Henriette Van Der Blom, Christa Gray, Catherine Steel - Institutions and Ideology in Republican Rome - Speech, Audience and Decision-Cambridge University Press (2018)

IN STIT UTION S AND IDEOLOGY I N
REPUBLICAN ROME
This volume brings together a distinguished international group of

researchers to explore public speech in Republican Rome in its
institutional and ideological contexts. The focus throughout is on
the interaction between argument, speaker, delivery and action.
The chapters consider how speeches acted alongside other factors –
such as the identity of the speaker, his alliances, the deployment of
invective against opponents, physical location and appearance of
other members of the audience and non-rhetorical threats or incen-
tives – to affect the beliefs and behaviour of the audience. Together
the chapters offer a range of approaches to these issues and bring
attention back to the content of public speech in Republican Rome as
well as its form and occurrence. The book will be of interest not only
to ancient historians but also to those working on ancient oratory and
to historians and political theorists working on public speech.
henriette van der blom is Lecturer in Ancient History at the

University of Birmingham. Her publications include Cicero’s Role
Models: The Political Strategy of a Newcomer (2010), Community and
Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome (edited with
Catherine Steel, 2013) and Oratory and Political Career in the Late
Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2016). She is a member of the editorial
board of The Fragments of the Roman Republican Orators project.
christa gray is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading.
She is the author of Jerome, Vita Malchi: Introduction, Text,
Translation, and Commentary (2015) and co-editor, along with
Andrea Balbo, Richard Marshall and Catherine Steel, of Reading
Republican Oratory: Reconstructions, Contexts, Receptions (2018). She
is a member of the editorial board of The Fragments of the Roman
Republican Orators project.
catherine steel is Professor of Classics at the University of
Glasgow. Her publications include The End of the Roman Republic,
146–44 BC: Conquest and Crisis (2013) and, as editor, The Cambridge
Companion to Cicero (Cambridge, 2013). She is currently Principal
Investigator on The Fragments of Republican Roman Oratory project.
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INSTITUTIONS AND
IDEOLOGY IN
REPUBLICAN ROME
Speech, Audience and Decision
edited by
HENRIETTE VAN DER BLOM
University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
CHRISTA GRAY
University of Reading, United Kingdom
CATHERINE STEEL
University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
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Dedicated to the memory of Martin Stone
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Contents
List of Contributors page ix

Acknowledgements xi
List of Abbreviations xii
Introduction 1
Catherine Steel, Christa Gray and Henriette van der Blom
part i modes of political communication 13

1 Aristocratic Dignity and Indignity in Republican Public Life 15
Alexander Yakobson
2 Political Communication in the Late Roman Republic:
Semantic Battles between Optimates and Populares? 35
Claudia Tiersch
3 Political Participation and the Identification of Politicians
in the Late Roman Republic 69
Cristina Rosillo-López
4 Gods, Change and Civic Space in Late Republican Oratory 88
Anna Clark
part ii political alliances 105

5 Political Alliances and Rivalries in Contiones in the Late
Roman Republic 107
Francisco Pina Polo
6 Theophanes of Mytilene, Cicero and Pompey’s Inner Circle 128
Federico Santangelo
vii
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viii Contents
7 The Garden and the Forum: Epicurean Adherence and
Political Affiliation in the Late Republic 147
Cas Valachova
8 Cato, Pompey’s Third Consulship and the Politics
of Milo’s Trial 165
Kit Morrell
part iii institutions in theory and practice 181

9 Falsifying the Auspices in Republican Politics 183
Lindsay G. Driediger-Murphy
10 When the Senators Became ‘The Best’ 203
Guido Clemente
11 Private Knowledge and Public Image in Roman Elections:
The Case of the Pro Murena 222
Ayelet Haimson Lushkov
12 The ‘Wrong’ Meetings? Some Notes on the Linked
Usage of the Terms Coetus and Contiones in the Political
Language of the Roman Republic 236
Roman M. Frolov
13 Servilia’s Consilium: Rhetoric and Politics in a Family Setting 252
Harriet Flower
part iv memory and reputation 265

14 Like Father, Like Son? The Dynamics of Family Exemplarity
and Ideology in (Fragmentary) Republican Oratory 267
Evan Jewell
15 Good Fortune and the Public Good: Disputing Sulla’s
Claim to Be Felix 283
Alexandra Eckert
16 Gaius Verres Troubleshooter 299
Martin Stone
Bibliography 314
Index 345
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Contributors
henriette van der blom Lecturer in Ancient History at the

University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
anna clark Associate Professor in Ancient History at the University of
Oxford and Tutor in Roman History at Christ Church, Oxford, United
Kingdom
guido clemente Professor Emeritus of Roman History at Università
degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
lindsay g. driediger-murphy Assistant Professor in Latin and
Roman Social/Religious History at the University of Calgary, Canada
alexandra eckert Assistant Professor in Ancient History at Carl von
Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany
harriet flower Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics at
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
roman m. frolov Lecturer in Ancient History at P. G. Demidov
Yaroslavl State University, Russia
christa gray Lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading, United
Kingdom
evan jewell Doctoral candidate in Classical Studies at Columbia
University, New York, NY, United States
ayelet haimson lushkov Associate Professor of Classics at the
University of Texas at Austin, TX, United States
kit morrell Research Affiliate in the Department of Classics and
Ancient History at the University of Sydney, Australia
ix
x List of Contributors
francisco pina polo Professor of Ancient History at Universidad de
Zaragoza, Spain
cristina rosillo-lópez Lecturer in History at Universidad Pablo de
Olavide, Spain
federico santangelo Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the
University of Newcastle, United Kingdom
catherine steel Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow,
United Kingdom
martin stone (1941–2015) Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the
University of Sydney, Australia
claudia tiersch Professor of Ancient History at the Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin, Germany
cas valachova Doctoral student in Classics and Ancient History at the
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
alexander yakobson Associate Professor of Ancient History at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Acknowledgements
This volume arises from the project The Fragments of the Republican
Roman Orators (FRRO), funded by the European Research Council
(ERC Project 283670) at the University of Glasgow (2012–17) and would
not have been possible without the ERC’s generous and sustained support.
