It is recognised in certain scholarly circles that Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities has re-earned its place in the ancient historical canon. Perceptions of the once-denounced factual narrative have undergone a dramatic transformation in recent decades, with the condemnations of Eduard Schwartz, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, and Eduard Norden taking a backseat to the acknowledgement of the complexity and innovation of the text. Writing in Rome during the cultural transformation that took place under Augustus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus provides a unique perspective on the Romans’ perceived moral, cultural, and militaristic superiority over the rest of the known world. To him, Romans were the inheritors and practitioners of (an idealised) Greek culture, and the Roman Antiquities is a manifesto of the greatness of a Greek culture that was inherited and exemplified by the Romans. As such, his narrative vindicates Roman dominion.
The monograph builds on the burgeoning Dionysian scholarship to establish and explain the traits characterising Rome’s ‘founders’: Aeneas, Romulus, Numa, Brutus, and Camillus. Poletti aims to analyse how Dionysius portrayed Roman foundational figures and their deeds to shape audiences’ perceptions of the Roman polity. She emphasises the importance of moral conduct in the enduring success of Rome and the military and political achievements of its leaders and elite citizens. A significant corollary of this analysis is an engagement with the Augustan influence on Dionysius’ depiction of these ‘founders’ and a consideration of the development and adaptation of various literary traditions that Dionysius (likely) used or ignored. Following recent scholarship, Poletti does not aim to portray the work as ‘pro- or anti-Augustan’ but rather to highlight Dionysius’ elaborations of contemporary concerns—the role of the Senate in government, concord among Roman citizens, and the pursuit of virtue for the greater good of the state.
Appropriately, the introduction begins with an explanation of the book’s purpose and structure and a brief consideration of the characterisation techniques expounded in modern key works on narrative theory. With respect to characterisation, Poletti follows the work of Koen de Temmerman and Evert van Emde Boas.[1] She then gives a broad overview of Dionysian scholarship and its development in the twentieth and twenty-first century before narrowing the scope and summarising current views on the purpose, conception, and audience of the Roman Antiquities, the sources and methods used by Dionysius, the ‘network’ around him in Rome, and his conception of the past, with an emphasis on classicism and exemplarity. Poletti illustrates how Dionysius combined Roman patriotism with his assertion that the Greek character of Romans was instrumental to Roman success in his treatment of the foundational figures in the Roman mythos.
Chapter One puts the mythological progenitor of the Roman race in the spotlight and is divided into four sections plus an appendix. The first section examines Dionysius’ account of various Greek migrations to Italy and their peaceful assimilation in Latium, challenging the traditional view of Roman autochthony and barbarism. The next two sections discuss the transmission of the Aeneid legend from Homer to Augustus, noting the development of Aeneas’ piety and filial devotion in the Greek and Roman legends, which became emblematic of Roman virtue under Augustus. The final section traces Dionysius’ amalgamation of Greek origins with Roman expectations in Aeneas’ flight from Troy. Poletti continues with Aeneas’ journey to Rome, emphasising the establishment of memorials and the numerous portents that foretold the power of Rome under Aeneas’ descendants. Her analysis of Aeneas’ arrival in Latium is particularly stimulating, pointing out that the peaceful negotiations that united the Trojans and Aborigines into the Latin people was a precursor to Dionysius’ insistence on Rome’s ‘ability to resolve internal conflict through discussion, as opposed to armed conflict’ (59). Her appendix in the chapter examines Dionysius’ digression on the Greek origins of the Roman Penates and the importance these household gods have to Aeneas’ characterisation as pious. Her chapter highlights an important aspect of Dionysius’ account: Aeneas functions as the bridge between Greek and Roman culture. His Homeric construction of Aeneas as filial, wise, pious, and militaristically proficient makes him readily identifiable to non-Roman readers but also sets up the foundational principals of Roman polity. In this chapter Poletti demonstrates Dionysius’ likely awareness of contemporary ideas about the Trojan legacy and Augustus’ association with Aeneas. She theorises on the intertextual allusions to Roman literature and art, and Dionysius’ informed rewriting of the source material to ‘facilitate the acknowledgement of Rome’s profoundly Greek ethos and ultimately of the legitimacy of its rule over the Greek world’ (60).
Romulus and Numa, the first two kings of Rome, are the subjects of Chapter Two. Poletti argues that Dionysius’ portrayal of these kings illustrates not only the Romans’ Greek roots but also their political wisdom and military skill, attributing Roman superiority to its just governance. The chapter is structured into three main parts: first, an examination of late-Republican representations of Romulus, the evolution of this perception under Augustus, and Augustus’ reflection of Numa’s role as a bringer of peace and lawmaker. The second section is an exploration of Dionysius’ portrayal of Romulus, divided into his childhood, the establishment of Rome’s constitution, his policies and wars, linking Roman political ideas to Greek philosophical thought. The third is an analysis of Numa’s role in assimilating Romulus’ militarism with his religious devotion. Poletti excellently demonstrates the intertextual references that Dionysius employs to characterise these monarchical founders. For example, with Romulus, she identifies the influence of Isocratean and Aristotelian thought in his creation and administration of the constitution, as well as Dionysius’ imitation of Herodotus’ constitutional debate between Otanes, Megabyzus, and Darius in book three (Hdt. 3.80-83). Poletti argues that by having Romulus follow a well-established tradition, Dionysius presents the early Roman constitution as a tested and functional system (96)—a continuation, not a beginning. Numa is likewise given a Herodotean flavour, his eulogy recalling the logos of Solon and the Lydian King Croesus (Hdt. 1.29-33). Poletti argues that in providing these parallels, Dionysius has made Numa and Romulus familiar figures to his non-Roman audience, painting them as morally Greek characters. Of particular interest in this chapter is the notion of bellum iustum that Poletti draws out and the idea that the Romans’ development of Greek civic virtues enabled them to avoid the pitfalls of internal discord during constitutional changes: whereas the Greeks often found themselves drawn to violence in these moments, the Roman polity relied on peaceful discussions.
