Lefkowitz, Jeremy B.

English

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 Swarthmore CollegeWorks   Classics Faculty Works   2012  Review Of "Rome: Day One" By A. Carandini  Jeremy B. Lefkowitz Swarthmore College, jlefkow1@swarthmore.edu   Let us know how access to this work benefits you.  Follow this and additional works at: http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-classics/  Part of the Classics Commons   Recommended Citation Jeremy B. Lefkowitz. (2012). "Review Of "Rome: Day One" By A. Carandini". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Volume 3, Article Number 39. http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-classics/59  This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Swarthmore College Libraries. It has been accepted for inclusion in Classics Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. 1/3Andrea Carandini, Rome: Day One (first published in Italian2007).   Princeton; Oxford:  Princeton University Press, 2011.  Pp.172.  ISBN 9780691139227.  $24.95.bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012-03-39.htmlBryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.03.39Contributors: Translated by Stephen Sartarelli.Reviewed by Jeremy B. Lefkowitz, Swarthmore College (jlefkow1@swarthmore.edu)PreviewThis brief and fascinating book is an English translation of Andrea Carandini's Roma: Il Primo Giorno, firstpublished in 2007 by Laterza in Rome. Its compact size (the main body is only 74 pages long, including 47figues), appealing style, and lack of bibliography make it clear that the book is intended for non-specialists.Its translation into English means that those who do not read Italian now have a serviceable introduction tothe work of Carandini, who for twenty years directed excavations on one of the most significant little stretchesof land in all of Rome: the north slope of the Palatine. Carandini has written a great deal on his findings overthe past two decades,1 and, not surprisingly, over that same period his controversial perspective on the earlyhistory of Rome has garnered a considerable amount of attention in both academic and non-academicmedia.2 The book under review includes several new claims, supported by the evidence of Carandini's sixmajor archaeological discoveries (see below). But the central claims are very much in keeping withCarandini's earlier writings: that Romulus really founded Rome in the mid-eighth century BC, in the month ofApril, and that even at its founding Rome was not just a rustic cluster of huts but a full-fledged city-state. Sothe title of this book is not only a play on the idea that Rome may in fact have been built in a day. It alsocontains a resonance of "Roma: dal primo giorno" ("Rome: from day one!") because the archaeological findslead Carandini to conclude that Romulus did not just build a wall on April 21, c. 750 BC. By establishingcentral, public places of politics and worship, he built a state: "...that is, a res publica, what today we wouldcall a state..." (116).Specialists and archaeology students will want to stick with the Italian version (with which most are probablyalready familiar). A full appreciation of Carandini's argument requires the reader to do the work of tracing theways in which the author implicitly engages with other scholarship and rival claims; that is because, with oneexception,3 there is no explicit acknowledgement in this book of any contemporary work on the early historyof Rome not written by Carandini himself. In what follows I will offer a rapid overview of the book's contents,an assessment of the quality of the translation, and my opinion of its success as a form of outreach.The core of the book consists of the six discoveries, described in the second and third chapters. Chapter Two("The Palatine," 41-63) will culminate with the dating of the remains of the "Romulean" wall (61) at thenorthwest corner of the Palatine (56f.)