3. Dionysius of Halycarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 1.10-1.13, 1.31, 1.32.1, 1.34.1, 1.41-1.44, 1.73.3, 1.89.1-1.89.2 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 1.10. 1. There are some who affirm that the Aborigines, from whom the Romans are originally descended, were natives of Italy, a stock which came into being spontaneously (I call Italy all that peninsula which is bounded by the Ionian Gulf and the Tyrrhenian Sea and, thirdly, by the Alps on the landward side); and these authors say that they were first called Aborigines because they were the founders of the families of their descendants, or, as we should call them, genearchai or prôtogonoi.,2. Others claim that certain vagabonds without house or home, coming together out of many places, met one another there by chance and took up their abode in the fastnesses, living by robbery and grazing their herds. And these writers change their name, also, to one more suitable to their condition, calling them Aberrigenes, to show that they were wanderers; indeed, according to these, the race of the Aborigines would seem to be no different from those the ancients called Leleges; for this is the name they generally gave to the homeless and mixed peoples who had no fixed abode which they could call their country.,3. Still others have a story to the effect that they were colonists sent out by those Ligurians who are neighbours of the Umbrians. For the Ligurians inhabit not only many parts of Italy but some parts of Gaul as well, but which of these lands is their native country is not known, since nothing certain is said of them further. 1.11. 1. But the most learned of the Roman historians, among whom is Porcius Cato, who compiled with the greatest care the "origins" of the Italian cities, Gaius Sempronius and a great many others, say that they were Greeks, part of those who once dwelt in Achaia, and that they migrated many generations before the Trojan war. But they do not go on to indicate either the Greek tribe to which they belonged or the city from which they removed, or the date or the leader of the colony, or as the result of what turns of fortune they left their mother country; and although they are following a Greek legend, they have cited no Greek historian as their authority. It is uncertain, therefore, what the truth of the matter is. But if what they say is true, the Aborigines can be a colony of no other people but of those who are now called Arcadians;,2. for these were the first of all the Greeks to cross the Ionian Gulf, under the leadership of Oenotrus, the son of Lycaon, and to settle in Italy. This Oenotrus was the fifth from Aezeius and Phoroneus, who were the first kings in the Peloponnesus. For Niobê was the daughter of Phoroneus, and Pelasgus was the son of Niobê and Zeus, it is said; Lycaon was the son of Aezeius and Deïanira was the daughter of Lycaon; Deïanira and Pelasgus were the parents of another Lycaon, whose son Oenotrus was born seventeen generations before the Trojan expedition. This, then, was the time when the Greeks sent the colony into Italy.,3. Oenotrus left Greece because he was dissatisfied with his portion of his father's land; for, as Lycaon had twenty-two sons, it was necessary to divide Arcadia into as many shares. For this reason Oenotrus left the Peloponnesus, prepared a fleet, and crossed the Ionian Gulf with Peucetius, one of his brothers. They were accompanied by many of their own people â for this nation is said to have been very populous in early times â and by as many other Greeks as had less land than was sufficient for them.,4. Peucetius landed his people above the Iapygian Promontory, which was the first part of Italy they made, and settled there; and from him the inhabitants of this region were called Peucetians. But Oenotrus with the greater part of the expedition came into the other sea that washes the western regions along the coast of Italy; it was then called the Ausonian Sea, from the Ausonians who dwelt beside it, but after the Tyrrhenians became masters at sea its name was changed to that which it now bears. 1.12. 1. And finding there much land suitable for pasturage and much for tillage, but for the most part unoccupied, and even that which was inhabited not thickly populated, he cleared some of it of the barbarians and built small towns contiguous to one another on the mountains, which was the customary manner of habitation in use among the ancients. And all the land he occupied, which was very extensive, was called Oenotria, and all the people under his command Oenotrians, which was the third name they had borne. For in the reign of Aezeius they were called Aezeians, when Lycaon succeeded to the rule, Lycaonians, and after Oenotrus led them into Italy they were for a while called Oenotrians.,2. What I say is supported by the testimony of Sophocles, the tragic poet, in his drama entitled Triptolemus; for he there represents Demeter as informing