Sabin cultural/linguistic influences while this may have been much weaker in an average community of Latium, and practically nil in Lavinium or Alba Longa. (For an explicite point see Ref. [3] Book 1, Chap. 31 where it is told that during the reign of Tullus Hostilius, when already Alba Longa was demolished, a divine voice told in the Alban Mountains that the transported Albans should return to their original rites. So the Roman rites were different from the Old Latin ones of Alba Longa.)

We must be very careful in this Chapter, not having a single text from the hypothetically pure Latin of Alba Longa. Latin texts without dominating Roman influence (so without Etruscan or Sabin admixture) are rather exceptional.

Some 20 years ago a stone was found in the ruins of the temple of Mater Matuta in Satricum, bearing a Latin inscription, that the comrades of Publius Valerius dedicated it to Mars [8]. For first guess the site is fortunate being at the southern end of Latium. However see Lucchesi’s analysis [9]: the short text shows obvious Faliscanisms, and maybe the gens Valeria originated from Falerii, the Faliscan capitol. Now, Faliscan may be a Latin idiom or the sister group of Latin, but in any case Falerii was even under stronger Etruscan influence than Roman Latin. So far about pure Latin. However some anomalies can be detected in the Roman Latin itself.

It is told that sometimes Roman texts show Sabin characteristics. E.g. for the word "red" "ruber" is of good Latin form, but "rufus", also used in Rome, is rather Sabin.

There are lot of Etruscan-Latin etymologies. Being Etruscan not Indo-European, this should be via loanwords. The borrowing may have gone in both directions, see e.g. "vinum=vinum=wine" [10]. However, as an example, take "phersu=persona=mask(ed person). This is a "Kulturwort" for a notion even not existing in rural communities. Now, the Latin word is anomalous for form, being masculine with a rather feminine ending. Etruscan, not having grammatical gender, is of course insensitive. Lots of Etruscan words, unrecognised in the present status of Etruscan knowledge, may have gone into the Latin of Rome, while much less into the Latin of the "Old Latins", not in Etruscan neighbourhood.

From the last 3 Roman Kings the two Tarquinii are trivially "Etruscan". The Roman tradition goes as follows. From Corynth, because of internecine strifes, a substantial citizen called Demarathos emigrated to Etruria. His son Lucius (?) lived in Tarquinii and got Tanaquil of an aristocratic family for wife. However this Lucius was a newcomer there and did not get offices. So he went to Rome where he became the tutor of the sons of the King, Ancus Marcius. He was successful to send away the sons (for hunting?) at the death of the King and via a coup d’état he ascended the throne. His usual royal name, however, is not Lucius Tarquinius, but Tarquinius Priscus.

He may, or may not, have been killed by the sons of Ancus (in rather old age), but the successor surely was his son-of-law. His traditional Roman name is Servius Tullius, but even the name is not sure.

Servius Tullius’ daughter, known simply as Tullia, married, however, a Tarquinius, again Lucius (?). Therefore in some sense the Tarquinius "dynasty" and Servius Tullius must be classified together, as many turbulent families. Namely the son-of-law Tarquinius killed his father-of-law and the daughter Tullia drove over the body in a chariot. This Tarquinius King has the traditional name Tarquinius Superbus. It is an obvious albeit uncertain idea that Lucius was not a given name but the folk etymology of the Etruscan "lucumo", cca. "King".

Roman tradition is rather positive about Priscus, absolutely that about Tullius and regard Superbus a dirty tyrant. So it seems that the Etruscan origin of the Kings in itself was not a problem. It seems (not only for us) that the Etruscan Kings modernised the city, reorganised the state in a more effective form and strengthened the army. Even after T. Superbus’ ousting close kin of the Tarquinii led the state (Brutus is a trivial example, but there are many). Lot of state symbols (e.g. the fasces), high offices and good part of state religion (e.g. the seers) have Etrurian patterns. Rome almost became an Etrurian city under the name Ruma.

Almost. However observe that Rome did not become the member of the Etrurian "confederation" (rather amphiokthonia). The twelve cities did not take in Ruma among themselves, Ruma did not take any part in the common Etruscan rituals at Volsinii, in the fanum of divinity Voltumna, and her relations with neighbour Veii remained hostile. On the other hand, T. Superbus subjugated Rome’s Latin relatives and organised a loose Latin "empire" maybe up to Terracina. Rome is Janus-faced: Latin for Etruria proper, while Etruscan for Latium proper.

Let us add again that there is no Latin etymology for Rome, while there is an ancient idea for explaining it from Greek (Rhome, a captive from Troy), there is the unexplained Etruscan Ruma (well, again you cannot expect a good etymology from unknown Etruscan), and there is a serious idea to explain it from Sabin (Ramnensis, the tribe maybe coming with Titus Tatius).

