How Did it All Really Begin?

[Guest ronbarak]

If you're fishing for informed speculation, I'll bite.

 

My sense is that the founding of the Rome known to earliest historians -- like the unification of Roman Italy itself -- was the unintended outcome of competition among groups that never foresaw the benefits of any sort of unification at all. These groups were initially largely independent and definable by their settlements among the seven hills of Rome. Among these were three principal groups: (1) the salt traders and drovers centered on the Aventine, (2) the outlaws and bandits centered on the Palatine and Caelian hills, and (3) the relatives of the Sabines on the Quirinal, Esquiline, and Viminal hills.

 

The legend of Romulus and Remus was based on some truths. Probably some prostitute ('she-wolf') on the Palatine had one or two boys who grew up to lead other Palatine bandits to construct a fortification of the Palatine against enraged victims from the surrounding hills. This walled hill offered a superlative site of defense, as well as a perfect base for their criminal attacks. To reduce these attacks, the Sabines in the northern hills accepted some kind of treaty with the dregs of Romulus ('the rape of the Sabine women'), leaving the poor traders of the Aventine to face the brunt of the Palatine gang's attacks on their own until they had been terrorized into submission. In this is the probable origin of the divide between patricians -- the families of the elders ('senate') who supported the Palatine leader ('Romulus') -- and the plebs, the larger group on the Aventine (and other hills) whose position was like that of the merchants who pay protection-money to mob bosses.

 

Against this uneasy alliance of "Roman" patricians and plebeians were arrayed all the forces of Italy, some much older and more civilized (such as the Etruscans) and others less civilized (such as the Samnites). Thus, after the deaths of the earliest leaders ("kings") of these patrician gang-lords ("senators"), foreign intervention came often and with unsuccessful resistance, until finally the non-Palatine "kings" of the Tarquinii were ejected once and for all by local patricians, who founded their own thing (the "res publica"). From here, there were a series of accommodations made with the plebs of the surrounding hills (detailed in Livy inter alia), which resulted in a recognizably republican system of laws and government.

 

This is all speculation, but you asked for it. I'd be happy to follow up with the archaeological and textual support for my reconstruction, but I can't promise that it will be totally convincing.

Your description is interesting and thought-provoking. However, one thing I have to object to and that is your usage of the term Senators. Had you used the term Patres instead of senators - I'd had no objection. For justification, cf. Cornell (Cornell, Tim J. 2006. The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). Routledge history of the ancient world. London [u.a.]: Routledge. pp. 245-250)