Editing Founding of Rome (section)

=== Chronological disagreements ===
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;"
|+ Rome's foundation dates in ancient sources
! Ancient historian !! Founding year
|-
| [[Gnaeus Naevius]]
| {{circa|1100&nbsp;BC}}{{sfn|Koptev|2010|p=20}}
|-
| [[Ennius]]
| {{circa|1100&nbsp;BC}}<ref>{{harvnb|Momigliano|1989|p=82|ps=. "Ennius... considered Ilia, Romulus' mother, to be the daughter of Aeneas... If, as seems probably, he attributed these words [that Rome was founded 700 years previously] to Camillus, he placed the origins of Rome in the early eleventh century BC".}}</ref> or <br />{{circa|884&nbsp;BC}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brinkman |first=John A |date=1958 |title=The foundation legends in Vergil |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3295326 |journal=Classical Journal |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=25–33 |jstor=3295326 |issn=0009-8353 |quote=Quintus Ennius... according to his account, the founding of the city was dated about the year 900 }}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Koptev|2010|pp=19–20|ps=, noting also the interpretation that Ennius' claim of "seven hundred years" having elapsed may be from the time of [[Marcus Furius Camillus|Camillus]], which imply {{circa|1100&nbsp;BC}}. }}</ref>
|-
| [[Timaeus (historian)|Timaeus]]
| 814–13&nbsp;BC<ref>{{harvnb|Koptev|2010|pp=15–16|ps=, noting that this was the first estimate of Rome's foundation; Koptev also notes Dionysius' later commentary expressing bafflement as to the choice of this year. }}</ref>
|-
| [[Asinius Quadratus]]
| 776&nbsp;BC<ref>{{harvnb|Feeney|2007|p=87}}, via synchronism with the Eratosthenes' date for the first [[Olympiad]].</ref>
|-
| [[Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133 BC)|Calpurnius Piso]]
| 757, 753, or 751&nbsp;BC<ref>{{harvnb|Koptev|2010|p=43|ps=. "600 years before the consulate of M. Aemilius Lepidus and C. Popilius, which took place in&nbsp;158 BC".}}</ref>
|-
| [[Marcus Terentius Varro|Varro]] and [[Plutarch]]
| 754–53&nbsp;BC{{sfnm|Cornell|1995|1p=72|Forsythe|2005|2p=94}}<ref>Plut. ''Rom.'', 12, claims 21 April 753&nbsp;BC synchronised with an eclipse; no such eclipse could have been observed in the Mediterranean for several years on either side of that date. {{harvnb|Grafton|Swerdlow|1985|pp=456–458}}.</ref>
|-
| [[Fasti Capitolini]]
| 753–52&nbsp;BC<ref>{{Cite book |last=Samuel |first=Alan Edouard |title=Greek and Roman chronology: calendars and years in classical antiquity |date=1972 |publisher=Beck |isbn=3-406-03348-2 |location=München |oclc=415753 |page=252 }} See Olympiad 6.4.</ref>
|-
| [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]]
| 752–51&nbsp;BC<ref name=":0">{{harvnb|Koptev|2010|p=20|ps=. "first year of the seventh Olympiad".}}</ref>{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=401}}
|-
| [[Polybius]]
| 751–50&nbsp;BC{{sfnm|Koptev|2010|1p=17|Momigliano|1989|2p=82}}{{sfn|Drummond|1989|p=626}}

|-
| [[Cato the Elder]] and [[Diodorus]]
| 751&nbsp;BC{{sfn|Koptev|2010|p=17}}{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=72}}<ref>[[Diodorus]], [[Bibliotheca historica|''Bibliotheca historica'']] [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/7*.html VII]. "the city was founded in the second year of the Seventh Olympiad."</ref>
|-
| [[Fabius Pictor]]
| 748–47&nbsp;BC{{sfn|Lomas|2018|p=50}}<ref>{{harvnb|Forsythe|2005|pp=94, 369–70|ps=, noting that Fabius Pictor's work did not include five fictitious years of anarchy, which extended the chronology to Varro's date. See {{harvnb|Dion. Hal. ''Ant. Rom.''|loc=1.74.1}}. }}</ref>
|-
| [[Lucius Cincius Alimentus|Cincius Alimentus]]
| 729–28&nbsp;BC{{sfnm|Forsythe|2005|1p=94|Lomas|2018|2p=50|Dion. Hal. ''Ant. Rom.''|3loc=1.74.1}}
|}