The editors are extremely grateful to the members of the FRRO Advisory
Board for their advice and contributions both at the conference in London
in 2014 (at which these papers received their initial presentation) and
throughout the project, and in particular, we are grateful to Professor
Gesine Manuwald, who hosted the conference at University College
London; to the project’s two PhD students, Christopher Burden-
Strevens and Jennifer Hilder; to Zara Chadha, editorial assistant on the
FRRO project; to Joel Leslie, who compiled the index at short notice; and
above all to Richard Marshall, research associate on the FRRO project,
without whose tactful, meticulous and persistent editorial work this
volume would have been much slower to reach completion.
xi
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Abbreviations
AE (1888–). L’Année épigraphique, Paris.

BNJ I. Worthington et al. (eds.) (2007–). Brill’s New
Jacoby Online: http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/
browse/brill-s-new-jacoby.
BNP H. Cancik, H. Schneider and C. F. Salazar (eds.)
(2002–14). Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the
Ancient World (28 vols.), Leiden.
CAH (1970–2005). Cambridge Ancient History (14 vols.),
2nd edn, Cambridge.
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin.
Daremberg and C. V. Daremberg and E. Saglio (eds.) (1877–1919).
Saglio Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines:
d’après les textes et les monuments (5 vols.), Paris.
FGrHist F. Jacoby (ed.) (1923–). Die Fragmente der grie-
chischen Historiker, Berlin.
FRHist T. J. Cornell et al. (eds.) (2013). Fragments of the
Roman Historians (3 vols.), Oxford.
HRR H. Peter (ed.) (1870–1906 [vol. I, 2nd edn 1914]).
Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae (2 vols.), Leipzig.
ILLRP A. Degrassi (ed.) (1965). Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae
Rei Publicae, 2nd edn, Florence.
ILS H. Dessau (ed.) (1892–1906). Inscriptiones Latinae
Selectae (5 vols.), Leipzig.
KP K. Ziegler and W. Sontheimer (eds.) (1964–75). Der
Kleine Pauly: Lexikon der Antike (5 vols.), Stuttgart.
MRR R. S. Broughton (1951–2, 1986). The Magistrates of the
Roman Republic (3 vols.), New York, NY, and
Atlanta, GA.
OLD P. G. W. Glare (ed.) (2012). Oxford Latin Dictionary,
2nd edn, Oxford.
xii
List of Abbreviations xiii
4
ORF E. Malcovati (ed.) (1976). Oratorum Romanorum
Fragmenta Liberae Rei Publicae (2 vols.), 4th edn,
Turin.
RDGE R. K. Sherk (1964). Roman Documents from the Greek
East: senatus consulta and epistulae to the Age
of Augustus, Baltimore, MD.
REG Wissowa et al. (eds.) (1893–1978). Paulys
Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft,
Stuttgart.
RRC M. H. Crawford (1974). Roman Republican Coinage
(2 vols.), Cambridge.
SB Shackleton Bailey’s numbering in his editions of
Cicero’s letters.
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.
Syll.3 W. Dittenberger (ed.) (1915–24). Sylloge Inscriptionum
Graecarum, 3rd edn, Leipzig.
TLL (1900–). Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Leipzig.
Introduction
Catherine Steel, Christa Gray and Henriette van der Blom
The Roman Republic, alongside fifth-century Athens, has provided one of

the most influential classical models of political organisation. In the various
receptions of both communities, however, there has been a constant ten-
dency to simplify and idealise: Athens as the model democracy in which
art, architecture, literature and philosophical thought flourished, Rome as
an efficient and effective force conquering and consolidating a vast area of
territory thanks to its superior organisational powers.1 Yet the Roman
Republic was not a single and unchanging entity over the nearly five
centuries of its existence.2 Nor was it always a stable organisation, especially
during the last decades before Octavian’s establishment of the Principate,
when it was subject to near-constant conflict as its citizens competed over
the proceeds from its conquests. These conflicts can, at points, be traced in
considerable detail, painting a highly complex picture of the political,
religious and social forces at work in the Roman state, yet other aspects
of the political sphere remain frustratingly opaque, obscured by the nature
of the surviving evidence which consistently privileges an elite perspective.
This volume takes as its starting point two distinct frameworks within
which political action at Rome took place. One is the institutional context,
by which we mean the rules and organisational structures by which
political decisions were reached and implemented. At Rome, this included
assemblies of citizens, the magistrates who could summon them, their
procedural rules and the decisions that they could legitimately reach; the
Senate, its members, its rules of debates and the status of its decisions; law,
its creation, administration and implementation; religious authority and
decision-making; and executive power, including the process of elections
and military commands. The second framework is that of political belief.