For some people Servius Tullius is the (finally failing) hero of the Latin liberty against Etruscan oppression. And official Roman history tends toward this. His mother is Latin: Ocrisia, some maidservant of Queen Tanaquil, but Tanaquil gets some omens about the child and introduces him into the family. The picture was unclear even for Livy. Servius Tullius suggest slave origin, but this would be shame for a Roman King, and also improbable. Then the story tries with a noble origin but captive status: Ocrisia is the widow of a Latin chief of Corniculum, and she is taken after the siege of their town pregnant. So the child is pure Latin and noble, but Servius (servus) because born in captivity.

However there is another story ignored by modest Livy in the court of modest Augustus. It tells [11] that at a time a bodyless penis emerged from the ash of the royal hearth. While obviously it was some divine thing, first nobody knew what to do. (No surprise, T. Priscus was rather Greek than Etruscan.) But then Queen Tanaquil solved the problem. She sent for a witty maidservant of hers, Ocrisia, and told her to remain alone with the divine penis and take it in. And then little Tullius was born in due course, showed the proper omens, and so was chosen for the husband of one of the royal daughters. Who would not take the son of a divinity happily into the family; most probably a son of a mighty forefather, because the penis belonged to the family hearth? But then why Servius, and why Tullius?

We do not understand anymore the gist of the legend; but surely Servius Tullius’ ancestry was not trivial. However there is a third theory as well, published by Emperor Claudius, Etruscan expert [13]. He argued for taking a few local noblemen of Southern Gallia into the Senate. First the senate was not happy. Then Emperor Claudius told about his forefather, Attus Clausus, the Sabin, who become Appius Claudius, ancestor of a strong patrician clan. Maybe the noises were not too happy yet, so then the Emperor told a story about Servius Tullius, who was called originally Mastarna, best comrade of Aulus & Caelius Vibienna. They fought together valiantly, until the Vibiennas died (?) and then Mastarna led the remaining troops to Rome, got a permission to settle down on an unsettled hill, that he named after the dead comrade Caelius and changed his name to Servius Tullius (why just?). Later he married into the royal family.

Note that a votive of Aulus Vibienna is extant, and both Vibienna brothers (as Vipienas) plus Mastarna (as Macstrna) are depicted in the Francois Tomb at Vulci, so the protagonists of the story of Claudius had been documented centuries before Claudius. So the story of Claudius should be taken seriously.

One cella of the Tomb shows two scenarios symmetrically positioned. On both there are some pairs of enemy warriors. On one some Greeks kill honourable nude Troyan captives. On the other a (probably) more tricky scenario is depicted (which we do not know), with names. Macstrna frees bound Avle Vipienas, both are nude. Then 3 heroes (2 nude including Caile Vipienas) kill their antagonists. Since, from the Greek-Troyan picture, it seems to be the tendency to denude the captive warriors, more or less the common opinion is that the unknown story goes as: first the enemy captures the Vipienas, Macstrna and some others, denude them, binds them and starts to kill them; but comrades arrive, in the disturbance Macstrna frees himself, gets a dagger and starts to free the others; and finally the good guys massacre the bad guys. Surely a topic of epics which is now lost on an unknown language.

Probably the crypt was of the famous Saties family, Etruscan high priests/magistrates. And all the names seem Etruscan. So the scenario is an important moment of the freedom movement of the Vipienas/Macstrna, about whom Emperor Claudius also speaks; only we do not know exactly against whom the movement fought. But it is an internal Etruscan affair; only one of the persons will later be a King of Rome (Ruma).

However there is another wall painting there. Separate; so it may not be part of this scenario, still seemingly more or less contemporary. On it a Marce Camitlnas kills Cneve Tarchunias Rumach, we do not know why. For first sight two genuine Etruscan names. However we can mirror-read them in Roman fashion as: Marcus Camillus kills Gnaeus Tarquinius the Roman.

Unfortunately we do not know the event, we do not know a Marcus Camillus in the proper time, and it is interesting that Tarquinius is declared to be Roman but Camillus is not. Still, the pictures indicate that in the time of the Tarquinius Kings Etruscans considered the Vipienas and Macstrna/Servius Tullius as "ours" from Etruria, and the Tarquinius family as strangers from Ruma of Latium. (Latin/Faliscan Falerii is clearly of Etruria, albeit not among the Big Twelve.)

