Livy's Oppidum Analysis

Tacitus uses the word oppidum to refer to the Ubii’s centre of power when he says that their capital was marked for destruction, ‘destinatum excidio Vbiorum oppidum’, demonstrating the point that the term can be applied to foreign/barbarian strongholds. This idea of barbarian/ tribal stronghold would seem to make sense given the way in which oppidum was used by Livy to show the Trojans building a new capital, which would have had to start as a tribal settlement before growing in population and grandeur to become a city. One gets the sense that the use of oppidum here is a deliberate attempt to distinguish what are the humble foundations for the idea of a city, but only Rome will be called an urbs. This can be compared to Virgil’s use of oppidum to speak of ancient strongholds (arces- citadels would seem to fit here) which existed before the Trojans arrived in Italia.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses supports the

This reading suggests that oppidum was used to mean village/rudimentary town to convey a sense of starting from scratch and coming from humble origins. In contrast, Lucretius uses oppidum as town when he writes ‘atque oppida coperuisse’ translated as ‘…and whelmed the towns.’ Ramsay considers Lucretius’ 5th book to be concerned with the origin of all things, including the rise and fall of humanity, suggesting that one could translate oppida as ‘humble town’ or ‘ancient village’. Ovid in his Tristia uses oppida for the foreign cities of Asia, ‘nec peto, quas quondam petii studiosus, Athenas, oppida non Asia’ translated ‘…nor am I on my way to Athens as once I was while a student, nor to the cities of