The history of the Roman Republic was a military success story. Texts, monuments and rituals commemorated Rome's victories, and this emphasis on its own triumphs formed a basis for the Roman nobility's claim to leadership. However, the Romans also suffered numerous heavy defeats during the Republic. This study is the first to comprehensively examine how Rome's defeats at the hands of the Celts, Samnites, and Carthaginians were explained and interpreted in the historical culture of the Republic and early imperial period. What emerges is a specifically Roman culture of dealing with defeats, which helped the Romans to find meaning in the stories of their failures and to assign them a place in their own past.
Author(s): Simon Lentzsch
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan-J.B. Metzler
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 428
City: Berlin
Preface
Preface to the English Edition
Contents
1: Introduction
1.1 Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure of the Work
1.2 Defeated Generals and “Traumatic” Memory: Research on Defeats
2: Methodological Preliminary Remarks
2.1 Collective Memory, Social Memory, Memory Cultures, Historical Cultures: Terms and Concepts
2.2 Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early Imperial Period
3: The Greatest Danger to Our Empire: Rome’s Celtic Wars
3.1 The ‘Gallic Catastrophe’: The Defeat at the Allia and the Gallic Conquest of Rome
3.1.1 Remembrance in the Calendar: The Dies Alliensis
3.1.2 Messages from the Distant Past: Early Literary Evidence
3.1.3 The Storming of the Capitol: From the Third to the Second Century
3.1.4 New Foundation of the City and New Ways to the Capitol: The Late Republic
3.1.5 Fall and Rise Again: The Augustan Period
3.1.6 The Catastrophe as Origin: The ‘Gallic Disaster’ in Antiquarian Research
3.1.7 The Capitol in Flames: Early to Middle Imperial Period
3.1.8 Later Perspectives: The Further Memory of the ‘Gallic Disaster’
3.2 Self-Sacrifice for the Res Publica and Heroes of the Barbarians: Defeats in the Third and Second Century Celtic Wars
3.3 Summary
4: Under the Yoke: The Samnite Wars
4.1 Memory in Pictures: Numismatic Evidence for the Defeat of Caudium?
4.2 The Form of Defeat: Testimonies of the Late Republic
4.3 Disgraceful Lessons: The Augustan period
4.4 Forgotten Battles? The Early and Middle Imperial Period
4.5 Outlook: Rome‘s Samnite Wars in Late Antiquity
4.6 Summary
5: The Darkest Hour: The Roman-Carthaginian Wars
5.1 A Noble Prisoner and Chickens That Will Not Eat: The First War
5.1.1 Bellum Punicum: Testimonies of Contemporary Authors
5.1.2 The Example of the Tribune: Testimonies of the Second Century
5.1.3 Continued Torture: The First Century to the End of the Republic
5.1.4 Literature of the Augustan Period
5.1.4.1 An Example of Both Extremes: Livy
5.1.4.2 The Example of the Prisoner: Poetry of the Augustan Period
5.1.5 The Examples of the Consuls: Evidence of the Early Imperial Period
5.1.6 The Example of the Father: Silius Italicus, Punica
5.2 The Enemy at the Gates: The Second War
5.2.1 Contemporary Reflections
5.2.1.1 Messages to the Allies? Roman Coins from the Time of the War
5.2.1.2 Veterans Shape Memory: Testimonies from Contemporaries
5.2.2 The War of the Senate: The Second and Early First Centuries
5.2.3 The First Century Until the End of the Republic
5.2.3.1 An Old Enemy as Exemplum: M. Tullius Cicero
5.2.3.2 An Old Enemy, Reconsidered: The Hannibal Biography of Cornelius Nepos
5.2.3.3 An Enemy of Old: Further Evidence from the Late Republic
5.2.4 Interim Conclusion: The Defeats of the Second Roman-Carthaginian War in the Historical Culture of the Republic
5.2.5 The Augustan Period
5.2.5.1 More Admirable in Misfortune than in Fortune: Livy
5.2.5.2 Enigmatic References: Evidence from Augustan Poetry
5.2.6 Memorable Defeats: Testimonies of the Early Imperial Period
5.2.7 Worthy of My Heaven: Silius Italicus, Punica
5.2.8 Old and New Wars: Outlook on the Following Centuries
6: Conclusion
List of Sources and Literature
Abbreviations
Editions, Sources
Literature
