Greek and Roman Historiography
The development of a Roman historiography grew out of the ashes of the old Greek democratic institutions that preceded its rise. The Romans did not rise from thin air, after all, with dominance by the Etruscans and the influence of Western Greek colonization informing the culture that surrounded Roman imperial beginnings. The Romans were not without their legends and fables of how the empire came to be, with the seven kings of Rome, the Romulus/Remus myth, and the fall of Tarquinius Superbus developing from individual stories to a collective consciousness about how Rome was formed. As Ernst Breisach says in “Historiography,” “For the individual Roman the past and the present were joined through the memories and records of the gens (kinspeople) and the family, sources that inspired piety and offered historical examples as standards for current conduct.”
Briesach is making a key point with this statement when considered along with Greek historiography, which is that Roman history was fragmented by the connection of time with kinship and rituals, while the Greeks were able to use generations to create a chronology. While Romans did not feel the need to make all the connections at once, Greek historians found it important to make sure that future generations of students could make heads or tails of their analyses.
These two historiographies, however, needed to reconcile each other in order to create a cohesive Mediterranean narrative. The Romans abdicated the use of the Greek language, because educational and historical structures in the budding Roman empire were results of Hellenization, or the use of regional leaders and structures to promote Greek leadership. This also served the purpose of gaining favor with the Greeks because their influence in the region was still fairly strong and such influence could ease transition to a more formal Roman imperial structure. The triumph of a unified Greco-Roman history was embodied in the work of Polybius in “Histories.”
Widely considered the greatest of Greco-Roman history, Polybius constructed “Histories” around the theme of Rome’s rise. The thesis of “Histories” centered around questions of why Rome was able to do what the Greeks were incapable of doing, which was to establish a growing empire with strong control over its subjects. First, Polybius cited the Roman ability to balance attitudes on statesmanship, defense, and steadiness in the purpose of imperial rule. As well, the nature of a Roman republic was more stable and long lasting than that of the Greek democracy. In this, Polybius felt that strong rule over an empire was more sufficient to create order than a constitution ensuring checks and balances, which he felt would speed up the legitimization of rule by the elites. Finally, Polybius felt that at every encounter between Greek and Roman cultures, Fate and powers beyond politics gave the Romans advantages that allowed it greater rule.
In the interim between Greek and Roman dominance over the Mediterranean, the interactions between the two cultures not only proved the dominance of Greek education and intellectual endeavors but it helped shape a distinct Roman attitude towards pragmatism and politics. When the Romans expanded into the Greek sphere, both Roman attitude and Greek intelligence combined into a hybrid Greco-Roman culture. Instead of separating out those things which were distinctly Roman or Greek, the Roman empire became a practitioner of Greek ideas and economic markets which became vital to the centuries long success of Rome in Europe. Because of the cultural devices that informed historical study, the best sources of information on the era come from Greco-Roman, rather than competing Roman and Greek, historians and writers.
