Herodotus and Rome

[Epictetus]

Why didn't Herodotus mention Rome? Other Greek writers of the fifth century such as Hellanicus of Lesbos and Damastes of Sigeum mentioned Rome in connection to the Aeneas myth. Herodotus writes about the Etruscans, Carthaginians and other non-Greek and non-Persian peoples.

[Jona Lendering]

Lack of interest? He was writing about the wars of barbarians against Greeks. Sicily was part of those conflicts, but Rome had no military contact with the Greek world.

[Epictetus]

I suppose so. Rome should have been making itself known on the Mediterranean stage by this time. The first treaty with Carthage is dated to 507 BC, it was a fairly strong local power, it had appeared in Greek mythology through Aeneas, and there is good evidence of Greek, Etruscan and Phoenican ties. It just seems a bit strange to me that Herodotus doesn't even give Rome a mention.

[Jona Lendering]

There's a lot he must have known and didn't mention. The sphinx near the pyramids is a case in point. This man really knew which information was necessary in his account; he was, although at first sight it's a mixed bag of varied stuff, ver economical.

[SigniferOne]

Very interesting, I was aware that Hellanicus wrote on Rome but not a one called Damastes. What was his quote?

[Epictetus]

I don’t know exactly what Damastes said. As far as I know it has never been translated into English, but apparently it has been published in Jacoby’s Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 241 F.45. We do have another writer who tells us what he says, though:

But the author of the history of the priestesses at Argos and of what happened in the days of each of them says that Aeneas came into Italy from the land of the Molossians with Odysseus and became the founder of the city, which he named after Romê, one of the Trojan women. He says that this woman, growing weary with wandering, stirred up the other Trojan women and together with them set fire to the ships. And Damastes of Sigeum and some others agree with him.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I.72.2

T.J. Cornell, in his excellent The Beginnings of Rome, mentions that:

N.M. Horsfall has challenged the authenticity of these quotations in Classical Quarterly 29 (1979), 372-90, but see A. Momigliano Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa IX.9.3 (1979), 1223-4.

Cornell, Note 50 to page 64.