1
Much work remains to be done on the modern receptions of the Roman Republic and democratic
Athens. Starting points are Demetriou 1999; Lintott 1999b: 233–55; Steel 2015. Cf. also Nippel 1980
for the reception of Greek political thought in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century England.
2
Flower 2011.
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2 steel, gray and van der blom
Application of the term ‘ideology’ to capture the operation of political
beliefs in Republican Rome is far from unproblematic: not only is it
a concept that is firmly grounded in the political debates of the twentieth
century, but it also implies a more pervasive and organised phenomenon
than can be documented for Rome, particularly for non-elite political
thought.3 However, its use here, despite such issues, indicates this volume’s
commitment to the position that political belief was a force within the
Republic.
The institutional history of Rome is well served. The Republic as
a predictable system whose operation was governed by law is the model
underpinning the foundational works of nineteenth-century historical
analysis.4 Mommsen’s Republic remains the starting-point for all discus-
sions of constitutional practice, even when these seek to refine aspects of his
model.5 Important recent studies have clarified our understanding of
various magistracies, legal practice and of key constitutional concepts.6
By contrast, the role of ideology has tended to be neglected, or even
denied.7 In part, this may reflect unease over the word itself. But it also
reflects an interpretation of Republican life in which political actors are
motivated by factors other than their beliefs about how the world is and
should be and in which their activity takes place within frameworks
constructed in terms other than those of ideologically driven goals.
On this view, the politically engaged elite, those who sought high public
office and the fame that came with glittering careers, found that the route
to success depended not so much on the articulation of programmes of
action attractive to voters but on the deployment of money, personal
connections and individual credentials (such as past public service), and
the effective public communication thereof, to project an attractive and
trustworthy persona to the electorate.8 In parallel with these means to
3
Wiseman 2009; Arena 2012: 7–8, 79–81; cf. Gray 2015: 12–14.
4
Mommsen 1887–8; de Martino 1972–90.
5
Bleicken 1955; Giovannini 1983; Bonnefond-Coudry 1989; Pina Polo 1989.
6
Brennan 2000; the papers collected in Beck, Duplá, Jehne and Pina Polo 2011; Pina Polo 2011a;
Williamson 2005; Schiavone 1987; Vervaet 2014. On the triumph, see Itgenshorst 2005; Beard 2007;
Östenberg 2009.
7
The prosopographical tradition is represented, for example, by Münzer 1920; Syme 1939; MRR; from
a different perspective, Morstein-Marx (2004: 229, 240, 276) comments on the ‘ideological monot-
ony’ of oratory in the Republic, a position, however, from which he has moved (Morstein-Marx 2013,
2014). On the role of ideology in the Republic, see Ferrary 1982; Perelli 1982; see also Straumann 2016;
Hodgson 2017.
8
Thus [Q. Cic.] Pet. 21–3, 28, 40, 42, 44, 49, 50–3; though see Alexander 2009; Yakobson 1999;
Hölkeskamp 1995 = 2004b, 1997, 2001, 2003; see also Tatum 2013 on electoral oratory; and van der
Blom 2016 on oratory as a factor for political success.
Introduction 3
individual success, popular participation in political decision-making was
shaped by institutional formats that promoted consensus and the articula-
tion of harmony between a benevolent ruling elite and an obedient and
grateful citizen body.9
This model of political life identifies a number of crucial and distinctive
aspects for the nature of the Roman Republic, above all the constant
tension between the possibility of popular power and the dominance of
a definable elite. And there were undeniably aspects of Roman political life
that minimised the potential for ideology to play a role. Chief among these
is the absence of political parties. The term ‘party’ is sometimes used in
discussing the Republic, but what is meant by the term in relation to Rome
is a series of alliances between powerful political figures, temporary in
duration and informal in structure.10 A political party with members,
a published programme of activity, a strategy for implementation and
existence over a period of decades or longer is entirely unknown. And –
whether as cause or symptom of the absence of defined party groupings –
there appears to have been a single dominant model of community
organisation, in which the Roman people were unarguably sovereign,
imposing consensus on the articulation of competing political programmes
and leaving space for difference only in the motives and trustworthiness of
individual politicians.11 However, removing ideology from analyses of
Republican political life is ultimately unsustainable: there is enough evi-
dence to indicate that some politicians – and some of their supporters –
shared judgements about the world as it was and as it should be and acted
with the aim of achieving or preventing social and political change.
To ignore this evidence is ultimately to buy into the elite, or at least the
Ciceronian, version of the ideal community.12
Underpinning this collection of chapters is the hypothesis that Roman
politics operated in the ways that it did because of its institutional frame-
work in combination with the beliefs and aspirations that framed political
debate. Moreover, these are not separable constraints. It is not that poli-
ticians and voters reached decisions about what to do, driven by how they
wanted their community to be, and only then implemented these decisions
9
Meier 1980; Hölkeskamp 2010; Jehne 2000, 2013a, 2013b.
