La réécriture d’une encombrante défaite : naissance, mort et résurrection historiographiques d’Horatius Coclès

Abstract

To hide the defeat against the Etruscan king Porsenna in 508 BC, Roman historians used a narrative based on transposed Greek historiographical elements and the recorded actions of an anonymous pontiff on the pons Sublicius. This pontiff became an infirm hero, member of the gens Horatia, whose fate and status during the battle changed throughout the whole historiographical construction. Due to these variations, the description of other characters involved in the very first years of the Roman Republic history, as the consul and pontiff Marcus Horatius or Lucretius, needed to be rewritten.

Keywords

• Roman Republic
• historiography
• Horatius Cocles
• Porsenna
• defeat
• annalistic