On the Olympiad and Year of the Taking of Rome

Summary

The advance of the Celts so near to the southern coasts of Italy attracted the attention of the Greeks even on the other side of the Ionian sea to their migration: and among the many cities which must have fallen before their attack, Rome may probably have been the most powerful and renowned. Its name indeed had not continued down to this time altogether unknown in Greece: it was mentioned in the legends which pursued the destinies of the Trojans after the fall of Troy: and Hecataeus, who spoke of Nola in his Europe, cannot possibly have past over Rome, which was still flourishing in glory under its monarchy when he reacht the maturity of manhood. But the wars it had been carrying on during the hundred and twenty years that followed the banishment of the Tarquins, against tribes utterly unknown and regarded as barbarians, could not possibly engage the attention of the Greeks: still less could Greek writers be led to speak of them: and as the books of Hecatseus sank into complete oblivion, after Eratosthenes publisht his treatise on geography, we may thus understand how the mention of the capture of Rome by the Gauls should be regarded as the earliest notice of any acquaintance with her fortunes among the Greeks.