10
Münzer 1920; Taylor 1949; Meier 1980: 182–200. The Latin word factio has a wide range of
meanings, from ‘social connections’ (OLD s.v. factio no. 2) via ‘group’ and ‘school’ (OLD no. 3)
to ‘political party’ (OLD no. 4a), but in this last sense it is generally used with negative connotations
(implying that Romans did not speak proudly of the factio to which they considered themselves to
belong), and the meaning slides into the more abstract ‘oligarchy’ (TLL s.v. factio: 137.12–22), as well
as ‘adherence to a faction’ and ‘partisanship’ (OLD s.v. factio no. 4b); see further Seager 1972a.
11
Morstein-Marx 2004: 12, 206–7, 279–87. 12 Wiseman 2009: 5–32.
within an institutional framework that dictated certain forms of activity
and prevented others. Rather, the ideological and institutional are entirely
enmeshed. The most striking proof of this phenomenon is the office of
tribune of the plebs. Although the actual foundation of this office is
impossible to trace securely, the foundation myths which the Romans
told about it indicate that its fundamental purpose was to promote the
interests of one group of citizens, the plebeians, at the expense of the
patrician minority.13 It is evident even from the heavily biased treatments
that Cicero offers that there was a distinctive and identifiable kind of
politics which promoted the interests of the plebeians and which was
largely carried out by tribunes of the plebs, supported by the institutional
features of the position, such as its legislative capacity and the veto:
adherence to this kind of politics is what the term popularis describes,
even if Cicero himself attempted to appropriate the term for rather
different ends.14 Political actors who wished to promote popularis interests
did not have the benefit of an organisation devoted to that end or any
agreed statement of what popularis interests might be, but they did have
a basic rallying cry on behalf of the Roman people as a whole, as opposed to
those of small interest groups, as well as a set of tactics and techniques,
a pantheon of heroes, organisational means to promote their aims and
perhaps even a group of texts.15
The task is not simply to adjudicate the importance of different moti-
vating factors. It is easy enough to evidence instances of all the factors so far
noted playing a part in explaining the outcome of events: there are patterns
in electoral success which strongly suggest that an incumbent consul could
influence voting in favour of his brothers or cousins;16 there were pacts
between men to create electoral blocs and benefit from combined tranches
of votes;17 bribery undoubtedly affected some elections;18 and legislative
programmes which benefitted the whole people were passed despite the
13
On the tribunate, see Russell 2013, 2015; Badian 1996; Steel 2010; and Tatum 1999.
14
Cic. Leg. Agr. 1.23–5, 2.6 (where Cicero speaks of himself as popularis consul); Sest. 106–27. See Tracy
2008–9.
15
On the fundamental popularis position, see Meier RE Suppl. X, s.v. populares; Mackie 1992; Ferrary
1997a = 2017; Hölkeskamp 1997; Robb 2010. Popularis techniques centred on tribunicial legislation
promoting redistribution of resources (whether land or food) and scrutiny of senatorial decision-
making and was often associated with a certain type of public oratory (David 1983; Kondratieff 2003,
2012; Morstein-Marx 2004; van der Blom 2016). On the popularis history of Rome, see Wiseman
2009: 5–32; on collegia, see e.g. Liu 2013, esp. 352–54.
16
Hopkins and Burton 1983; Beck 2005; Hinard 1990; Münzer 1920.
17
For example, Catiline and Antonius Hybrida in 64 bc; the Marcelli brothers for the consulships of
51, 50 and 49 bc; Pompey, Caesar and Crassus in 60–50 bc.
18
See Lintott 1990.
Introduction 5
ferocious opposition of the Senate.19 The identification of relevant factors
that explain particular events is a vital first step in analysing this political
system. But the more challenging question is to analyse the interplay of
these factors and to do so not simply in terms of their discrete contribution
to episodes but also as ways of operating within Roman political space that
affected each other at the level of technique, method and principle.
An example is the nature of the political year. Roman politics had
a relentless annual cycle.20 The end of each political year saw a near-total
renewal of the executive, in which almost all magistrates demitted office
and were replaced by new post-holders who had never held that position
before.21 This annual renewal of the executive arguably promoted shorter
rather than longer perspectives. It certainly contributed to a very distinct
annual pattern of activity, particularly around tribunician legislation.
The practical point that office-holders had very little time to distinguish
themselves during their tenure, as a result of the institutional framework of
office-holding, thus also had important consequences for politicians’
mind-sets.22
In following this line of enquiry it is vital to frame the definition of
institutions in the Republic in a manner that is both precise and flexible.
Political life took place within a framework of rules and conventions that,
in the normal course of events, ensured the smooth transaction of business,
and most aspects of social and family life were ordered by a wider web of
the same type of rules, idealised as the mos maiorum (the ‘customs of the
ancestors’).23 Yet innovation was frequent. In part the unsystematic nature
of the constitution opened up disputed spaces with different and poten-
tially conflicting sources of authority to which agents could appeal. So, for
example, were the rules surrounding the tribunate, particularly those
relating to the sacrosanctity of the tribune’s body, dominant, or could
they be trumped by the fundamental fact that a tribune’s authority derived
from his embodiment of the popular will? This was the issue that Tiberius
19
See Morstein-Marx 2013. 20 Steel 2015.
21
The exceptions are the censors, who, every five years, held office for eighteen months. Imperium
holders could have their imperium prorogued into a second and potentially subsequent years, but
this phenomenon took place only outside Rome (until the anomalous case of Pompeius in the
50s bc, who held imperium which he exercised through legates while himself remaining on the
outskirts of Rome).
