The History of Rome Chapter 1: Introduction

Theodor Mommsen begins The History of Rome by suggesting the connection of Roman history and society with the rest of the Mediterranean world. He further breaks the Mediterranean area into four phases of development. First is the Egyptian, then the Syrian, and then finally, the "twin peoples" the Hellenes and the Italians.

The societies of the Mediterranean were in contact with peoples outside of the area, for example the Arabs, but Mommsen maintains that neither influenced each other significantly enough to matter (at least in the ancient world), and that it is appropriate to describe the Mediterranean world as a unity. In other words, Mommsen is giving the reasons for his method of studying Roman history as a part of the history of the larger Mediterranean.

The rest of the introduction is devoted to a considerable discussion about the geography of the Italian peninsula, which I will not reproduce here, but that Mommsen uses to further bolster his methodology. Geography seems to play, for Mommsen, the pivotal role in shaping the coming together of "the Italian nation" (i.e. Rome, not modern Italy). For Mommsen, geography created an historical inevitability in the formation of Roman civilization as a distinct entity.

Best, Trev

Mommsen, Theodor. The History of Rome. Trans. William Purdie Dickson. Originally published 1894, e-text prepared by David Ceponis. Available from Project Gutenburg.