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In 1903, the pioneering archaeologist Giacomo Boni found a concrete foundation more than 5 m thick beneath the pavement of the Roman Forum. The foundation belonged to a monument of the early Imperial era. Embedded inside, however, was a collection of pots about 800 years older. These, Boni realized, must have belonged to an archaic tomb uncovered by the Roman builders. Although we have no evidence for true archaeology in ancient Rome, there were many chance discoveries like the pots in the Forum.
A votive relief dedicated by Gaius Fulvius Salvius at Ostia, for example, depicts the find of a bronze Hercules off the Italian coast. The statue must have been lost with a ship bringing artistic treasures from Greece. The Romans also indulged in old-fashioned looting. During the foundation of Caesar's colony at Corinth, hundreds of tombs were broken open so that the vases within could be sold. As far as we know, there were no ancient attempts to excavate ruins for the sake of learning about them.
This is partly because the techniques of archaeology and even the expectation that a dig should be more than a treasure hunt are modern. But it also reflects the fact that modern scholars tend to care much more about pre-Roman and non-Roman history than the Romans themselves did. For the Romans, history began with the foundation of Rome, eventually assigned to 753 BC. Other important events, such as the arrival of Aeneas from Troy, had it place before that. Yet, in the eyes of Roman historians, these didn't matter or didn't matter in the same way.
The histories of other peoples were consequential in so far as they had contributed to Rome's rise. Greek history, or at least those aspects of Greek history, such as the Persian Wars and Alexander's conquests, that appealed to the Roman elite, mattered because the Greeks had set the stage and provided an example for Roman greatness. Otherwise, it was only of antiquarian interest. With a few exceptions, elite Romans knew little about the histories of their non-Greek subjects. This was true even of the Etruscans, whose religion was so central to the Roman state cult that Roman aristocrats had once been obligated to learn the Etruscan language.
The future emperor Claudius's 20-book Etruscan history seems to have found few readers. Although many Romans were fascinated by Egypt, they had only a tenuous grasp of that country's past. Tacitus records how Germanicus Caesar, touring Egypt's antiquities, was given an entirely fictional description of an ancient Egyptian empire that extended to Bactria and Cappadocia. Roman authors could have consulted Egyptian priests and texts to learn more about the history of the pharaohs. But, as I discussed in my video on Roman knowledge of the pyramids, they were normally content to rely on Herodotus.
When discussing other pre-classical peoples, likewise, Roman authors often simply reiterated the conclusions of Greek scholars. Like the Greeks, for example, the Romans assumed that the Mycenaean tombs and palaces of the Peloponnese belonged to the age of Greek myth. In his description of Greece, written the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Pausanias describes the walls of Mycenae and Tiryns, made, he reported, from stones too large for a team of mules to budge, as a work of the Cyclopes. He associated each of the cavernous tombs around Mycenae with the family of the doomed Homeric king Agamemnon.
Latin-speaking Romans from Italy and the western provinces could indulge an Italocentric view of history. Romans from the culturally Greek East, however, tended to regard themselves as descendants of classical Athens and could write histories in which Rome appeared as a late and not especially civilized protector of the Greeks. There were, in other words, many ways of being Roman and just as many ways of conceptualizing the pre-Roman past. In the rich cities of Roman Asia Minor, at least some local notables took pains to preserve and recontextualize mementos of pre-classical history. At Sardis, capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, an unknown member of the civic elite erected the so-called Nannas Bakchios monument, an assemblage
of sculptures from the age of Croesus gathered together in the precinct of Artemis nearly a millennium after they were carved. Many Roman cities in southern Asia Minor were built around the ancient tombs of Lycian kings and aristocrats. Rock-cut Lycian mausolea loom over the theater at Myra, which dates in its current form to the reign of Antoninus Pius. At Pinara, likewise, Lycian sarcophagi stand among the ruins of late antique houses and shops. At Xanthos, the ancient center of Lycia, a quartet of Lycian tombs dominated the Roman theater and agora.
Three of these tombs, including the famous inscribed pillar and Harpy Monument, were preserved as the Roman city surrounded them. The fourth, a house-style tomb, was apparently moved to its current position during the Roman era. Other examples of conscious continuity with a pre-classical past could be found throughout the Roman Near East. At Byblos, statues dating to the Bronze Age were reused in the Roman era temple of Ba'alat Gebal. And many of Roman Egypt's greatest temples had changed little in appearance or ritual since the days of the New Kingdom.
The local aristocrats who maintained the temples at Karnak and moved the Lycian tomb at Xanthos were likely Roman citizens, proud of their status within the empire. But they seem to have also harbored a sense of connection with a non-classical past. How much they actually knew about that past is difficult to determine. Their willingness to preserve it, however, suggests that, at least outside Italy and Greece, some Romans had a conception of the past deeper and more complex than the narratives of their histories might suggest. I'm leading two small group tours next spring. One will explore the Roman ruins of Tunisia. The other will investigate the spectacular ancient remains of Jordan, from Jerash to Petra.
You'll find links for both trips in the description. My new book, Leaky Aqueducts, Battle Pigeons, and Mystery Cults, is now available wherever books are sold. You'll find an Amazon link below. Please check out the Told Stone Patreon, where I'm reviewing HBO's hit series Rome. And the are new videos on my other channels, Scenic Routes to the Past and Toldinstone Footnotes. Thanks for watching.
