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The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History
by Alexandre Grandazzi (Translator: Jane Marie Todd)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Cornell University Press (1997-11)
ISBN: 080148247X
EAN: 9780801482472
Dewy Decimal #: 937
Paperback: 272 pages
SKU: 08040076
Condition: Like New As issued n
Comments: Paperback. Like new condition with owners stamp on title page. no markings and no creases to spine or cover. Very slight wear to cover. Near fine copy.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
"The Foundation of Rome is one of the few intelligent books on the subject, neither hypercritical nor visionary; its particular strength lies in the skillful interweaving of modern historiography and ideology with ancient history."--Jerzy Linderski, University of North Carolina At once a historical essay and a self-conscious meditation on the writing of history, The Foundation of Rome takes as its starting point a series of accounts of Rome's origins offered over the course of centuries. Alexandre Grandazzi places these accounts in their contemporary contexts and shows how the growing sophistication in methodology gradually changed the accepted views of the city's origins. He looks, for example, at the hypercritical philology of the nineteenth century which cast aside everything that could not be verified. He then explains how the increase in archaeological discoveries and changing archaeological techniques influenced the story of Rome's birth. Grandazzi produces a depiction of Rome's origins that is both up-to-date and provocative. His use of scientific parallels in describing changes in the ways texts were analyzed and his broad familiarity with comparative material make his synthesis particularly illuminating, and he writes with clarity, verve, and wit.
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Customer Reviews
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Too much blather
Rating  (2)
Date: 2003-09-26
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
How have important archaeological discoveries of the last half-century revolutionized our thinking about the origins of Rome, especially the foundation myth of Romulus? That's the subject of this book, and it's a fascinating one - the subject, that is, NOT the book. Grandazzi does present a few interesting ideas, but they are few and far between, and could easily have appeared in a 30-page monograph rather than a book-length work. Much too much of the book is filled with digressions such as this one: "Paradoxically, it is the technological development made possible by the use of computers that has raised the risk of rigidifying this still necessary evolution. On the luminescent screens of these miraculous little machines, which archaeologists for good reason put to great use, the date attached to each of the catalogued objects is stripped of it hypothetical character and acquires a legitimacy, an obviousness, an objectivity - the weight of reality in short." This kind of blather goes on for page after page. And despite the fact this is a paperback reprint of a previous hardcover, there remain uncorrected errors in spelling (Asier for Aesir, the Norse gods; Tarquinius Piscus for Tarquinius Priscus) as well as errors in the footnoted references to other works (the wrong date for an article in a philological journal, for example). Readers interested in the subject will find much greater rewards in THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME by T.J. Cornell, who deals with the same material in far greater depth and proves that even the most complex issues can be clearly presented and cogently argued. More theoretical but equally disciplined is REMUS: A ROMAN MYTH by T.P. Wiseman, who presents ideas far more daring than those of Grandazzi yet still keeps his feet firmly on the ground (and his prose firmly on subject).
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