It is possible that Gnaeus Tarquinius was Tarquinius Priscus, the King, so Lucumo/Lucius. Then he was killed not by the nameless sons of Ancus Marcius, but by Marcus Camillus; maybe then Macstrna killed Marcus Camillus, defended Queen Tanaquil and the Princesses, and became husband and new King. (But then why not at least Lucius Tullius? True, see Adversus gentes of Arnobius, 5,18; again [12] repeats it: there the bodyless supernatural father is at least Lucilius.) But of course Gnaeus Tarquinius may be any close kin of Tarquinius Priscus as well. (But then why to depict a purely Roman vendetta in a tomb of far Vulci?)

And a last mystery about the Francois Tomb; impossible to check now, but scholar Bachofen was contemporary of the excavation process led by Alessandro Francois, and repeats an observation of him. The excavation started in 1857, and after a while the landlord Duke of Torlonia ordered the layers with frescoes to be peeled off and to be carried into his own museum. Now during the process one fresco had been accidentally demolished, but previously Francois identified the picture from the inscription, and it was Tanaquil. Bachofen’s idea is that Queen Tanaquil stands there looking beneficially the massacre as nikephoros [12].

Livy informs us that the daughter of Tullius was against her father and for her murderer husband Tarquinius. OK, according to Roman tradition, Etruscan women are manifoldly shameless. Tanaquil would turn even against her husband on a Roman fresco. But the Francois Tomb is Etruscan.

We do not yet understand fully the Vibienna/Mastarna movement. But it illustrates in what high degree Latin (of Rome) and Etruscan (of Rome) were fusioned in the time of Mastarna/Servius Tullius. For example, if Macstarna indeed changed his name to Servius Tullius (but why just to that?), then he changed a honourable Latin (Sabin?) name to a degradatory one. Namely Macst(a)rna is very probably "magister", so "high officer", "leader" or such; and the word is originally not Etruscan, being there the Indo-German root "magis", "bigger". So why was/became the Commander a Serv(i)us?

It is well known in zoology that in hybridization far subspecies often give stronger offsprings than near ones. The explanation is simple: the two parental lineages have adapted to widely different situations, and if the hybridization is successful, the offspring may be adapted for both.

Obviously in Rome’s success the Janus-faced nature of Roma/Ruma is important. Surely, Vulci was originally more urbanized that half-farmer Ruma. Also, pure Alba Longa in the center of Latium kept the pure Latin religion and lifestyle better than Etruscan-tainted Roma in two hour distance from Veii. However Rome could outfarming and outmarching Veii, and outcivilizing Alba Longa.

But Rome’s origin is not dual but trial; its symbol is not two-headed Janus, but three-headed Triglav of the Slovenians, because of the inherent Sabin component as well. The trial collisions are infrequent as we know from Statistical Physics. But the trial contact was possible only at the confluence of Tiberis and Anio. Etrurians to North, Latins to South, Sabins to East, across Anio.

This was the peculiarity of Rome.

This work was somewhat triggered by [14], whose viewpoint seems quite sound for me. While I am a physicist, I am happy that I learnt Latin in school and thank the good Hungarian Latin teachers & schoolbooks even in the 60’s.

[1] Strabo: Geographika. A Meineke (ed.), Teubner, Leipzig, 1903#

[2] ***: http://rome.webzone.ru/gosudar/reges.html

[3] Titus Livius: Ab urbe condita libri. Teubner, Leipzig, 1902-30

[4] James George Frazer: The Golden Bough. Macmillan & Co., London, 1890

[5] C. S. Mackay: Consuls of the Roman Republic. http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/Consuls.List.html

[6] B. Lukács & L. Végsô: Altorient. Forsch. 2, 25 (1975)

[7] B. Lukács: KFKI-1998-02

[8] C. De Simone: L’iscrizione latina arcaica di Satricum. Giornale Italiano di Filologia 12, 25 (1981)

[9] Elisa Lucchesi: Vecchie e nuove (in)certezze sul Lapis Satricus. Poster at the 12^th Int. Coll. On Latin Linguistics, Bologna, 9-14 June, 2003

[10] M. Pellottino: Etruscologia. Ulrico Hoepli, Milano, 1975

[11] See e.g. Archaiologia of Dionysius Halycarnasseus or De Fortuna Romanorum of Plutarch. The relevant sentences are collected in [12]

[12] J. J. Bachofen: Die Sage von Tanaquil. E.g. in: J. J. Bachofens Gesammelte Werke, Benno Schwabe & Co, Basel, 1951

[13] C. G. Bruns (ed.): Fontes iuris Romani antiqui. Tübingen, 1909, p. 195

[14] ***: Servius Tullius. Not Etruscans Not Latins But Romans. http://web.genie.it/utenti/i/inanna/livello2-i/servio-tullio-i.htm

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