Dionysius on Romulus: a Political Pamphlet?

Abstract

Dionysius of Halicarnassus arrived in Rome at one of the most exciting moments in Roman history, on the morrow of Actium in 30 B.C. He lived in Rome for twenty-two years and at the end, in 7 B.C., his history was finished, an authoritative—indeed, he claimed, the first authoritative—history of Rome from the Foundation down to 265 B.C. His work would be the first in the triad of reliable Greek histories of Rome. Possessing his book and the books of Polybius and Posidonius, a Greek reader would at last have a continuous and reliable history of Rome written for him in Greek and by Greeks from the Foundation down to the late Republic.In chapters 7 to 29 of book 2, Dionysius gave an analytic account of the ordinances of Romulus, painting him in the character of a Greek nomothetes, responsible for nearly everything that was fundamental in Romanità.

La validez en la ley arcaica. Reflexiones comparativas respecto de las Doce Tablas y las Leges Regiae

“…Hal. 2.7-29), como una suerte de cápsula literaria precisa y autocontenida 17 , como si hubiese sido tomada de un documento previo con varias capas de reelaboración. Esto calzaría con los comentarios realizados durante el siglo I a.C. por el jurista Granio Flaco, quien aparentemente habría trabajado sobre un material previo atribuido a cierto Papirio.…”

Roman Women

“…Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing his Antiquities of Rome (2.15) under Augustus, included a 'constitution of Romulus' which has strong links with first-century thought. 6 It provides that citizens must rear all male children (except those who are acknowledged by five neighbours to be deformed) -and the first girl. Apuleius (Met.…”