Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This work recontextualizes the historical accounts of early Rome in light of recent scholarship and archaeological discoveries. It argues that Rome’s earliest historians worked with information that was biased and often inaccurate, and so they produced historical accounts that significantly misinterpret the nature of Rome’s early society and government. Recent archaeological evidence and historical research provide new insight into the social and political contexts of early Rome, making it possible to identify misinterpretations in the literary accounts and thereby produce a reconstruction of the development of government in early Rome that better fits the archaeological and historical contexts without departing from the core ideas and themes of the narratives.</jats:p>