While the Romans believed that their city had been founded by an [[eponym|eponymous founder]] at a specific time,{{sfn|Lomas|2018|pp=36–37}} when that occurred was disputed by the ancient historians. The earliest dates placed it {{circa|1100}}{{nbsp}}BC out of a belief that Romulus had been Aeneas's grandson. This moved Rome's foundation much closer to the [[fall of Troy|fall]] of [[Ancient Troy|Troy]], dated by [[Eratosthenes]] to 1184–83&nbsp;BC;{{sfn|Koptev|2010|p=20}} these dates are attested as early as the 4th century{{nbsp}}BC. Romulus was later chronologically connected to Aeneas and the time of the [[Trojan War]] by introducing a [[kings of Alba Longa|line of Alban kings]], which scholars consider to be entirely spurious.{{sfnm|Lomas|2018|1p=50|Feeney|2007|2pp=88–89}}

Most scholars view the move from a foundation date in the 1100s to one in the 700s to have come from Roman calculations from estimates of the lengths of the republican and regal periods.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=72. "It seems clear that the various dates given by historians for the foundation... were linked to estimates of the length of the regal period"}} Their attempts to estimate how long the regal period lasted, however, are largely rejected as synthetic calculations.{{sfn|Cornell|1995|p=73. "Most probably the date was fixed simply by counting back seven generations of thirty-five years... it seems likely that the foundation date was fixed by some kind of mechanical calculation"}} It may also be that the date of the city's foundation was assigned from Greek historiography,{{sfn|Feeney|2007|p=89}} especially influenced by [[Timaeus (historian)|Timaeus of Tauromenium]] (born {{circa|350&nbsp;BC}}) who may have been the first to move the founding of the city from the era of the Trojan war to the more historical 814&nbsp;BC.<ref>{{harvnb|Feeney|2007|pp=92–94}}, noting there is no clear rationale for the selection of 814–13&nbsp;BC. But see {{harvnb|Koptev|2010|pp=17–19}}, suggesting 814&nbsp;BC comes from synchronism with the Macedonian dynasty or as five ''saecula'' before 263&nbsp;BC and the start of the [[First Punic War|first Punic war]].</ref> A later intervention, possibly at the hands of [[Fabius Pictor]] (born {{circa|270&nbsp;BC}}) or his source [[Diocles of Peparethus]], then placed the foundation date within the [[Olympiad]]s (ie within "historical" time), settling eventually on {{circa|750&nbsp;BC}}.{{sfn|Feeney|2007|pp=95–96, noting that bringing the foundation within the Olympiads "helps Fabius in his larger thematic plan of showing that Rome is not a barbarian outsider but an equal participant in the Greek cultural world"}} [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] (born {{circa|60&nbsp;BC}}) placed it in the first year of the [[List of ancient Olympic victors|7th Olympiad]], that is, 752 BC.<ref name=":0" /> The later ''[[Chronicon (Eusebius)|Chronographia]]'' of [[Eusebius]] ({{circa|325&nbsp;AD}}) accepts this dating, but his ''[[Chronicon (Eusebius)|Canons]]'' notably place the event three years earlier, in 755 BC, while also using Dionysius' date as the beginning of Romulus' reign.<ref>[[Eusebius]] [https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_chronicon_02_text.htm ''Chronographia'' 109-110], [https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_chronicle_02_part1.htm ''Canones'' 6-7th Olympiads].</ref>

From [[Claudius]]'s [[Secular Games]] in AD{{nbsp}}47 to [[Hadrian]]'s [[Romaea]] in AD{{nbsp}}121, the official date seems to have used the [[Varronian chronology|chronology]] established by [[Varro]] in the late 1st century{{nbsp}}BC, placing Rome's founding in 753{{nbsp}}BC. [[Augustus]]'s [[Fasti Capitolini|Fasti]] running to AD{{nbsp}}13 and the Secular Games celebrated at Rome's 900th and 1000th anniversaries under [[Antoninus Pius]] and [[Philip the Arab|Philip{{nbsp}}I]], meanwhile, used dates computed from a foundation a year later in 752{{nbsp}}BC. Despite known errors in Varro's work,<ref>{{harvnb|Forsythe|2005|p=279}}; {{harvnb|Cornell|1995|p=402}}; {{harvnb|Grafton|Swerdlow|1985|loc=passim}}</ref> it is the former date that has become the most repeated in modernity and is still used for computing the [[ab urbe condita|AUC]] [[calendar era]].{{sfnm|Forsythe|2005|1p=94|Lomas|2018|2p=50}}