Articles

Capitoline Jupiter and the Historiography of Roman World Rule

Capitoline Jupiter and the Historiography of Roman World Rule

By Alexander Thien

Histos, Vol.8 (2014)

City of Rome during time of republic. This is a picture out of the book " Geschichtsbilder" published in 1896 by Friedrich Polack (1834-1915).
City of Rome during time of republic. This is a picture out of the book ” Geschichtsbilder” published in 1896 by Friedrich Polack (1834-1915).

Abstract: This article examines the origins of the idea of Roman world rule and the foundation myths of the Capitoline temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The temple is associated with world rule by the mid-1st century BC. By the Augustan period its foundation myths are linked with the idea that Rome had been destined, from the time of the Tarquins, to exercise dominion over Italy and the world. The most important of the Capitoline foundation myths describes the prodigy of a human head which was discovered in the ground during the construction of the temple and interpreted as an omen of empire. In its earliest form the story of the caput humanum served as an etymological aetiology to explain why Rome’s most important temple was called the Capitolium. This article argues that it was transformed into a myth of empire, with the addition of the prophecy of Rome’s imperial destiny, in the mid- to late third century. At first it proclaimed Rome to be ‘head of Italy’. The language of empire was inflated after the conquest of the Greek East, and by the late first century it was claimed that Rome had been destined to become ‘head of the world’.

Introduction: The historiography of the origins of the idea of Roman world rule focuses on Greek sources of the 2nd century BC. Polybius reflected on the significance of the Roman defeat of the last king of Macedon at Pydna in 168 and announced that Rome had achieved hegemony over the entire inhabited world after only 53 years in the ascendancy outside Italy. But he was not the only Greek writer of the mid to late 2nd century to reflect on Rome’s undisputed power in this period: it is possible to find descriptions of universal Roman supremacy ‘over land and sea’ and ethical reflections on the benefits of Roman peace as well as criticisms of the brutality and greed of Roman imperialism.



There was also a recognition of the longterm historical significance of the Roman victories in the Greek East, as Rome was identified as the successor to the empires of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, and Macedonians. Philhellenes at Rome must have been aware that Greek observers were describing Roman power in universal terms, but it is not until the early 1st century that the language of Roman world rule appears in Latin sources. Cicero, in a speech delivered in 80 BC, credited Sulla with ‘guiding the course of the entire world’ in a highly flattering comparison with Jupiter. There is also a reference to the theme of Roman world rule in a section of a lost speech from the period of the Social War quoted in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, an anonymous rhetorical handbook written in the 80s BC. Rome is described as holding ‘dominion of the entire globe, a dominion to which all peoples, kings, and nations have given their consent, whether by force of arms or by choice.’ Rome achieved Mediterranean supremacy in the 2nd century, yet if we restrict ourselves to direct statements in Latin literary texts it would seem that the Romans were slow to acknowledge this fact.

Click here to read this article from the University of Newcastle

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