—an early and most significant finding of Carandini's excavations.4Carandini now dates the wall to the second quarter of the eighth century BC (this is the first of the sixdiscoveries), with the help of a "foundational deposit" (59)—the furniture of the tomb of a young girl—unearthed under the threshold of the Porta Mugonia. We read of Romulus's institution of this wall (according2/3to the Etruscan rite of the sulcus primigenius), and of the young girl's sacrifice, as part of Carandini'sspeculative reconstruction of the order of events on April 21, c. 750 BC.The third chapter ("The Founding of the Forum, the Capitol, and the Citadel," 64-100) includes the other fivemajor discoveries: the remains of the "first domus in Rome" (a domus regia) in the sanctuary of Vesta, alsowith a founding tomb as a deposit, datable to the late eighth century (74); a second domus regia, late-seventh/early-sixth century BC, connected by an underground path to the Vesta sanctuary (76); therestructuring and transformation of the domus regiaduring the late sixth century (80); a second-century BCaedes Larum in the Vesta complex (83); the last discovery is the primitive hut of the vestal virgins, datingfrom the second quarter of the eighth century BC and lying beneath the late-Republican structure (86). In asynthesis of the six discoveries, Carandini concludes that "Romulus's first achievement, involving theblessing and walling of the Palatine, dates from the second quarter of the eighth century BC, and afundamental part of the second achievement, involving the Sanctuary of Vesta in the Forum, also dates fromthe same part of the century, which would make it part of the same project of Romulus. We therefore havenot only the urbs on the Palatine but also the sacred and political center of the regnum...we have, from itsvery beginnings ("fin da principio," p.77 of the Italian edition), the city but also the state" (88).Stephen Sartarelli's translation is generally excellent, but it could be faulted for occasionally remaining toofaithful to Italian style and syntax; for example:The scholars of ancient Rome (Gli antiquari romani), who didn't have any mytho-historicaloverview but were simply very curious about rare details (che non avevano un disegnomitistorico ma che erano curiosissimi di rari dettagli), as scholars always are (come sempregli eruditi), have revealed to us the name of the realities that immediately preceded theestablishment of Rome: Septimontium (ci hanno rivelato il nome della realtà che hannopreceduto immediatamente Roma: Septimontium). (22-24; 22 of the Italian edition)Even if the rhythm and word-choice of such sentences somehow retain a distinctly Italian feel, the meaningremains clear. And on the whole the translation is a pleasure to read, as when Sartarelli finds felicitous waysto capture Carandini's appealing and informal narrative style: "...I would like to take the reader by the handand have him or her descend with me some thirteen meters under the city of Rome—to where, atop therubble and rubbish, the living settlements once grew, one on top of the other—and go back more than twenty-seven centuries into the past, in search of the first acts and the first day of Rome's existence: April 21, around750 BC" (6). Note especially the artful translation of "rubble and rubbish" (6) for the alliterative and rhyming"macerie e immondizie" (p. 9 of the Italian edition).As a work intended for a general readership, Rome: Day One has much to offer. There are more than 60informative illustrations; an appendix that includes a wealth of primary sources (also translated into English)on the Romulus legend and related material (not just Livy, Ovid, and Plutarch, but also Ennius, Servius, andCensorinus, among others), and beautiful cover art. But it must be said that the arguments at the heart ofRome: Day One are often very hard to follow for anyone not already familiar with the topography and historyof early Rome. The relative absence of contextualization and the absolute avoidance of bibliography keepthe volume slim (surely a virtue in a work of outreach), but the result is that it will most likely prove too difficultfor the non-specialist to distinguish between what has been generally accepted and what may be acontroversial new solution to an old problem.Notes:1.   Carandini's other books on the early history of Rome include Storie della terra  (1996, Turin); La nascita diRoma (1997/2003, Turin); Roma: Romolo, Remo e la fondazione della città (2000, Milan); Archeolgia del mito(2002, Turin); Palatino, Velia e Sacra Via (2004, Rome); Remo e Romolo (2006, Turin); La leggenda di Roma(2006, 2010, Milan); Cercando Quirino (2007, Turin); Re Tarquinio e il divino bastardo (2010, Milan). 2.   For a critical assessment of Carandini's work from 2001, see T. P. Wiseman's "Reading Carandini," JRS91, pp. 182-193. 3.   Note 1, p. 108: L. Capogrossi Colognesi, "Curie, centurie e 'heredia,'" in Studi in onore di FrancescoGrelle (Bari: Edipuglia, 2006), pp. 41-49. 4.   The works in Note 1 are largely based on this major find.BMCR, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 HTML generated at 22:18:14, Wednesday, 21 March 20123/3