22
For the tribunate, see Russell 2013, 2015. The implications of this in terms of the administrative
structures which supported the Republic remain to be explored, but a starting point would be to
think along the lines of Pina Polo 2011a (on the consulship), Brennan 2000 (on the praetorship) and
Ryan 1998.
23
Blösel 2000; Walter 2003; Pina Polo 2004; van der Blom 2010: 12–17.
Gracchus forced into the open when he oversaw the deposition from office
of his colleague Octavius; on that occasion, tribunician sacrosanctity was
overborne by popular vote. Yet the assembly in 133 bc which had estab-
lished that order of priority through its decision to depose Octavius did not
settle the question once and for all: tribunes continued to come into
conflict with each other and with other magistrates, and there was no
consistent pattern to whether their physical inviolability carried the day or
not.24 Behind such conflicts lay the idea of the popular will and its very
concrete expression in assemblies and votes. The ultimate sovereignty of
the people within the res publica meant that what was unprecedented could
be made legitimate through a vote and its implementation, yet the gap
which could be posited between a particular instance of the popular will at
a single assembly and the putative will of the whole citizen body proved
fertile territory for struggles over legitimacy.25 As a result of this institu-
tional framework the possibility of conflict was always present and became
itself a possible source of stability within the system. So, for example, the
powers of the tribunate of the plebs were quickly restored in the decade
after Sulla’s dictatorship, with the apparent support of the ruling elite:
institutionally determined parameters for the articulation of the popular
will were preferable to the alternative. The question to be posed is thus not
simply one of conflict versus cooperation, whether over programmes or
over political prizes, but whether a particular instance of conflict operated
within an accepted framework that offered the possibility of an orderly
resolution.
The chapters in this volume had their origins in a conference held in
London in April 2014 as part of the European Research Council–funded
project, ‘The Fragments of Republican Roman Oratory’. Although the
conference did not focus exclusively on oratory, the project’s focus shaped
the framing of the conference’s research questions and emphasised the
interaction between argument, politician and audience as a topic for
exploration. An important starting-point was the nature of the relationship
between particular institutions and the kinds of arguments which sup-
24
Conflicts between tribunes in the 60s bc (which may have been historically informed): in 67, the
tribunes P. Servilius Globulus and Trebellius Rufus vetoed the actions of their fellow-tribunes
C. Cornelius (Asc. 58C) and Aulus Gabinius (Asc. 72C), respectively, as discussed in Griffin 1973;
Pompey has a consul thrown into prison in 60 bc (Dio Cass. 37.50.1–4), and in 59 bc, the consul
Bibulus was threatened by a tribune of the plebs with the same fate (Dio Cass. 38.6.6). See Steel
2010.
25
This gap is what, in essence, underlies Cicero’s entire argumentative position following his return
from exile: see especially Cic. Sest. 106–27, with Kaster 2006: 32–4, 330–59; cf. Morstein-Marx 2004:
120, with further bibliography.
Introduction 7
ported action within a particular institutional framework. This is not
simply an unnecessarily complicated way of talking about rhetorical
genre – though different audiences clearly did frame the language and
expectations of different kinds of speech. Rather, it is a way to put the
categories of deliberative oratory, that is, the honourable and the advanta-
geous, into dialogue with the other forms of pressure that directed deci-
sions, whether the obligations of personal reciprocity, friendship and
family, the material gains (individual or collective) that could attend
certain courses of action or the supernatural demands of the pantheon of
Roman deities. Not all of these pressures were governed or dictated by legal
regulations, and strict boundaries cannot be demarcated between the rules
enshrined in public or private law, the precepts of religion and other social
and cultural sets of conventions and expectations. But it was possible for
politicians to appeal to fixed points that could be presented as unalterable
and indeed to an understanding of the public sphere as stable and pre-
dictable, even though in practice that apparent fixity was both the object of
debate and the subject of regular and often substantial change.
Part I of this volume sets out the relationship between institutional
framework and ideological position by exploring the nature of political
communication in its broadest sense. Yakobson begins with the contio, the
most fluid and multipurpose location for organised political activity in the
Republic and one inextricably linked with the tribunate of the plebs and its
institutionally disruptive potential. He concentrates on elite engagement
with the people at the contio and particularly on the occasions when the
most powerful and distinguished members of the Senate, men who were
not sympathetic to popularis views, had to use the contio to create a positive
and effective relationship with the Roman people. He argues that the contio
was always a place of danger, threatening the dignity of those who spoke to
it, despite its capacity to generate consensus. Roman political life involved
relentless competition between politicians: even if, on most occasions, this
was resolved into overall harmony across the res publica, it was so in ways
that constantly left open the possibility of conflict. Tiersch approaches this
question from the opposite direction: starting with ideological positions,
she subjects the terms optimates and populares to close analysis as an
example of a ‘semantic battle’. Her analysis not only demonstrates the
techniques used by conservative, elite orators to exclude other views but
also shows how the synergy between speech and its location within institu-
tional frameworks proved ultimately unsuccessful in promoting elite inter-
ests because it was unable to articulate a persuasive alternative to popularis
claims. Rosillo-López focuses on how men were recognised as politicians at
Rome by those who were not themselves politically active. She reveals the
ways in which politicians created identities in the absence of an identity
framed by a political party and emphasises the complexity of political life at
Rome, with over forty new magistrates each year. As a result, cases of
misrecognition should not be taken as indices of political apathy among
the citizen body: most senior figures do seem to have had a high degree of
public visibility, assisted by the dramatic visual appearance of Roman
magistrates as they moved through Rome. Thus, they would have been
able to inspire hopes and expectations among the general populace, and
this had consequences for citizens’ behaviour in contiones and elections.
