Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
I'm not quite sure I understand.
By this time the Romans were highly literate people. We have histories and extensive compilations of law and later on their own written mythology. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that by this time there was any difference in appearance or "ethnically" between the patricians and the plebs, or between the inhabitants of the actual town of "Rome" versus the "Latins" of the other towns. Now, there may have initially been some difference when the Italic tribes arrived and mingled with the prior inhabitants, but nothing, as I said, to indicate that the difference was significant.
This is in complete contrast to the founding myths and/or legal compendiums of people like the Anglo-Saxons or the Vikings, whom we've been recently discussing.
It seems to me that a logical conclusion is that either perhaps the Italics were few in number, or, perhaps more likely, they were quite different from, say, perhaps, the original Unetice people or whichever group the Latins derived from by the time they reached Rome.
Interestingly, in this regard, by the time the Romans came to write their own origin story they chose to be descended from the Trojans. In doing so, they never indicated the Trojans "looked" different to themselves, although perhaps since the aim was to claim an illustrious ancestry in contrast to that of the Greeks, that would have been unimportant. Nevertheless, the same applies to the Etruscans.
As to Rome originally being a market down, I doubt that's significant. Many of the settlements of ancient peoples were built at crossroads. Anybody coming to trade at that point on the Tiber would also have been Latins. The "Romans" were just the Latins settled at that particular spot. There would have been no meaningful difference between them and other Latins. That would be like saying there was a significant genetic difference between Angles from neighboring towns. As to elites, if anything it was the Etruscans who were the elite. They were their kings and rulers.
More importantly, many of the people who were responsible for the Roman "accomplishments" would have been Roman knights and other people of the middle to upper middle classes, people like Vespasian, or descendants of plebs. That's not even considering how much of "Roman" culture and accomplishments was taken from the Etruscans whom they absorbed but who originally ruled them. If we want to know the "make-up" of the people who built Rome, it was very possibly people like this.
I said that the elite could be of different origin than the plebs. In fact, patricians were convinced they were different in origin from the plebs.
And then you say they didn't look different.
I didn't say anything about different looks.
Maybe there were different languages. First you say they were all Latin, and then you say some may have been Etruscan.
And I don't understand what the Trojans have to do in all this.
That was pure fantasy of some writers. No Roman could have known how the Trojans realy looked like.
Amazing how when you scratch below the surface this is what so much of amateur commentary is about.
I said that the elite could be of different origin than the plebs. In fact, patricians were convinced they were different in origin from the plebs.
And then you say they didn't look different.
I didn't say anything about different looks.
Maybe there were different languages. First you say they were all Latin, and then you say some may have been Etruscan.
And I don't understand what the Trojans have to do in all this.
That was pure fantasy of some writers. No Roman could have known how the Trojans realy looked like.
Disregard all the Legends.
This is very simple.
Rome is in Italy, so the Romans are Italics.
Add or subtract any gene you want, the Romans are still Italics because Rome is in Italy.
Spin all you want. Still Italians.
What do you mean different? More related to yourself?
That the Trojan connection is 'pure phantasy' is the prevalent view but there might be something behind the myth. As I have said, for example, one possibility is that people had heard stories about a movement which didn't necessarily make a big impact. There were multiple versions of the myths though, apart from the most known one. (In most versions, as far as I know, it isn't implied that Romans as a whole descended from Trojans and at least in some versions that existed in antiquity the founder descended from the Trojans through his mother but from 'Latinus, king of the Aborigines' through his father etc. Or there were versions that Romulus and Remus descended from the daughters of Aeneas etc)
(I personally believe that Italic languages where in Central & South in Italy already during the Apenine Culture. It would have been dishonest to add the adverb 'probably' before my belief, though.)
That's quite testy, rude, in fact, when you were and are always addressed very civilly, indeed in a very friendly and collegial fashion at all times, so I won't dignify your post with a detailed response other than to say that of course the "Trojan" story is fantasy, and I implied as much if you had read more carefully. As for the rest, you have extremely limited knowledge and understanding of Roman history, or Classical History in general, although I would never have put it so baldly and rudely if you hadn't been so rude first. If you wish to discuss it with other people, I would suggest a lot more reading on the subject first, and changing your tone.
You won't be discussing this topic with me, however, or much else with me, for that matter, for the foreseeable future.
There, now rudeness has been answered by rudeness. Tit for tat, Bicicleur. I'm not known for turning the other cheek. I gave that up when I stopped being a Catholic.
K.I.S.S.-> keep it simple stupid lol. Yeah I'll go as far to say I would expect the Romans to be more like people who live in extreme southern Tuscany or Lazio (where Rome actually is)Disregard all the Legends.
This is very simple.
Rome is in Italy, so the Romans are Italics.
Add or subtract any gene you want, the Romans are still Italics because Rome is in Italy.
Spin all you want. Still Italians.
Nah screw it. They were more like Proto Greco Dorician Mycenaetruscic Celtoids from the lower upper Caucasian proto steppe
I guess first IE people arrived in Italy only 4-5000 years ago.I'm not sure about Roman aDNA but Reich has confirmed his lab is analyzing data from Italy between 4000BC-3000BC:
https://youtu.be/o0txUv9ei5I
"The bones that we're looking at right now are about 5,000- or 6,000-year-old samples from Italy and we're trying to understand population transformations in Italy over time. "
That's very good news, I think that's the time frame in which Italy was IEzed, they should find R1b ancestral to Bell Beaker together with other south Caucasus Y-DNA like J2, etc.
I'm not sure about Roman aDNA but Reich has confirmed his lab is analyzing data from Italy between 4000BC-3000BC:
https://youtu.be/o0txUv9ei5I
"The bones that we're looking at right now are about 5,000- or 6,000-year-old samples from Italy and we're trying to understand population transformations in Italy over time. "
That's very good news, I think that's the time frame in which Italy was IEzed, they should find R1b ancestral to Bell Beaker together with other south Caucasus Y-DNA like J2, etc.
I certainly hope they're not looking only at 4-3,000 BC. For one thing, I agree with Maciamo that a lot of the movement of the Indo-Europeans into Italy is later than that. I'm going to contact them today just to make sure someone has informed them, and they can be the ones to analyze these and the others that have been found recently. I do hope also that they took note of the Lombard paper. That kind of close work with archaeologists is essential.
Should be very interesting, but I have little doubt that by 300 BC they were well and truly mixed. If you give physical anthropology any credence, you just have to look at the portrait busts.
Well, Etruscans were not Italic, at least language-wise.
Alltough the 'Etruscan DNA' hasn't been found yet, so it won't be that different from Italian DNA.
But like you say it here, it sounds like we shouldn't bother taking DNA, as we know on beforehand what it will be.
the Etruscans have been noted in the Italian peninsula before the Romans ..........so what are you trying to say?
when Rome was founded, not all people in the area were Italic
This thread has been viewed 26129 times.