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  • 1 - The Sources for Early Roman History

  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, University of Liverpool, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990, pp 1-29

  • Summary

    This chapter first deals with the main literary and archaeological sources for early Roman history. Then, it considers the type of material which was at the disposal of the historians of Rome for the regal period and the fifth century and how they used it. Roman historiography began at the end of the third century BC, but the earliest historical work was almost certainly the epic poem on the First Punic War written in the later third century by one of the combatants, Cn. Naevius. Iunius Gracchanus and Sempronius Tuditanus, Cincius, Q. Cornificius, Nigidius Figulus, Cornelius Nepos and Atticus, who made the first serious attempts to utilize the principles set by Eratosthenes to establish Roman chronology. At all events the surviving inscriptions earlier than the tombs of the Scipios in the third century are meagre and highly controversial, adding knowledge of early Roman history. Roman historical information comes mainly from the annalists particularly Livy and Timaeus.