Review Of  Rome: Day One  By A. Carandini

 Swarthmore College
Works 
 
 
Classics Faculty Works 
 
 
2012 
 
Review Of "Rome: Day One" By A. 
Carandini 
 
Jeremy B. Lefkowitz 
Swarthmore College, jlefkow1@swarthmore.edu  
 
Let us know how access to this work benefits you. 
 
Follow this and additional works at: http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-classics/ 
 Part of the Classics Commons 
 
 
Recommended Citation 
Jeremy B. Lefkowitz. (2012). "Review Of "Rome: Day One" By A. Carandini". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. 
Volume 3, Article Number 39. 
http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-classics/59 
 
This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Swarthmore College Libraries. It has 
been accepted for inclusion in Classics Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For 
more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. 
1/3
Andrea Carandini, Rome: Day One (first published in Italian
2007).   Princeton; Oxford:  Princeton University Press, 2011.  Pp.
172.  ISBN 9780691139227.  $24.95.
bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012-03-39.html
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.03.39
Contributors: Translated by Stephen Sartarelli.
Reviewed by Jeremy B. Lefkowitz, Swarthmore College (jlefkow1@swarthmore.edu)
Preview
This brief and fascinating book is an English translation of Andrea Carandini's Roma: Il Primo Giorno, first
published in 2007 by Laterza in Rome. Its compact size (the main body is only 74 pages long, including 47
figues), appealing style, and lack of bibliography make it clear that the book is intended for non-specialists.
Its translation into English means that those who do not read Italian now have a serviceable introduction to
the work of Carandini, who for twenty years directed excavations on one of the most significant little stretches
of land in all of Rome: the north slope of the Palatine. Carandini has written a great deal on his findings over
the past two decades,1 and, not surprisingly, over that same period his controversial perspective on the early
history of Rome has garnered a considerable amount of attention in both academic and non-academic
media.2 The book under review includes several new claims, supported by the evidence of Carandini's six
major archaeological discoveries (see below). But the central claims are very much in keeping with
Carandini's earlier writings: that Romulus really founded Rome in the mid-eighth century BC, in the month of
April, and that even at its founding Rome was not just a rustic cluster of huts but a full-fledged city-state. So
the title of this book is not only a play on the idea that Rome may in fact have been built in a day. It also
contains a resonance of "Roma: dal primo giorno" ("Rome: from day one!") because the archaeological finds
lead Carandini to conclude that Romulus did not just build a wall on April 21, c. 750 BC. By establishing
central, public places of politics and worship, he built a state: "...that is, a res publica, what today we would
call a state..." (116).
Specialists and archaeology students will want to stick with the Italian version (with which most are probably
already familiar). A full appreciation of Carandini's argument requires the reader to do the work of tracing the
ways in which the author implicitly engages with other scholarship and rival claims; that is because, with one
exception,3 there is no explicit acknowledgement in this book of any contemporary work on the early history
of Rome not written by Carandini himself. In what follows I will offer a rapid overview of the book's contents,
an assessment of the quality of the translation, and my opinion of its success as a form of outreach.
The core of the book consists of the six discoveries, described in the second and third chapters. Chapter Two
("The Palatine," 41-63) will culminate with the dating of the remains of the "Romulean" wall (61) at the
northwest corner of the Palatine (56f.)—an early and most significant finding of Carandini's excavations.4
Carandini now dates the wall to the second quarter of the eighth century BC (this is the first of the six
discoveries), with the help of a "foundational deposit" (59)—the furniture of the tomb of a young girl—
unearthed under the threshold of the Porta Mugonia. We read of Romulus's institution of this wall (according
2/3
to the Etruscan rite of the sulcus primigenius), and of the young girl's sacrifice, as part of Carandini's
speculative reconstruction of the order of events on April 21, c. 750 BC.
The third chapter ("The Founding of the Forum, the Capitol, and the Citadel," 64-100) includes the other five
