Did The Trojans build Rome

[Eterna]

I agreewhole heartedly with you. Just because somethings can't be totally proven, does not mean that it is 100% false. Many of the Celtophiles still insist that the Gauls never attacked Rome, and that they were the innocent victims like the native Americans. While buffoons like Thomas Cahill proudly proclaim some false geneographic kinship with the Gauls who sacked Rome in July of 390BC. What do a tiny minority of Celts in Ireland have to do with the Northern Italian Celts? This is irrational, but some people like living in the land of OZ. I think Agnes Carr Vaughan in her book on the Etruscans has some info on your point.

[Arvioustus]

I would think genetic experts can and will answer this eventaully as the science is making great strides ;but also pifalls. ( errors abound) Think I read an article that a female genetic expert did on Roman soldiers. She noted that they were of average height but bone density tests showed extremely heavy musculture and where the attachments were showed alot of use. Do the remnants of Troys soldiers have similar? These questions will be answered one day as many more will be.

Edited January 25, 2006 by Arvioustus

[Favonius Cornelius]

Do the remnants of Troys soldiers have similar?

 

I think that is the biggest problem, finding them. Troy is a very ancient city, the chance of getting genetic material from it slim to none. Rome and her empire has left so much more to dig up.

[Eterna]

Do the remnants of Troys soldiers have similar?

 

I think that is the biggest problem, finding them. Troy is a very ancient city, the chance of getting genetic material from it slim to none. Rome and her empire has left so much more to dig up.

I agree thatit is unlikely that any DNA evidence of the Trojans will be found. But, you never can be certain about these things.

[Favonius Cornelius]

Do the remnants of Troys soldiers have similar?

 

I think that is the biggest problem, finding them. Troy is a very ancient city, the chance of getting genetic material from it slim to none. Rome and her empire has left so much more to dig up.

I agree thatit is unlikely that any DNA evidence of the Trojans will be found. But, you never can be certain about these things.

 

And even if you did find one skeleton, who's to say it is a Trojan at all or representitive of the whole population?

[Andrew Dalby]

Do the remnants of Troys soldiers have similar?

 

I think that is the biggest problem, finding them. Troy is a very ancient city, the chance of getting genetic material from it slim to none. Rome and her empire has left so much more to dig up.

I agree thatit is unlikely that any DNA evidence of the Trojans will be found. But, you never can be certain about these things.

 

And even if you did find one skeleton, who's to say it is a Trojan at all or representitive of the whole population?

 

Other possible clues would be cultural (like, e.g., Trojan pottery resembling early Italian) or linguistic (e.g. Italic languages or Etruscan showing apparent links with Anatolian/Hittite). I don't know about the cultural, but I've never heard of any such links. About the linguistic I do know a bit. In spite of what Virgil wrote above, I don't believe there are real similarities between Lydian (which belongs to Anatolian, an Indo-European language group, like Hittite) and Etruscan (which is nearly always said to be non-Indo-European). There is an Etruscan inscription on the Aegean island of Lemnos, but that doesn't say anything about the origins of the Etruscans or of Rome, more about the long distance contacts of the Etruscans.

 

So, if the Trojans founded Rome, why did the Romans speak an Italic language (Latin) with no obvious influence from early Anatolia?

 

On the other hand, the story of a Trojan migration to italy does go a long way back -- to Greek historians of the 4th century BC.

[Pantagathus]

On the other hand, the story of a Trojan migration to italy does go a long way back -- to Greek historians of the 4th century BC.

 

As with the Elymians of Sicily...