Die Frühgeschichte Roms aus der Sicht eines Prähistorikers

Abstract

This paper aims to develop a framework of early Roman history from the 10th century to around 300 BC with the help of grave finds and inscriptions on the one hand, and with historical sources – but without the stories of acting individuals – on the other. In this undertaking, distribution maps play a central role (Figs. 1-3; 5-7). The distribution of Latin and Etruscan inscriptions indicate that Rome was founded by the Latins (Fig. 1). The distribution of tombs (Figs. 2; 5), which were equipped in fundamentally different ways (Fig. 4), the distribution of inscriptions from the 7th-5th centuries BC (Figs. 2; 3) and the historical sources all show that the Tiber was the border between the Etruscans and the Latins from the 10th century onwards. Even when Augustus divided Italy into regions, the Tiber remained the border between Etruria and Latium, and thus Rome remained the border city. In chapters 4 and 5, the historical tradition is dealt with from a structural point of view: Rome as one of the Latin communities (populi Latini) and the “populus” as the politically acting community (state) up until the Augustan period, when Augustus calls the Roman Empire the “imperium populi Romani”. In chapter 6, the early history of Rome is presented in context and the expansion of Roman rule is shown by means of the founding of colonies (Fig. 6). In comparison with the written sources on the Etruscans, those for Rome are rather scarce. On the basis of the graves and inscriptions (Figs. 7; 8), it can be further shown that there was no Etruscan conquest of Campania in the 7th/6th century BC, but rather that the Etruscans had been settling there since the 10th century BC.