Rome's most important and controversial archaeologist shows why the myth of the city's founding isn't all myth
Andrea Carandini's archaeological discoveries and controversial theories about ancient Rome have made international headlines over the past few decades. In this book, he presents his most important findings and ideas, including the argument that there really was a Romulus--a first king of Rome--who founded the city in the mid-eighth century BC, making it the world's first city-state, as well as its most influential. Rome: Day One makes a powerful and provocative case that Rome was established in a one-day ceremony, and that Rome's first day was also Western civilization's.
Historians tell us that there is no more reason to believe that Rome was actually established by Romulus than there is to believe that he was suckled by a she-wolf. But Carandini, drawing on his own excavations as well as historical and literary sources, argues that the core of Rome's founding myth is not purely mythical. In this illustrated account, he makes the case that a king whose name might have been Romulus founded Rome one April 21st in the mid-eighth century BC, most likely in a ceremony in which a white bull and cow pulled a plow to trace the position of a wall marking the blessed soil of the new city. This ceremony establishing the Palatine Wall, which Carandini discovered, inaugurated the political life of a city that, through its later empire, would influence much of the world.
Uncovering the birth of a city that gave birth to a world, Rome: Day One reveals as never before a truly epochal event.
Andrea Carandini is professor of archaeology at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, and the author of many books. For more than two decades, he has supervised some of the most important archaeological excavations in Rome, and he was instrumental in the discovery of the ancient Palatine Wall and the earliest phase of the Sanctuary of Vesta.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION First Thoughts 1 An Epochal Event 12 The Site of Rome before Rome 15 The Places of Rome 27 Remus and Romulus and the Kings of Alba Longa 33
THE PALATINE The Preliminary Rite on the Aventine 41 The Blessing of the Palatine and the Founding of Roma Quadrata 50
THE FOUNDING OF THE FORUM, THE CAPITOL, AND THE CITADEL The Forum 64 The Capitolium and the Arx 93
THE ORDERING OF THE REGNUM, OR THE CONSTITUTIO ROMULI The Ordering of Time 101 The Ordering of Space and Men 102 Enemies 110
CONCLUSION 116 Literary Sources 123 Index 165
What People are Saying About This
From the Publisher
"Dateline Rome, April 21, 753 BC. Andrea Carandini, archaeologist extraordinary, burrows down through thirteen meters of fill to hit pay dirt—Day 1 of Urbs Roma. What could be more exciting! History and archaeology rub shoulders with Freudian psychology as Carandini, a native of Rome, takes us on an enthralling guided tour through the material and written sources for the primal moment of the City that would create a World, our world. Urbi et Orbi, indeed."—Paul Cartledge, University of Cambridge"A fascinating examination of how Rome began some twenty-eight centuries ago, written by an archaeologist whose many years of excavation have profoundly altered our understanding of the city and its history. Challenging, and often controversial, this book is a rewarding read both for the long-standing enthusiast and the newcomer to the subject, helping us to understand the development of the Roman state which went on to dominate so much of the known world."—Adrian Goldsworthy, author of Caesar: The Life of a Colossus"Andrea Carandini's archaeological work in key areas of Rome will be fundamental to our understanding of the formative period of the city, and is part of the developing fascination with the beginnings of Rome. This translation brings the evidence, and Carandini's challenging interpretation, to a new audience."—Christopher Smith, director of the British School in Rome