Finally in this part, Clark explores the intersection between political
communication and Rome’s understanding of its relationship with the
gods. Here Cicero’s oratory takes a central place, as the only body of
evidence where we can trace the articulation of the gods’ place in complete
form, though Clark rightly underscores the extent to which fragmentary
oratory echoes the Ciceronian picture. The gods are a common resource,
entirely at home in the sphere of political communication, and speakers
can speak of and for the gods in pursuit of even quite small and apparently
local concerns.
In Part II, the focus shifts to the phenomenon of the political alliance.
Political alliances cannot exactly be considered as a form of institution:
indeed, their transitional and informal nature is a central factor that
illustrates the ways in which the union of forces between Antonius,
Octavian and Lepidus in 43 bc, authorised by a popular vote that conferred
an official position on these men, was a new development. But it is also
clear that long before the formation of the Second Triumvirate, Roman
politicians were articulating, reflecting on and operating in accordance
with certain conventions and expectations surrounding amicitia, which
were nonetheless consonant with considerable variation in terms of the
ideological motives of such groupings. Some alliances had a focus on the
personal advantage of their members, particularly in terms of elections and
beneficial senatorial decisions; others could involve a focus on achieving
particular legislative ends or even the implementation of broad pro-
grammes of reform. As Pina Polo demonstrates, we can see this range of
practice very clearly at the contio, whose format encouraged cooperation (as
a contio could only be summoned by a magistrate, which meant that non-
magistrates could only perform at contiones if a friendly – or hostile –
magistrate invited them to do so) and could also provide a public stage to
demonstrate the existence of cooperation or, as potently, the ending of
conflict. The three subsequent chapters in this section offer a series of case
Introduction 9
studies of the alliances contracted by three of the leading figures at the very
end of the Republic: Pompeius, Caesar and Cato. Santangelo focuses on
the relationship between Pompeius and Theophanes of Mytilene.
Santangelo argues that despite Theophanes’ intellectual achievements,
his significance for Pompeius was as much political as cultural, as
a confidential agent who could move easily and discreetly among a wide
circle of influential Romans. His prominence depended in part on his
distinguished position within Mytilene and is difficult to parallel beyond
Balbus, who played a similar role for Caesar. Valachova’s study of alliances
among Epicureans, by contrast, concentrates on members of the Roman
elite, arguing that we can identify a cluster of Epicureans among Caesar’s
close associates. While there is no evidence that Caesar himself professed
Epicureanism, Valachova argues that the philosophical beliefs which these
other men shared promoted a view of friendship that suited Caesar’s
careful use of warm personal friendship, and loyalty, in his political actions,
as well as enabling them to support each other effectively. Morrell’s study
looks at the younger Cato: his use of close personal associates to promote
coherent political action is well known and distinctive, but Morrell argues
that its operation in the crunch year of 52 bc has been misunderstood. Cato
and Pompeius managed to bridge their suspicion of each other in the early
part of the year through the crisis set off by the murder of Clodius: a shared
commitment to ensuring the peace of the res publica overcame previous
disagreements. These various alliances involve relationships between social
and political equals alongside those between men who were not equals,
such as Pompeius and Theophanes. This latter case can be seen as an
example of patronage, yet, as Santangelo’s contribution shows, we cannot
by the end of the Republic draw clear distinctions between friendship and
patronage in terms of different spheres of activity in which the relationship
could be deployed.
Part III turns towards specific institutions and institutional practices:
the auspices, the censorial lectio senatus, elections, assemblies and
a magistrate’s advisory body. A common theme throughout is the contrast
between what is often presented as a rule-driven system and considerable
flexibility in practice. Driediger-Murphy’s study of the ominous events
which were said to have accompanied Crassus’ departure from Rome in
55 bc explores how the participants – Crassus himself, the obnuntiating
tribune Capito and Capito’s later prosecutor, Appius Pulcher – invoked
tradition while innovating in terms of practice and tactics. Clemente’s
chapter elucidates the history of the censor’s selection of members of the
Senate: he shows how this practice, though apparently embedded in the res
publica, was itself a radical change at the time of its introduction in the late
fourth century and one whose consequences included the legitimation of
the emerging patricio-plebeian nobility. Haimson Lushkov’s chapter
explores how Cicero packaged the institution of the election at Murena’s
trial for electoral bribery: she argues that Cicero attempted to simplify and
replay the electoral choice by setting up a distinct binary contrast between
Murena, the soldier, and his defeated rival, Sulpicius, as an obscurantist
lawyer. Frolov offers a detailed exploration of the words contio and coetus:
he emphasises that despite apparent similarity of meaning, their use shows
a keen alertness to the institutional difference between a meeting of citizens
legitimately summoned by a magistrate and other kinds of gathering.
