04-29-2019, 06:57 AM
Michael wrote
Interesting... I notice that the Pontifex Maximus from 304 BC was Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, the father of Lucius.
When studying Roman history, it is important to keep the three following references in mind.
Claudius Quadrigarius (FRRH2 1.1) writes that the ancient records now available are untrue because of men wanting to please individuals inserting themselves into first families and the most distinguished houses, to which they do not in fact belong.
Cicero (Brutus 62): These eulogies have falsified our history. Much written in them is fiction, fictitious triumphs, more consulships than an individual actually had, false clan names and false reckonings of some as plebeians, since men of lower status have been falsely introduced into unrelated clans which happen to have the same name.
Livy (8. 40. 4-5) “I believe that the true history has been falsified by funeral orations and lying inscriptions on the family busts, since each family appropriates to itself an imaginary record of noble deeds and official distinctions. It is at all events owing to this cause that so much confusion has been introduced into the records of private careers and public events. There is no writer of those times now extant who was contemporary with the events he relates and whose authority, therefore, can be depended upon.”
Also P. Cornelius Scipio (the son of Africanus) also wrote in Greek on Roman history. The scope of this work is unknown. It cannot be ruled out that Polybius could have drawn on this history.
In his narrative on the sack of Cartagena in 209 BC, Livy writes: “I followed the Greek author Silenus I should give the number of scorpions large and small as 60; according to Valerius Antias there were 6000 large ones and 13,000 small ones; so wildly do men invent.”
Here we have Valerius Antias multiplying a smaller number by ten. Antias could be the culprit who has done this on many occasions during the First and Second Punic Wars, especially in relation to the numbers of Carthaginian elephants.
Interesting... I notice that the Pontifex Maximus from 304 BC was Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, the father of Lucius.
When studying Roman history, it is important to keep the three following references in mind.
Claudius Quadrigarius (FRRH2 1.1) writes that the ancient records now available are untrue because of men wanting to please individuals inserting themselves into first families and the most distinguished houses, to which they do not in fact belong.
Cicero (Brutus 62): These eulogies have falsified our history. Much written in them is fiction, fictitious triumphs, more consulships than an individual actually had, false clan names and false reckonings of some as plebeians, since men of lower status have been falsely introduced into unrelated clans which happen to have the same name.
Livy (8. 40. 4-5) “I believe that the true history has been falsified by funeral orations and lying inscriptions on the family busts, since each family appropriates to itself an imaginary record of noble deeds and official distinctions. It is at all events owing to this cause that so much confusion has been introduced into the records of private careers and public events. There is no writer of those times now extant who was contemporary with the events he relates and whose authority, therefore, can be depended upon.”
Also P. Cornelius Scipio (the son of Africanus) also wrote in Greek on Roman history. The scope of this work is unknown. It cannot be ruled out that Polybius could have drawn on this history.
In his narrative on the sack of Cartagena in 209 BC, Livy writes: “I followed the Greek author Silenus I should give the number of scorpions large and small as 60; according to Valerius Antias there were 6000 large ones and 13,000 small ones; so wildly do men invent.”
Here we have Valerius Antias multiplying a smaller number by ten. Antias could be the culprit who has done this on many occasions during the First and Second Punic Wars, especially in relation to the numbers of Carthaginian elephants.
