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Dionysius of Halicarnassus · Roman Antiquities §14.2.1-14.2.3

Sacred Olive of Athens and the Staff of Romulus

Passage 894 of 962 · Greek

Summary

The text recounts the miraculous regeneration of the sacred olive tree on the Athenian Acropolis and the survival of Romulus's augur staff in a fire on the Palatine in Rome, followed by a fragmentary description of an army and an applauding crowd.

§14.2.1Ἀθήνῃσι μὲν ἐν τοῦ γηγενοῦς Ἐρεχθέως τῷ σηκῷ ἱερά τις ὑπʼ Ἀθηνᾶς φυτευθεῖσα ἐλαία κατὰ τὴν ἔριν τὴν γενομένην αὐτῇ πρὸς Ποσειδῶνα περὶ τῆς χώρας, ἅμα τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῖς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ οὖσιν ἐμπρησθεῖσα ὑπὸ τῶν βαρβάρων, ὅτε τῆς ἀκροπόλεως ἐκράτησαν, δευτέρᾳ τῆς ἐμπρήσεως ἡμέρᾳ βλαστὸν ἐκ τοῦ στελέχους ἀνῆκεν ὅσον τε πηχυαῖον, δῆλον ἅπασι ποιῆσαι βουλομένων τῶν θεῶν, ὅτι ταχέως ἑαυτὴν ἡ πόλις ἀναλαβοῦσα βλαστοὺς ἀντὶ τῶν παλαιῶν ἐξοίσει νέους.
At Athens, in the precinct of Erechtheus the earth-born, a certain sacred olive tree, planted by Athena at the time of her strife with Poseidon for the country, was burned by the barbarians along with the other things in the temple when they captured the acropolis; yet on the second day after the burning, it sent up a shoot from its trunk as much as a cubit long, since the gods wished to make it clear to all that the city, quickly recovering itself, would bring forth new shoots in place of the old.
§14.2.2ἐν δὲ τῇ Ῥώμῃ καλιάς τις Ἄρεος ἱερὰ περὶ τὴν κορυφὴν ἱδρυμένη τοῦ Παλατίου συγκαταφλεγεῖσα ταῖς πέριξ οἰκίαις ἕως ἐδάφους, ἀνακαθαιρομένων τῶν οἰκοπέδων ἕνεκα τῆς ἐπισκευῆς, ἐν μέσῃ τῇ περικαύστῳ σποδῷ τὸ σύμβολον τοῦ συνοικισμοῦ τῆς πόλεως διέσωσεν ἀπαθές, ῥόπαλον ἐκ θατέρου τῶν ἄκρων ἐπικάμπιον, οἷα φέρουσι βουκόλοι καὶ νομεῖς οἱ μὲν καλαύροπας, οἱ δὲ λαγωβόλα καλοῦντες, ᾧ Ῥωμύλος ὀρνιθευόμενος διέγραφε τῶν οἰωνῶν τὰς χώρας, ὅτε τὴν πόλιν οἰκίζειν ἔμελλεν.
And at Rome, a certain sacred hut of Mars established near the summit of the Palatine, which had been burned down to the ground along with the surrounding houses, preserved undamaged in the midst of the parched ashes the token of the founding of the city, when the sites were being cleared for reconstruction. This was a staff curved at one of its ends, such as herdsmen and shepherds carry, some calling it a "calaunops" and others a "lagobolon", with which Romulus, when he was about to found the city, used to mark out the quarters of the birds while taking auspices.
§14.2.3εὐζώνῳ καὶ οὐδὲν ἔξω τῶν ὅπλων φερούσῃ στρατιᾷ.
to the army, light-armed and carrying nothing besides their weapons.
κρότου καταρραγέντος, ὡς ἐπὶ μεγίστῳ μὲν θεάματι, καλλίστῳ δʼ ἀκούσματι, οἵ τε βεβαίως ἄποροι καὶ οἱ πλαττόμενοι τὴν εἰς τὸ παντελὲς ἀπορίαν.
A burst of applause broke out, as if at the greatest spectacle and the most beautiful thing to be heard, both those who were genuinely destitute and those who feigned total destitution.

Notes

  1. §14.2.1βουλομένων τῶν θεῶν — A genitive absolute construction expressing cause ("since the gods wished"), with a subject different from that of the main clause (ἐλαία).
  2. §14.2.2ἀνακαθαιρομένων τῶν οἰκοπέδων — A genitive absolute construction with the present participle, describing the background circumstance ("while the plots of land were being cleared") concurrent with the main action of preserving the token.
  3. §14.2.2οἷα φέρουσι βουκόλοι καὶ νομεῖς οἱ μὲν καλαύροπας, οἱ δὲ λαγωβόλα καλοῦντες — The neuter plural accusative relative pronoun οἷα characterizes the nature of the neuter singular antecedent ῥόπαλον. The subsequent structure οἱ μὲν... οἱ δὲ... functions as a partitive apposition to the preceding subject βουκόλοι καὶ νομεῖς.
  4. §14.2.3εὐζώνῳ καὶ οὐδὲν ἔξω τῶν ὅπλων φερούσῃ στρατιᾷ — Since this text is a series of fragments, this dative phrase stands without its governing verb. In its original context, it was likely connected to an action directed toward the army, such as giving or displaying something.

Cite this passage

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities §14.2.1-14.2.3. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0081.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:14.2.1-14.2.3

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