The Account of the Regal Period in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Antiquitates Romanae  1

Abstract Dionysius’ strongly idealized vision of the regal period raises again questions concerning belief in historical reconstructions. Dionysius’ critics, of whom there have been many, have supposed that his praise of Rome was essentially the work of a propagandist, and that Dionysius’ rhetorical interests were to blame for his failure to follow the most basic tenets of historical method. In order to explain the processes whereby Dionysius passed off an idealization as true history, I shall examine precisely what lies behind his characterization of the regal period: what he thinks the regal period was like and in what way he conveys this in his narration. Thereafter, I shall adduce his views on historiography, in order to understand more precisely the theoretical framework upon which his idealization is based, and to observe in greater detail how ideas of historical composition are manifested in the narrative account. I demonstrate that it was not through stupidity or intellectual limitation that Dionysius produced his idealization: rather that, although his account appears to take little notice of modern conceptions of historical composition, it does fit very closely into a system of historiography which had its own logic, a knowledge of which can lead to a better understanding of how all idealizing historical accounts function.