The distinction is not always one of fact – contiones can be described as
coetus – but can also reflect authorial attitude and serves to identify forms of
political action whose legitimacy is to be questioned. Finally, Flower looks
at the consilium as a magistrate’s advisory body: in a detailed study of two
specific meetings of a consilium in 44 and 43 bc, recorded in detail in letters
from Cicero to Atticus and to Brutus, she considers the ways in which
a consilium, despite being private, possessed formal features, including the
use of set-piece speeches. She suggests that one frame in which to under-
stand such gatherings is that of the Senate, itself a consilium, and that the
public experience of senators might – unsurprisingly – have influenced the
format in which they considered, albeit in a private and invitation-only
context, their public duties.
Part IV returns to the broader set of concerns around political culture
and political communication, but here with a focus on the ways in which
individual politicians attempted to secure a particular reputation which
they could then transmit to posterity in order to become part of Rome’s
historical record. Jewell explores this phenomenon in the context of
families: how did men from prominent political families use and engage
with the existing reputations of their relatives, usually, though not invari-
ably, within their gens? Using evidence from fragmentary oratory, he argues
that family exempla were frequently imbued with significant content: what
mattered was not merely to recall one family’s distinguished history but to
identify a distinctive aspect of the public service of one’s family in order to
suggest that the speaker could replicate that kind of service if offered the
support of his listeners. Family history within Roman oratory and, by
extension, public life more generally thus involved constant simplification
in order to preserve memorable and consistent family traits. The final two
chapters look at the reputational struggles of two individuals: the dictator
Sulla and one of his followers, Gaius Verres. Eckert explores the novelty of
Introduction 11
Sulla’s self-presentation in terms of his felicitas but also demonstrates how
Sulla’s reputation itself became an object of imitation by Caesar and
a yardstick for evaluating the behaviour of political leaders well into the
Imperial period. Sulla remained an ambiguous figure; Verres, by contrast,
emphatically lost the reputational battle, relentlessly pilloried by Cicero at
his trial for extortion. But, as Stone observes, Verres could be defended –
and was, by Hortensius; we can trace the outlines of Verres’ positive
reputation even in Cicero’s attack, and Verres’ downfall reflected immedi-
ate political concerns in Rome to a much greater extent that it did any
consistent Roman policy concerning provincial government.
The chapters in this volume are unified by two recurrent arguments.
The first is that there was a constant tension around Roman political
institutions between the format they happened to have at a particular
moment and the ever-present possibility of innovation in that format.
In this respect, as in others, Roman politics was balanced between complex
rules that negotiated gradations of power and status and the potency of
public performance and audience consent: action was in theory authorised
by its having happened previously in a particular way but in practice by the
willingness of participants to accept that things could happen that way,
whether they had or not done so in the past. No-one had claimed to be
essentially and permanently felix in the way that Sulla did, but once he had
made this claim and his audience had accepted it, felicitas became an entry
in the political lexicon and a quality to which others might aspire. Verres
could claim to be an effective governor and military commander: his
audience, the jury trying him, appeared not to be convinced. And some
of the most striking and memorable political occasions happened precisely
when those involved resisted the existing conventions governing perfor-
mance and, through their actions and the subsequent assent of their
audience, created new ones. The second argument of this volume concerns
complexity: the complexity of institutions and the resulting complexity of
public life, with enormous numbers of magistrates and ex-magistrates,
competing venues for action and numerous ways to claim authority.
If the ideological life of the Roman Republic appears to suffer an almost
irresistible pull towards the binary of the people versus the Senate, of
populares ranged against conservatives, its institutional manifestation
points instead towards endless permutations of individuals, actions and
methods. This complexity needs always to be considered in attempting to
understand the Republic: integral to how politics operated, it makes simple
and universal claims about the nature of public life at Rome highly suspect.
part i
Modes of Political Communication
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chapter 1
Aristocratic Dignity and Indignity in Republican

Public Life
Alexander Yakobson
The public, open-air aspect of Republican politics has been much dis-
cussed in recent years. Most discussions emphasise the role of the
Republic’s spectacles, ceremonies and rituals in strengthening the author-
ity and prestige of the senatorial elite and their hold over the wider public.
These ‘spectacles’ prominently include the contiones at which members of
the elite addressed the populace. The nobiles, in particular, are said to have
benefitted from the many opportunities for ostentation, for self-
glorification and for reminding the people of the glorious deeds of their
ancestors that the theatre of Republican public life provided.
Much of the current discussion on these matters was sparked by
Fergus Millar’s emphasis on the fact that Republican politics had to be
conducted in public, ‘under the gaze of the populus Romanus’.1
The conclusion often reached, however, is the opposite of Millar’s
view of this publicity as forming part of the powerful democratic aspect
he would attribute to the Republican political system. Not only is it
stressed that ‘the fact that political proceedings are public does not in
itself make them “democratic”’,2 but this Republican ‘publicity’ is
described as a bulwark of Rome’s aristocratic political culture.3
The focus of much of the current scholarship on the Republic’s political
culture is perhaps connected to a growing acceptance that the power of
the ruling class as a whole, and that of individual ‘oligarchs’, heavily
depended on securing public support. The system, however ‘oligarchic’
one judges it to have been in the final analysis, clearly relied on the
‘consent of the governed’ – not merely on their passive acquiescence but,
on repeated occasions, on their votes. In fact, the people’s suffrage has
always been recognised as an essential part of the system, even under the
1
Millar 2002a: 6. 2 Mouritsen 2001: 46.
