Ancient audiences and expectations

Although some Greek historians comment on the audience for their own history or for history in general, the Roman historians are usually silent on the subject, and we must use passing remarks or inferences from their histories and from other writers to determine the audience for history at Rome. That Rome was a society much devoted to the past cannot be denied. Romans of all eras prided themselves on their fidelity to mos maiorum , the ways of their ancestors, and the past provided both example and inspiration; Rome itself abounded with concrete reminders of past events; in early times the pontifex maximus recorded publicly the year's notable or unusual events; and the funerals of great men rehearsed the deeds of noble Romans and their ancestors. An interest in history is evident, moreover, at the very beginnings of Latin literature in C. Naevius' poem, the Bellum Punicum , which treated both earlier Roman history and the First Punic War (264-241 BCE) in which Naevius himself had fought. The writing of prose narrative history, however, began late in comparison with other genres. Its first practitioner was Quintus Fabius Pictor, a participant in the Second Punic War (218-201) who wrote when Roman history was already nearly five centuries old. Fabius wrote in Greek, a choice that suggests primarily a Greek audience: he was placing Rome and the Roman case before the wider Mediterranean world, in which Rome now played a leading role.