Triptolemus how large a tract of land he would have to travel over while sowing it with the seeds she had given him. For, after first referring to the eastern part of Italy, which reaches from the Iapygian Promontory to the Sicilian Strait, and then touching upon Sicily on the opposite side, she returns again to the western part of Italy and enumerates the most important nations that inhabit this coast, beginning with the settlement of the Oenotrians. But it is enough to quote merely the iambics in which he says: "And after this, â first, then, upon the right, Oenotria wide-outstretched and Tyrrhene Gulf, And next the Ligurian land shall welcome thee." ,3. And Antiochus of Syracuse, a very early historian, in his account of the settlement of Italy, when enumerating the most ancient inhabitants in the order in which each of them held possession of any part of it, says that the first who are reported to have inhabited that country are the Oenotrians. His words are these: "Antiochus, the son of Xenophanes, wrote this account of Italy, which comprises all that is most credible and certain out of the ancient tales; this country, which is now called Italy, was formerly possessed by the Oenotrians." Then he relates in what manner they were governed and says that in the course of time Italus came to be their king, after whom they were named Italians; that this man was succeeded by Morges, after whom they were called Morgetes, and that Sicelus, being received as a guest by Morges and setting up a kingdom for himself, divided the nation. After which he adds these words: "Thus those who had been Oenotrians became Sicels, Morgetes and Italians. 1.13. 1. Now let me also show the origin of the Oenotrian race, offering as my witness another of the early historians, Pherecydes of Athens, who was a genealogist inferior to none. He thus expresses himself concerning the kings of Arcadia: "of Pelasgus and Deïanira was born Lycaon; this man married Cyllenê, a Naiad nymph, after whom Mount Cyllenê is named." Then, having given an account of their children and of the places each of them inhabited, he mentions Oenotrus and Peucetius, in these words: "And Oenotrus, after whom are named the Oenotrians who live in Italy, and Peucetius, after whom are named the Peucetians who live on the Ionian Gulf.",2. Such, then, are the accounts given by the ancient poets and writers of legends concerning the places of abode and the origin of the Oenotrians; and on their authority I assume that if the Aborigines were in reality a Greek nation, according to the opinion of Cato, Sempronius and many others, they were descendants of these Oenotrians. For I find that the Pelasgians and Cretans and the other nations that lived in Italy came thither afterwards; nor can I discover that any other expedition more ancient than this came from Greece to the western parts of Europe.,3. I am of the opinion that the Oenotrians, besides making themselves masters of many other regions in Italy, some of which they found unoccupied and others but thinly inhabited, also seized a portion of the country of the Umbrians, and that they were called Aborigines from their dwelling on the mountains (for it is characteristic of the Arcadians to be fond of the mountains), in the same manner as at Athens some are called Hyperakriori, and others Paralioi.,4. But if any are naturally slow in giving credit to accounts of ancient matters without due examination, let them be slow also in believing the Aborigines to be Ligurians, Umbrians, or any other barbarians, and let them suspend their judgment till they have heard what remains to be told and then determine which opinion out of all is the most probable. 1.31. 1. Soon after, another Greek expedition landed in this part of Italy, having migrated from Pallantium, a town of Arcadia, about the sixtieth year before the Trojan war, as the Romans themselves say. This colony had for its leader Evander, who is said to have been the son of Hermes and a local nymph of the Arcadians. The Greeks call her Themis and say that she was inspired, but the writers of the early history of Rome call her, in the native language, Carmenta. The nymph's name would be in Greek Thespiôdos or "prophetic singer"; for the Romans call songs carmina, and they agree that this woman, possessed by divine inspiration, foretold to the people in song the things that would come to pass.,2. This expedition was not sent out by the common consent of the nation, but, a sedition having arisen among the people, the faction which was defeated left the country of their own accord. It chanced that the kingdom of the Aborigines had been inherited at that time by Faunus, a descendant of Mars, it is said, a man of prudence as well as energy, whom the Romans in their sacrifices and songs honour as one of the gods of their country. This man received the Arcadians, who were but few in number, with great friendship and gave them as much of his own land as they desired.,3. And