Читать книгу Why Rome Fell - Michael Arnheim - Страница 40

Much of the early history of Rome is based on tradition. But does that entitle us to dismiss it out of hand? T.J. Cornell’s The Beginnings of Rome (1995), covering the period down to 264 BCE, has been criticized for adopting a “too trusting and overly optimistic” attitude to the ancient source material. (Forsythe 2005, p. 4.) At the opposite extreme from Cornell is Fergus Millar, who opines, “So far as ‘real’ history goes, we should forget the earlier Republic, and begin where contemporary evidence begins, in the time of Hannibal.” (Millar 2002, p. 85 f.) Hannibal lived from 247 to about 182 BCE and fought Rome in the Second Punic War, which lasted from 218 to 203 BCE. Millar continues, “The fourth century and the ‘conflict of the orders’ belong in the realm of myth. Yet so apparently purist a decision will not really do either.”—and so, he charitably stretches the period of “real” history two or three generations further back to allow for “collective memory.”