Dionysius and The History of Archaic Rome

In The History of Archaic Rome, Dionysius purposely viewed Roman history as an embodiment of all that was best in Greek culture. Gabba places Dionysius's remarkable thesis in its cultural context, comparing this author with other ancient historians and evaluating Dionysius's treatment of his sources.

In truth, the last decades B.C. made the historian's task an enormous challenge. On the one hand, the ancient writers knew Rome to be the greatest empire the world had seen, seemingly impregnable in military power and still capable of expansion. On the other hand, they were acutely aware that it recently had barely survived half a century of civil strife.

Gabba recalls to us how little was confidently known of Rome's actual origins in an illuminating examination of Dionysius's methodology as a historian.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.
In The History of Archaic Rome, Dionysius purposely viewed Roman history as an embodiment of all that was best in Greek culture. Gabba places Dionysius's remarkable thesis in its cultural context, comparing this author with other ancient historians