the Arcadians, as Themis by inspiration kept advising them, chose a hill, not far from the Tiber, which is now near the middle of the city of Rome, and by this hill built a small village sufficient for the complement of the two ships in which they had come from Greece. Yet this village was ordained by fate to excel in the course of time all other cities, whether Greek or barbarian, not only in its size, but also in the majesty of its empire and in every other form of prosperity, and to be celebrated above them all as long as mortality shall endure.,4. They named the town Pallantium after their mother-city in Arcadia; now, however, the Romans call it Palatium, time having obscured the correct form, and this name has given occasion of the many to suggest absurd etymologies. But some writers, among them Polybius of Megalopolis, related that the town was named after Pallas, a lad who died there; they say that he was the son of Hercules and Lavinia, the daughter of Evander, and that his maternal grandfather raised a tomb to him on the hill and called the place Pallantium, after the lad. 1.34.1. A few years after the Arcadians another Greek expedition came into Italy under the command of Hercules, who had just returned from the conquest of Spain and of all the region that extends to the setting of the sun. It was some of his followers who, begging Hercules to dismiss them from the expedition, remained in this region and built a town on a suitable hill, which they found at a distance of about three stades from Pallantium. This is now called theCapitoline hill, but by the men of that time the Saturnian hill, or, in Greek, the hill of Cronus. 1.41. 1. But the story which comes nearer to the truth and which has been adopted by many who have narrated his deeds in the form of history is as follows: Hercules, who was the greatest commander of his age, marched at the head of a large force through all the country that lies on this side of the Ocean, destroying any despotisms that were grievous and oppressive to their subjects, or commonwealths that outraged and injured the neighbouring states, or organized bands of men who lived in the manner of savages and lawlessly put strangers to death, and in their room establishing lawful monarchies, well-ordered governments and humane and sociable modes of life. Furthermore, he mingled barbarians with Greeks, and inhabitants of the inland with dwellers on the sea coast, groups which hitherto had been distrustful and unsocial in their dealings with each other; he also built cities in desert places, turned the course of rivers that overflowed the fields, cut roads through inaccessible mountains, and contrived other means by which every land and sea might lie open to the use of all mankind.,2. And he came into Italy not alone nor yet bringing a herd of cattle (for neither does this country lies on the road of those returning from Spain to Argos nor would he have been deemed worthy of so great an honour merely for passing through it), but at the head of a great army, after he had already conquered Spain, in order to subjugate and rule the people in this region; and he was obliged to tarry there a considerable time both because of the absence of his fleet, due to stormy weather that detained it, and because not all the nations of Italy willingly submitted to him.,3. For, besides the other barbarians, the Ligurians, a numerous and warlike people seated in the passes of the Alps, endeavoured to prevent his entrance into Italy by force of arms, and in that place so great a battle was fought by the Greeks that all their missiles gave out in the course of the fighting. This war is mentioned by Aeschylus, among the ancient poets, in his Prometheus Unbound; for there Prometheus is represented as foretelling to Hercules in detail how everything else was to befall him on his expedition against Geryon and in particular recounting to him the difficult struggle he was to have in the war with the Ligurians. The verses are these: "And thou shalt come to Liguria's dauntless host, Where no fault shalt thou find, bold though thou art, With the fray: 'tis fated thy missiles all shall fail. 1.42. 1. After Hercules had defeated this people and gained the passes, some delivered up their cities to him of their own accord, particularly those who were any other Greek extraction or who had no considerable forces; but the greatest part of them were reduced by war and siege.,2. Among those who were conquered in battle, they say, was Cacus, who is celebrated in the Roman legend, an exceedingly barbarous chieftain reigning over a savage people, who had set himself to oppose Hercules; he was established in the fastnesses and on that account was a pest to his neighbours. He, when he heard that Hercules lay encamped in the plain hard by, equipped his followers like brigands and making a sudden raid while the army lay sleeping, he surrounded and drove off as much of their booty as he found unguarded.,3. Afterwards, being