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Eusebius: Chronica

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Eusebius: Chronica
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Click to Expand/Collapse OptionIntroduction
Click to Expand/Collapse OptionChaldeans
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About the foundation of the city of Rome 
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"But as there is great dispute concerning both the time of the building of the city and the founders of it, and as in my opinion none [of the previous writers] has given a convincing account of them, [it is not possible] to give merely a cursory account of these things, as if they were universally agreed on.  For Cephalon of Gergis, a very ancient writer, says that the city was built in the second generation after the Trojan war by those who had escaped from Troy with Aeneias, and he names as the founder of it Romus, who was the leader of the colony and one of Aeneias' sons; he adds that Aeneias had four sons, Ascanius, Euryleon, Romulus and Remus.  And Demagoras, Agathymus and many others agree with him as regards both the time and the leader of the colony.  But the author of the history of the priestesses at Argos and of what happened in the days of each of them says that Aeneias came into Italy from the land of the Molossians with Odysseus and became the founder of the city, which he named after Romē, one of the Trojan women.  - He says that this woman, growing weary with wandering, (277) stirred up the other Trojan women and together with them set fire to the ships.  And Damastes of Sigeum and some others agree with him. 
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"But Aristotle, the philosopher, relates that some of the Achaeans, while they were doubling Cape Malea on their return from Troy, were overtaken by a violent storm, and being for some time driven out of their course by the winds, wandered over many parts of the sea, till at last they came to this place in the land of the Opicans which is called Latium, lying on the Tyrrhenian sea.  And being pleased with the sight of land, they hauled up their ships, stayed there the winter season, and were preparing to sail at the beginning of spring; but when their ships were set on fire in the night and they were unable to sail away, they were compelled against their will to fix their abode in the place where they had landed.  This fate, he says, was brought upon them by the captive women they were carrying with them from Troy, who burned the ships, fearing that the Achaeans in returning home would carry them into slavery.  Callias, who wrote about the deeds of Agathocles, says that Romē, one of the Trojan women who came into Italy with the other Trojans, married Latinus, the king of the Aborigines.  By Latinus she had two sons, Romus and Romulus and Telegonus, who built a city, gave it the name of their mother.  Xenagoras, the historian, writes that Odysseus and Circe had three sons, Romus, Antias and Ardeias, who built three cities and called them after their own names.  - Dionysius of Chalcis names Romus as the founder of the city, (279) but says that according to some this man was the son of Ascanius, and according to others the son of Emathion.  There are others who declare that Rome was built by Romus, the son of Italus and Leucē, the daughter of Latinus. 
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"I could cite many other Greek historians who assign different founders to the city, but, not to appear prolix, I shall come to the Roman historians.  The Romans, to be sure, have not so much as one single historian or chronicler who is ancient; however, each of their historians has taken something out of ancient accounts that are preserved on tablets in their temples.  Some of these say that Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were the sons of Aeneias, others say that they were the sons of a daughter of Aeneias, without going on to determine who was their father; that they were delivered as hostages by Aeneias to Latinus, the king of the Aborigines, when the treaty was made between the inhabitants and the new-comers, and that Latinus, after giving them a kindly welcome, not only looked after them carefully, but, upon dying without male issue, left them his successors to some part of his kingdom.  Others say that after the death of Aeneias Ascanius, having succeeded to the entire kingdom of Latinus, divided both the country and the forces of the Latins into three parts, two of which he gave to his brothers, Romulus and Remus.  He himself, they say, built Alba and some other towns; Remus built cities which he named Capua, after Capys, his great-grandfather, Anchisa, after his grandfather Anchises, Aeneia (which was afterwards called Janiculum), after his father, and Rome, after himself.  This last city was for some time deserted, but upon the arrival of another colony, which the Albans sent out under the leadership of Romulus and Remus, it regained its original status.  So that, according to this account, there were two settlements of Rome, one a little after the Trojan war, and the other fifteen generations after the first.  - And if anyone desires to look more carefully into the remote past, (281) even a third foundation of Rome will be found, more ancient than these, one that happened before Aeneias and the Trojans came into Italy.  This is related by no ordinary historian, but by Antiochus of Syracuse, whom I have mentioned before.  He says that when Morges reigned in Latium (which at that time comprehended all of Italy from Tarentum to the coast of Poseidonia), a man came to him who had been banished from Rome.  His words are these: 'When Italus was growing old, Morges reigned.  In his reign there came a man who had been banished from Rome; his name was Sicelus.' According to the Syracusan historian, therefore, an ancient Rome is found even earlier than the Trojan war.  However, as he has left it doubtful whether it was situated in the same region where the present city stands or whether some other place happened to be called by this name, I, too, cannot say for certain.  But as regards the ancient settlements of Rome, I think that what has already been said is sufficient. 
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"As to the last settlement or founding of the city, or whatever we ought to call it, Timaeus of Sicily, following what reckoning I do not know, places it at the same time as the founding of Carthage, that is, in the thirty-eighth year before the first Olympiad [814 B.C.]; Lucius Cincius, a member of the senate, places it about the fourth year of the twelfth Olympiad [729 B.C.], and Quintus Fabius in the first year of the eighth Olympiad [748 B.C.].  Porcius Cato does not give the time according to Greek reckoning, but being as careful as any writer in gathering the date of ancient history, he places its founding four hundred and thirty-two years after the Trojan war; and this time, being compared with the Chronicles of Eratosthenes, corresponds to the first year of the seventh Olympiad [752 B.C.].  That the canons of Eratosthenes are sound I have shown in another treatise, where I have also shown how the Roman chronology is to be synchronized with that of the Greeks.” 
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That is what Dionysius says in the first book of his Ancient History of Rome, in which he describes in sequence all the things which happened in the times following the capture of Troy: 
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the escape of Aeneias from Troy, and his arrival in Italy 
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his descendants and successors, who were kings of the Latins, up until Romulus and the foundation of Rome 
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the various accounts of the ancient (283) [historians] about the foundation of the city of Rome. 
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Some writers say that Picus the son of Cronus was the first king in the territory of Laurentum, where Rome is now situated, and that he reigned for 37 years.  After him Faunus the son of Picus [was king] for 44 years.  In his reign, Heracles arrived from Spain and set up an altar in the Forum Boarium, because he had killed Cacus the son of Vulcanus.  Then Latinus was king for 36 years; the Latins derived their name from him.  Troy was captured in the 33rd year of his reign.  Then Aeneias fought against the Rutuli, and killed Turnus.  After he married Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, and founded the city of Lavinium, he was king for 3 years.  That is a summary of what we have found in the books of other writers. 
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But now let us proceed to another narrator of these events - namely Diodorus, who combined and summarised [the contents of] all libraries in one collection; he records the history of the Romans in his seventh book, as follows. 
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