War between Clusium and Aricia

In Roman tradition, the battle of Aricia happened around the fourth year of the Roman Republic, when Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius were consuls. The precise year of the battle varies in the sources: the historian Livy has 508 BC, and the antiquarian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (5.36), using Greek Olympiads, dated the events to 504 BC,^[3] while the traditional Varronian chronology has Larcius and Herminius as consuls in 506 BC. Dionysius narrates the conflict from the point of view of Cumae and its tyrant, Aristodemus, which has led Andreas Alföldi and other historians to believe that he used an independent Cumaean source instead of a Roman one.^[4] If true, this "Cumaean chronicle" (as it has been termed) provides an independent confirmation of the general accuracy of traditional Roman chronology, which dated the beginning of the Republic to the late 6th century BC.^[5] Arnaldo Momigliano wrote, "this synchronism with the history of Cumae is the strongest single argument for the correctness of Roman republican chronology'.^[6]

Alföldi's argument has been attacked by Andrew Gallia, who argues that there was no contemporary writing or tradition behind the Cumaean point of view in the conflict, and that Dionysius's date for the battle of Aricia should not be regarded as more accurate than Livy's.^[7] Wiseman was unconvinced by Gallia's arguments and accepted the existence of a Cumaean chronicle narrating the historical period in question.^[8]

• Cornell, T.J. (1995). The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01596-0.
• Gallia, Andrew B. (2007). "Reassessing the 'Cumaean Chronicle': Greek Chronology and Roman History in Dionysius of Halicarnassus". The Journal of Roman Studies. 97: 50–67. doi:10.3815/000000007784016052. JSTOR 20430571.
• Wiseman, T.P. (2008). Unwritten Rome. University of Exeter Press. ISBN 978-0-85989-822-5.