besieged by the Greeks, he not only saw his forts taken by storm, but was himself slain amid his fastnesses. And when his forts had been demolished, those who had accompanied Hercules on the expedition (these were some Arcadians with Evander, and Faunus, king of the Aborigines) took over the districts round about, each group for itself. And it may be conjectured that those of the Greeks who remained there, that is, the Epeans and the Arcadians from Pheneus, as well as the Trojans, were left to guard the country.,4. For among the various measures of Hercules that bespoke the true general none was more worthy of admiration than his practice of carrying along with him for a time on his expeditions the prisoners taken from the captured cities, and then, after they had cheerfully assisted him in his wars, settling them in the conquered regions and bestowing on them the riches he had gained from others. It was because of these deeds that Hercules gained the greatest name and renown in Italy, and not because of his passage through it, which was attended by nothing worthy of veneration. Some say that he also left sons by two women in the region now inhabited by the Romans. One of these sons was Pallas, whom he had by the daughter of Evander, whose name, they say, was Lavinia; the other, Latinus, whose mother was a certain Hyperborean girl whom he brought with him as a hostage given to him by her father and preserved for some time untouched; but while he was on his voyage to Italy, he fell in love with her and got her with child. And when he was preparing to leave for Argos, he married her to Faunus, king of the Aborigines; for which reason Latinus is generally looked upon as the son of Faunus, not of Hercules. 1.43. 2. Pallas, they say, died before he arrived at puberty; but Latinus, upon reaching man's estate, succeeded to the kingdom of the Aborigines, and when he was killed in the battle against the neighbouring Rutulians, without leaving any male issue, the kingdom devolved on Aeneas, the son of Anchises, his son-inâlaw. But these things happened at other times. 1.44. 1. After Hercules had settled everything in Italy according to his desire and his naval force had arrived in safety from Spain, he sacrificed to the gods the tithes of his booty and built a small town named after himself in the place where his fleet lay at anchor (it is now occupied by the Romans, and lying as it does between Neapolis and Pompeii, has at all times Etruria havens); and having gained fame and glory and received divine honours from all the inhabitants of Italy, he set sail for Sicily.,2. Those who were left behind by him as a garrison to dwell in Italy and were settled around the Saturnian hill lived for some time under an independent government; but not long afterwards they adapted their manner of life, their laws and their religious ceremonies to those of the Aborigines, even as the Arcadians and, still earlier, the Pelasgians had done, and they shared in the same government with them, so that in time they came to be looked upon as of the same nation with them. But let this suffice concerning the expedition of Hercules and concerning the Peloponnesians who remained behind in Italy. 1.73.3. Others say that after the death of Aeneas Ascanius, having succeeded to the entire sovereignty of the Latins, divided both the country and the forces of the Latins into three parts, two of which he gave to his brothers, Romulus and Remus. He himself, they say, built Alba and some other towns; Remus built cities which he named Capuas, after Capys, his great-grandfather, Anchisa, after his grandfather Anchises, Aeneia (which was afterwards called Janiculum), after his father, and Rome, after himself. This last city was for some time deserted, but upon the arrival of another colony, which the Albans sent out under the leadership of Romulus and Remus, it received again its ancient name. So that, according to this account, there were two settlements of Rome, one a little after the Trojan war, and the other fifteen generations after the first. 1.89.1. Such, then, are the facts concerning the origin of the Romans which I have been able to discover a reading very diligently many works written by both Greek and Roman authors. Hence, from now on let the reader forever renounce the views of those who make Rome a retreat of barbarians, fugitives and vagabonds, and let him confidently affirm it to be a Greek city, â which will be easy when he shows that it is at once the most hospitable and friendly of all cities, and when he bears in mind that the Aborigines were Oenotrians, and these in turn Arcadians 1.89.2. and remembers those who joined with them in their settlement, the Pelasgians who were Argives by descent and came into Italy from Thessaly; and recalls, moreover, the arrival of Evander and the Arcadians, who settled round the Palatine hill, after the Aborigines had granted the place to them; and also the Peloponnesians, who, coming along with Hercules, settled upon the Saturnian hill; and, last of all, those who left the Troad and were intermixed with the earlier settlers. For one will find no nation that is more ancient or more Greek than these. |
