Valerius Antias ( century BC) was an ancient Roman

annalist Annalists (from Latin ''annus'', year; hence ''annales'', sc. ''libri'', annual records), were a class of writers on Roman history, the period of whose literary activity lasted from the time of the Second Punic War to that of Sulla. They wrote th ...

whom

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

mentions as a source. No complete works of his survive but from the sixty-five fragments said to be his in the works of other authors it has been deduced that he wrote a chronicle of ancient Rome in at least seventy-five books. The latest dateable event in the fragments is mention of the heirs of the orator,

Lucius Licinius Crassus Lucius Licinius Crassus (140–91 BC) was a Roman orator and statesman. He was considered the greatest orator of his day, most notably by his pupil Cicero. Crassus is also famous as one of the main characters in Cicero's work '' De Oratore'', a ...

, who died in 91 BC. Of the seventy references to Antias in classical (Greek and Latin) literature sixty-one mention him as an authority on Roman legendary history.

Life

Not much is known about the life of Valerius Antias. His family were the Valerii Antiates, a branch of the

Valeria gens The gens Valeria was a patrician family at ancient Rome, prominent from the very beginning of the Republic to the latest period of the Empire. Publius Valerius Poplicola was one of the consuls in 509 BC, the year that saw the overthrow of th ...

residing at least from early republican times in the vicinity of

Antium Antium was an ancient coastal town in Latium, south of Rome. An oppidum was founded by people of Latial culture (11th century BC or the beginning of the 1st millennium BC), then it was the main stronghold of the Volsci people until it was conqu ...

. He may have been descended from

Lucius Valerius Antias Lucius Valerias Antias was a commander of ancient Rome. He was sent by Publius Valerius Flaccus with five ships in 215 BCE to convey to Rome the Carthaginian ambassadors, who had been captured by the Romans on their way to Philip V of Macedon. Som ...

. He was probably a younger contemporary of Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius and lived in the times of

Sulla Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (; 138–78 BC), commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman. He won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force. Sulla had t ...

, although some scholars believe that he was a contemporary of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, an ...

and wrote his work after 50 BC, because he seems to have been unknown to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

, who does not mention him in his enumeration of famous historians. He was the most important of the so-called “younger annalists”.

Work

The nearly completely lost work of Antias – cited as ''annales'' or as ''historiae'' – began its account of the Roman history with the foundation of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and extended at least to the year 91 BC. The second book told about the legendary Roman king

Numa Pompilius Numa Pompilius (; 753–672 BC; reigned 715–672 BC) was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions ar ...

, the twenty-second book about the capitulation of

Gaius Hostilius Mancinus Gaius Hostilius Mancinus was a Roman consul in 137 BC. Due to his campaign against Numantia in northern Spain, Plutarch called him "not bad as a man, but most unfortunate of the Romans as a general." During this campaign in the Numantine War, Manci ...

in 136 BC (this event Livy only reports in book 55 of his history). Therefore, the earlier times were reported much shorter than the contemporary history of the author. The work of Antias was not very reliable. Livy criticizes his exaggerated numbers of killed and captured enemies in the Roman wars. Sometimes he seems to have even invented battles. But sometimes he also delivered correct values, which fact can be concluded from a comparison with some values given by

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

. Antias’ account of each year included the allocation of troops and provinces, important omen, battles, foundation of new colonies etc. At the end of the description of each year he reported about plays, temple inaugurations, and other news, in particular about events in the city of Rome. Under the influence of Hellenistic historiography Antias related his stories very long-winded and filled with sensationalism to entertain his readers. He embroidered the mostly short accounts of older historians with dramatic details and also recounted legends and miracles. He falsified the report about the trials of the Scipio brothers (compare Livy 38.50-60) and seems to have invented high offices and deeds of members of his house, the gens Valeria, who lived in the early Roman republic because there were no reliable sources about these early times, which could have disproved his assertions. Antias gave a rationalistic account about the discovery of the coffins with the books of king Numa, because he had the coffins uncovered by rain and not by excavation like in the older tradition. The style of Antias was simple, but not archaic, and

Marcus Cornelius Fronto Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 100late 160s AD), best known as Fronto, was a Roman grammarian, rhetorician, and advocate. Of Berber origin, he was born at Cirta (modern-day Constantine, Algeria) in Numidia. He was suffect consul for the '' nundini ...

(''epistel ad Verus'' 1, 1, p. 134, 2 ed. Van den Hout) judged his language and style to be unattractive (''invenuste''). Therefore, he was rarely cited literally by later grammarians.

Legacy

In one long-standing view of Antias' influence on

, the latter relied mainly on the former in Books 1-10 of ''Ab Urbe Condita Libri'', the legendary history of Rome. To elucidate this possible influence, A.A. Howard compared each of Antias' fragments with the equivalent story in Livy. He deduced that there is no evidence of such influence in the first ten books. Of twenty fragments falling within the period Livy does not use any, either omitting the information, or explicitly disagreeing with it. Howard says:

"The argument that Livy made free use of Antias and mentioned him only in case of disagreement is absolutely without foundation, for we have seen fourteen specific instances in which, although Livy does not mention him, he nevertheless disagrees with his statements as known to us from other sources, or absolutely disregards them...."

For example, in Fragment 1

Acca Larentia Acca Larentia or Acca Larentina was a mythical woman, later goddess of fertility, in Roman mythology whose festival, the Larentalia, was celebrated on December 23. Myths Foster mother In one mythological tradition (that of ...

willed her property to

Romulus Romulus () was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of these ...

. Livy does not mention it. Fragment 3 mentions that exactly 527

Sabine Women The Rape of the Sabine Women ( ), also known as the Abduction of the Sabine Women or the Kidnapping of the Sabine Women, was an incident in Roman mythology in which the men of Rome committed a mass abduction of young women from the other citi ...

were kidnapped. Livy says the number is greater than 30, and so on. For the entire period covered by Livy, 33 fragments of Antias come from Livy.Howard (1906), p. 181. He disagrees with six of these, criticizes eleven more, quotes Antias in disagreement on ten, and agrees with, but later disproves, two. Howard concludes disparagingly that

"It is on such evidence as this that we are asked to believe that Antias was the source of considerable portions of Livy's history and that Livy followed blindly, at least in the earlier part of his work. "

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Antias, Valerius Old Latin-language writers Latin historians 1st-century BC historians 1st-century BC Romans Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Valerii