major discoveries: the remains of the "first domus in Rome" (a domus regia) in the sanctuary of Vesta, also
with a founding tomb as a deposit, datable to the late eighth century (74); a second domus regia, late-
seventh/early-sixth century BC, connected by an underground path to the Vesta sanctuary (76); the
restructuring and transformation of the domus regiaduring the late sixth century (80); a second-century BC
aedes Larum in the Vesta complex (83); the last discovery is the primitive hut of the vestal virgins, dating
from the second quarter of the eighth century BC and lying beneath the late-Republican structure (86). In a
synthesis of the six discoveries, Carandini concludes that "Romulus's first achievement, involving the
blessing and walling of the Palatine, dates from the second quarter of the eighth century BC, and a
fundamental part of the second achievement, involving the Sanctuary of Vesta in the Forum, also dates from
the same part of the century, which would make it part of the same project of Romulus. We therefore have
not only the urbs on the Palatine but also the sacred and political center of the regnum...we have, from its
very beginnings ("fin da principio," p.77 of the Italian edition), the city but also the state" (88).
Stephen Sartarelli's translation is generally excellent, but it could be faulted for occasionally remaining too
faithful to Italian style and syntax; for example:
The scholars of ancient Rome (Gli antiquari romani), who didn't have any mytho-historical
overview but were simply very curious about rare details (che non avevano un disegno
mitistorico ma che erano curiosissimi di rari dettagli), as scholars always are (come sempre
gli eruditi), have revealed to us the name of the realities that immediately preceded the
establishment of Rome: Septimontium (ci hanno rivelato il nome della realtà che hanno
preceduto immediatamente Roma: Septimontium). (22-24; 22 of the Italian edition)
Even if the rhythm and word-choice of such sentences somehow retain a distinctly Italian feel, the meaning
remains clear. And on the whole the translation is a pleasure to read, as when Sartarelli finds felicitous ways
to capture Carandini's appealing and informal narrative style: "...I would like to take the reader by the hand
and have him or her descend with me some thirteen meters under the city of Rome—to where, atop the
rubble and rubbish, the living settlements once grew, one on top of the other—and go back more than twenty-
seven centuries into the past, in search of the first acts and the first day of Rome's existence: April 21, around
750 BC" (6). Note especially the artful translation of "rubble and rubbish" (6) for the alliterative and rhyming
"macerie e immondizie" (p. 9 of the Italian edition).
As a work intended for a general readership, Rome: Day One has much to offer. There are more than 60
informative illustrations; an appendix that includes a wealth of primary sources (also translated into English)
on the Romulus legend and related material (not just Livy, Ovid, and Plutarch, but also Ennius, Servius, and
Censorinus, among others), and beautiful cover art. But it must be said that the arguments at the heart of
Rome: Day One are often very hard to follow for anyone not already familiar with the topography and history
of early Rome. The relative absence of contextualization and the absolute avoidance of bibliography keep
the volume slim (surely a virtue in a work of outreach), but the result is that it will most likely prove too difficult
for the non-specialist to distinguish between what has been generally accepted and what may be a
controversial new solution to an old problem.
Notes:
1.   Carandini's other books on the early history of Rome include Storie della terra  (1996, Turin); La nascita di
Roma (1997/2003, Turin); Roma: Romolo, Remo e la fondazione della città (2000, Milan); Archeolgia del mito
(2002, Turin); Palatino, Velia e Sacra Via (2004, Rome); Remo e Romolo (2006, Turin); La leggenda di Roma
(2006, 2010, Milan); Cercando Quirino (2007, Turin); Re Tarquinio e il divino bastardo (2010, Milan). 
2.   For a critical assessment of Carandini's work from 2001, see T. P. Wiseman's "Reading Carandini," JRS
91, pp. 182-193. 
3.   Note 1, p. 108: L. Capogrossi Colognesi, "Curie, centurie e 'heredia,'" in Studi in onore di Francesco
Grelle (Bari: Edipuglia, 2006), pp. 41-49. 
4.   The works in Note 1 are largely based on this major find.
BMCR, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 
HTML generated at 22:18:14, Wednesday, 21 March 2012
3/3


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