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14. Augustine, The City of God, 18.12 (4th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE)
| 18.12. During this period, that is, from Israel's exodus from Egypt down to the death of Joshua the Son of Nun, through whom that people received the land of promise, rituals were instituted to the false gods by the kings of Greece, which, by stated celebration, recalled the memory of the flood, and of men's deliverance from it, and of that troublous life they then led in migrating to and fro between the heights and the plains. For even the Luperci, when they ascend and descend the sacred path, are said to represent the men who sought the mountain summits because of the inundation of water, and returned to the lowlands on its subsidence. In those times, Dionysus, who was also called Father Liber, and was esteemed a god after death, is said to have shown the vine to his host in Attica. Then the musical games were instituted for the Delphic Apollo, to appease his anger, through which they thought the regions of Greece were afflicted with barrenness, because they had not defended his temple which Danaos burnt when he invaded those lands; for they were warned by his oracle to institute these games. But king Ericthonius first instituted games to him in Attica, and not to him only, but also to Minerva, in which games the olive was given as the prize to the victors, because they relate that Minerva was the discoverer of that fruit, as Liber was of the grape. In those years Europa is alleged to have been carried off by Xanthus king of Crete (to whom we find some give another name), and to have borne him Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and Minos, who are more commonly reported to have been the sons of Jupiter by the same woman. Now those who worship such gods regard what we have said about Xanthus king of Crete as true history; but this about Jupiter, which the poets sing, the theatres applaud, and the people celebrate, as empty fable got up as a reason for games to appease the deities, even with the false ascription of crimes to them. In those times Hercules was held in honor in Tyre, but that was not the same one as he whom we spoke of above. In the more secret history there are said to have been several who were called Father Liber and Hercules. This Hercules, whose great deeds are reckoned as twelve (not including the slaughter of Ant us the African, because that affair pertains to another Hercules), is declared in their books to have burned himself on Mount Œta, because he was not able, by that strength with which he had subdued monsters, to endure the disease under which he languished. At that time the king, or rather tyrant Busiris, who is alleged to have been the son of Neptune by Libya the daughter of Epaphus, is said to have offered up his guests in sacrifice to the gods. Now it must not be believed that Neptune committed this adultery, lest the gods should be criminated; yet such things must be ascribed to them by the poets and in the theatres, that they may be pleased with them. Vulcan and Minerva are said to have been the parents of Ericthonius king of Athens, in whose last years Joshua the Son of Nun is found to have died. But since they will have it that Minerva is a virgin, they say that Vulcan, being disturbed in the struggle between them, poured out his seed into the earth, and on that account the man born of it received that name; for in the Greek language ἔρις is strife, and χθὼν earth, of which two words Ericthonius is a compound. Yet it must be admitted that the more learned disprove and disown such things concerning their gods, and declare that this fabulous belief originated in the fact that in the temple at Athens, which Vulcan and Minerva had in common, a boy who had been exposed was found wrapped up in the coils of a dragon, which signified that he would become great, and, as his parents were unknown, he was called the son of Vulcan and Minerva, because they had the temple in common. Yet that fable accounts for the origin of his name better than this history. But what does it matter to us? Let the one in books that speak the truth edify religious men, and the other in lying fables delight impure demons. Yet these religious men worship them as gods. Still, while they deny these things concerning them they cannot clear them of all crime, because at their demand they exhibit plays in which the very things they wisely deny are basely done, and the gods are appeased by these false and base things. Now, even although the play celebrates an unreal crime of the gods, yet to delight in the ascription of an unreal crime is a real one. |
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