Rome : day one / Andrea Carandini ; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carandini, Andrea, author.

Contributor:

Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954- translator.

Language:

English

Italian

Subjects (All):

Romulus, King of Rome.

Romulus.

Excavations (Archaeology).

Archaeology and history--Italy.

Archaeology and history.

Rome--History--Kings, 753-510 B.C.

Rome.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (184 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2018.

Summary:

Andrea Carandini's archaeological discoveries and controversial theories about ancient Rome have made international headlines over the past few decades. In this book, he presents his most important findings and ideas, including the argument that there really was a Romulus--a first king of Rome--who founded the city in the mid-eighth century BC, making it the world's first city-state, as well as its most influential. Rome: Day One makes a powerful and provocative case that Rome was established in a one-day ceremony, and that Rome's first day was also Western civilization's. Historians tell us that there is no more reason to believe that Rome was actually established by Romulus than there is to believe that he was suckled by a she-wolf. But Carandini, drawing on his own excavations as well as historical and literary sources, argues that the core of Rome's founding myth is not purely mythical. In this illustrated account, he makes the case that a king whose name might have been Romulus founded Rome one April 21st in the mid-eighth century BC, most likely in a ceremony in which a white bull and cow pulled a plow to trace the position of a wall marking the blessed soil of the new city. This ceremony establishing the Palatine Wall, which Carandini discovered, inaugurated the political life of a city that, through its later empire, would influence much of the world. Uncovering the birth of a city that gave birth to a world, Rome: Day One reveals as never before a truly epochal event.

Contents:

First thoughts

An epochal event

The site of Rome before Rome

The places of Rome

Remus and Romulus and the kings of Alba Longa

The Palatine

The preliminary rite on the Aventine

The blessing of the Palatine and the founding of Roma quadrata

The founding of the forum, the capitol, and the citadel

The forum

The capitolium and the arx

The ordering of the regnum, or the constitutio romuli

The ordering of time

The ordering of space and men

Enemies.

Notes:

First thoughts. An epochal event. The site of Rome before Rome. The places of Rome. Remus and Romulus and the kings of Alba Longa. The Palatine. The preliminary rite on the Aventine. The blessing of the Palatine and the founding of Roma quadrata. The founding of the forum, the capitol, and the citadel. The forum. The capitolium and the arx. The ordering of the regnum, or the constitutio romuli. The ordering of time. The ordering of space and men. Enemies

"First published in Italian under the title Roma: Il Primo Giorno by Gius. Laterza & Figli S.p.A., Rome, in 2007"--T.p. verso

Originaltitel: Roma

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781400838066

1400838061

OCLC:

1259591212