The message was that succession almost never happened without a struggle or a victim. This was a pattern projected back to the myths of the early kings too: they enjoyed long reigns, but only two of the seven died natural deaths.

One of the offices that always remained restricted to patricians was the ‘flaminate’ – ancient priesthoods of some of the major gods.

Swallows and serpents

There are also signs that even in Rome Pompey was presented, much like later emperors, in godlike terms. This was already a theme in Cicero’s speech of 66 BCE which repeatedly refers to Pompey’s talents as ‘divine’ or ‘endowed by the gods’, singling out his ‘incredibilis ac divina virtus’ (‘his unbelievable and godlike virtus’). Quite how literally

One Greek idea, for example, brought the renowned Odysseus and echoes of Homer’s Odyssey into the story by suggesting that Rome’s real founding father was a man called Romus, the result of Odysseus’ affair with the witch Circe, whose magical island was sometimes imagined to lie just off the coast of Italy. This was a neat, although implausible, bit

Sulla and Spartacus

Opimius was duly put on trial, and though he was acquitted, his reputation never entirely recovered. When he had the nerve, or naivety, to celebrate his suppression of the Gracchans by lavishly restoring the temple of the goddess Concord (‘Harmony’) in the Forum, some realist with a chisel summed up the whole murderous debacle by carving across the

Many mythical stories of early Rome pose the problem of dashing heroes who step out of line to take on the enemy single-handedly. Did they deserve punishment for disobedience or honour for bringing victory to Rome?

For the most part, the Twelve Tables confront domestic problems, with a heavy focus on family life, troublesome neighbours, private property and death. They lay down procedures for the abandonment or killing of deformed babies (a practice common throughout antiquity, euphemistically known to modern scholars as ‘exposure’), for inheritance and for t