Nec adfirmare nec refellere

Abstract

It is admitted, with G. Dumezil, that the Romans historicized the Indo-european myths, following a demythologizing process. Could we not reverse the perspective by putting forward the hypothesis of a mythologizing process of history ? Not a general and systematic hypothesis, but at least punctual and linked to certain events. Such is the reading attempted by this contribution, starting from various episodes in Livy’ s work staging Fabius Maximus (the Cunctator). Events of the historical period are accordingly connected with narratives of the mythical and legendary period which henceforward appear to be functioning as primordial and paradigmatic events later reactualized. An interpretation is notably advanced of the rivalry between Fabius Maximus, the dictator, and Minucius Rufus, the master of the cavalry, as a reactualisation of the myth of Romulus and Remus : several common fundamental characteristics bring the two narratives close together. A wistful writer of the past, Livy appears through this reading as the historian of Antiquity possibly closest to a mythical way of thinking.

Keywords

• Myth
• history
• historiography
• mythologizing
• gemellity
• Livy