State of nature

Scholarly but accessible account from Auckland academic weighs in on when and why Rome's empire came to be.

- NEVIL GIBSON

The ancient Romans were certain their civilisation began on the 11th day before the Calends of May, or April in our calendar. But they differed on whether it was in 763 BCE or the following year. Romulus, having killed his twin Remus, drew a boundary of the city he would soon rule.

Today's historians are no longer bound to the unreliable records of the past. They can use models borrowed from sociology, anthropology and other fields. This means they can build a convincing picture of early Roman and Italian society. The answer to the question “What really happened?” has become much clearer in the past 10 years or so, producing a flurry of new scholarship and a major rereading exercise for those whose knowledge was based on university courses decades ago.

Professor Jeremy Armstrong, who teaches classics at the University of Auckland, has contributed the 10th book of an Oxford series on ancient warfare and civilisation. Typically, this deeper scholarship has widened the variety of conclusions rather than narrowed it.