The final chapter explores the characterisation of L. Junius Brutus, the ‘founder’ of the Republic, and M. Furius Camilus, referred to as Rome’s ‘second founder’. Poletti highlights their roles as liberators from external threats to the state. Although both Brutus and his antagonist, L. Tarquinius Superbus, are Roman (at least in Dionysius narrative), Tarquinius is portrayed as an external threat through his tyranny and foreign alliances. The chapter details Brutus’ peaceful establishment of the Republican constitution, his drastic actions to preserve the Republic’s freedom, and his contemporary reputation. Poletti reasons that Dionysius’ portrayal of L. Brutus was purposefully distinct from the infamous Marcus Brutus, who assassinated Caesar, to differentiate L. Brutus’ genuine libertas from the specious kind propagated in the recent civil wars. For Camillus, Poletti’s analysis begins with his role as an exemplum of pietas during the late Republic and early Empire. She explores the key episodes from his fragmentary story, showing how Dionysius has potentially removed the ‘problematic’ aspects of this story, such as Camillus’ mishandling of plunder, to avoid the ambiguity of his character, like that presented in Livy and Plutarch. Instead, Dionysius has emphasised the Herodotean element of the mutability of fortune and Camillus’ close relations with the gods. In this chapter, in keeping with the previous two, Poletti demonstrates how Dionysius manipulated his source materials and public perceptions of these foundational figures to compose his thesis. His characters were not a ‘mere combination of his sources…but an informed rewriting’ (218), constructed to demonstrate how the Romans inherited and perfected Greek civic virtues.
Throughout the monograph, Poletti demonstrates her mastery of Dionysian scholarship, presenting an innovative study of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities. While many of the topics debated are (relatively) well-trodden in Dionysian scholarship, Poletti’s application of characterisation techniques to the factual narrative is novel. The methodology holds promise, especially as there has been no systematic treatment of these techniques to date in the Roman Antiquities, as Poletti herself points out (3). Still, the application of these characterisation techniques might have been pushed further in her discussion or deployed more consistently. For instance, Poletti devotes just four lines of her introduction to defining the techniques of ‘“inter-” or “trans-textuality”’, the primary method used in her analysis. Yet, she only employs ‘intertextual’ twice in the main text (39, 186), while its counterpart ‘intratextual’ is also only used twice and never defined (124, 189). The terms appear once again in the conclusion: ‘he uses intertextual and intratextual references for comparisons’ (217); and in footnotes 198, 206 in ch. 2 and 116 in ch. 3. Likewise, Poletti asserts that Dionysius frequently uses ‘metonymical characterization (as opposed to “metaphorical”)’, which she defines as the ‘description of the individual’s actions, speech, and emotions’ (4). This definition is further supported by de Temmerman and van Emde Boas (2017: xiv) in introductory notes 14 and 16. However, the term ‘metonymical’ is never mentioned again, whilst ‘metaphorical characterization’ appears on page 186 and footnotes (chp.2) 65 and 198. It seems the direct characterisation technique of ‘narratorial intervention’ is the one Poletti explicitly mentions most frequently (4, 128; 50 and 185, ‘narratorial comments’; 97, 114, 119, 161, and 217, ‘narratorial voice’).
This is not to say Poletti does not engage with the techniques themselves; indeed, she has an excellent analysis of Dionysius’ incorporation of Greek and Roman literary and visual allusions and how they shape his characterisation of these foundational figures in early Roman history. However, she states in her introduction that Dionysius’ ‘use of a wide spectrum of characterization techniques must be understood’ (3) and poses the question, ‘by what techniques and literary devices did he seek to establish his credibility as a historian of Rome?’ (5). Further, she asserts that ‘understanding Dionysius’ characterization techniques is crucial to appreciating the overall aims of his work’ (217) but does not consistently inform her audience of what these techniques are. When she does offer information about the techniques, it is either in footnotes or an oblique mention, such as on page 186: ‘In a form of metaphorical, intratextual characterization, Dionysius explains…’, and page 192: ‘The passage—an instance of indirect characterization through ethnicity—is constructed…’. It appears that the methodology of characterisation and the naming of techniques were added in a more ad hoc manner rather than systematically, which is supported in the monograph’s acknowledgments (ix).
This criticism aside, Poletti has done Dionysian scholars a great service in her production of this monograph. Her presentation of the intertextual allusions in Dionysius’ work has drawn out the depth of Augustan influence on the characterisation of these foundational figures in the Roman Antiquities and the innovative nature of Dionysius’ approach. She rightfully highlights that Dionysius, as a newcomer to Rome, would be wary of dwelling on the corruption of morality evident in contemporary Latin writers (177) and shows that Dionysius purposefully adapted his source materials to create an informed narrative that describes Rome as an idealised Greek polis, grounded in Greek civic virtue, filled with exemplary men, and deserving of their leadership. I suspect this characterisation-led approach to the Roman Antiquites has much more to offer to our understanding of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and his world in future scholarship.
Notes
[1] De Temmerman, K., and van Emde Boas, Characterisation in Ancient Greek Literature. Studies in Ancient Greek Literature, 4 (Leiden 2018) BMCR 2018.08.22.