Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/rome/1-10-greeks-italy-tuscans-carthaginians.asp?pg=31

ELPENOR - Home of the Greek Word

Three Millennia of Greek Literature
Constantinople Home Page  

Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates

THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

I. The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson


The History of Old Rome

CHAPTER X - The Greeks in Italy - Maritime Supremacy of the Tuscans and Carthaginians

ELPENOR EDITIONS IN PRINT

The Original Greek New Testament

» Contents of this Chapter

Page 31

Latium did not join in these hostilities against the Greeks; on the contrary, we find friendly relations subsisting in very ancient times between the Romans and the Phocaeans in Velia as well as in Massilia, and the Ardeates are even said to have founded in concert with the Zacynthians a colony in Spain, the later Saguntum.

Much less, however, did the Latins range themselves on the side of the Greeks: the neutrality of their position in this respect is attested by the close relations maintained between Caere and Rome, as well as by the traces of ancient intercourse between the Latins and the Carthaginians.

It was through the medium of the Greeks that the Cannanite race became known to the Romans, for, as we have already seen,(7) they always designated it by its Greek name; but the fact that they did not borrow from the Greeks either the name for the city of Carthage(8) or the national name of the -Afri-,(9) and the circumstance that among the earlier Romans Tyrian wares were designated by the adjective -Sarranus-,(10) which in like manner precludes the idea of Greek intervention, demonstrate--what the treaties of a later period concur in proving--the direct commercial intercourse anciently subsisting between Latium and Carthage.

7. Cf. I. X. Phoenicians in Italy

8. The Phoenician name was Karthada; the Greek, Karchedon; the Roman, Cartago.

9. The name -Afri-, already current in the days of Ennius and Cato (comp. -Scipio Africanus-), is certainly not Greek, and is most probably cognate with that of the Hebrews.

10. The adjective -Sarranus- was from early times applied by the Romans to the Tyrian purple and the Tyrian flute; and -Sarranus-was in use also as a surname, at least from the time of the war with Hannibal. -Sarra-, which occurs in Ennius and Plautus as the name of the city, was perhaps formed from -Sarranus-, not directly from the native name -Sor-. The Greek form, -Tyrus-, -Tyrius-, seems not to occur in any Roman author anterior to Afranius (ap. Fest. p. 355 M.). Compare Movers, Phon. ii. x, 174.


Previous / First / Next Page of this Chapter

Do you see any typos or other mistakes? Please let us know and correct them

The History of Old Rome: Contents ||| The Medieval West | The Making of Europe | Constantinople Home Page

Three Millennia of Greek Literature

Receive updates :

Learned Freeware

Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/rome/1-10-greeks-italy-tuscans-carthaginians.asp?pg=31