3
E.g. Hölkeskamp 2010: 103 and passim; Jehne 2006a: 20–3 (with references to other scholars); Flaig
2004.
15
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16 alexander yakobson
most ‘oligarchic’ interpretations.4 In the past, however, it was quite
often assumed, explicitly or implicitly, that this suffrage was largely
held captive by the oligarchy: through the working of networks of
patronage, through sheer intimidation or in some other way consistent
with a ‘frozen waste’ concept of the people’s place in the political
system.5
Now, however, attention is more focused on the fact that the people
could neither be simply ignored nor have their votes ‘commandeered’ from
above in some crude way. The system had to somehow make the people
want to vote in a way favourable to it, and individual politicians had to
make the people want to vote specifically for them. It may be suggested that
there was a fundamental tension between these two requirements – the
collective and the individual – although in another sense they were natu-
rally complementary. The fierce competition for the people’s votes gener-
ated by politicians’ conflicting individual needs could not fail to
undermine – to a larger or smaller degree, in different periods – the kind
of cohesion and cooperation within the ranks of the elite that was required
in order to foster an attitude of unconditional popular deference to the elite
as a whole. On the other hand, the collective prestige of the elite, cultivated
by the system in various ways, also inevitably empowered – in the eyes of
the public – those individual politicians who ‘broke ranks’ and courted the
people’s favour through what their fellow ‘oligarchs’ regarded as
demagoguery.
The senatorial elite, based as they were on the hierarchy of elected office,
enjoyed a double legitimacy: both elitist and popular. This combination
was a source of great power, but it also imposed a limit on this power, since
it made ‘oligarchs’ dependent on popularity for the very definition of their
status. The popular aspect of Republican politics, with its spectacles and
rituals, can indeed be regarded as serving, in the final analysis, the system
and hence the elite by enhancing the elite’s legitimacy. But the other side of
the coin is that the aristocratic aspect of politics also empowered the
people’s friends, populists and demagogues. These, if they were not blue-
blooded aristocrats like the Gracchi brothers (and most other famous
populares), were at any rate elected officials of the Roman people (mostly
tribunes). As such, they had an undisputed claim to the people’s respect
and enjoyed a presumption of competence in discussing public affairs.
Elite competition made sure that such figures would emerge from time to
time.
4 5
See e.g. Syme 1939: 13. North 1990a: 7.
Aristocratic Dignity and Indignity in Republican Public Life 17
Now it may be that virtual, conceptual ‘coins’ can, unlike real-life ones,
have one side that is larger than the other. After all, the Republican political
system, in its various versions, lasted for hundreds of years, and mostly with
a remarkable degree of internal peace. It is natural to assume that this
longevity and the stability of the system, quite exceptional by any com-
parative historical standard, were in large measure due to the people’s
acquiescence to the rule of the ruling (office-holding) class. But the very
character of the system cannot be perceived and evaluated without bearing
in mind that this acquiescence could not simply be commandeered: great
efforts had to be made, collectively and individually, in order to obtain and
preserve it.
All in all, from the viewpoint of the elite, the aim of making the people
want to vote in the right way (or at least in a way that did not endanger the
system) was obviously achieved in a great majority of cases; otherwise, the
system simply could not have functioned. However, it is important to bear
in mind that this aim was not invariably achieved as regards the collective
interests of the elite and that it regularly failed to be achieved with respect
to the interests and ambitions of individual politicians.6 This failure was
inevitable because of the competitive nature of the Republican elite; it
occurred, above all (but not solely), in the context of elections, where one
man’s victory inevitably meant another man’s (often, several men’s) defeat.
Of course, ‘the people’ is a far from straightforward – much less
straightforwardly ‘democratic’ – term in a Roman Republican context.
It might mean different things in different places, but it certainly does not
denote anything like a universal and equal (male) suffrage. As Roman
citizenship spread throughout Italy, in practice only a decreasing minority
of Roman citizens could realise their right to vote. This fact may well be
regarded as sufficient reason to refrain from labelling the whole system
‘democratic’ (even if this term is qualified),7 but, in my view, it does not
mean that the system cannot properly be said to have had a significant
democratic (or better, popular) aspect – always bearing in mind that we are
talking about a city-state in which the popular aspect of the political system
could not readily transcend city-state limits, in contrast to the ever-
increasing dimensions of the polity itself. At any rate, ‘the people’ certainly
meant something much wider and much less ‘elitist’ than the ruling (office-
holding) class. From the viewpoint of the senators, and especially nobiles,
6
See Morstein-Marx 2013: 32–47 on the relative frequency of legislation passed despite strong
senatorial opposition in the last century of the Republic (with a list of known cases) and the
significance of this phenomenon.
7
Jehne 2006a: 23.
the popular aspect of Republican politics was popular enough – sometimes
much too popular for comfort. They must often have felt that they had to
stoop very low when they faced ‘the people’ and were obliged to ask –
sometimes even beg – for their support. Evidently, this applies not only to
candidates during their petitio but even more to those who faced a popular
trial and had to entreat the people for the preservation, rather than merely
the enhancement of, their dignity, or even for sheer safety.8 As we shall see,
however, sometimes a mere contio – where no fateful decisions could be
taken – might occasion a serious affront to aristocratic dignity. A political
system has a popular aspect that is genuine enough when it regularly forces
the great and the good to court what to them is ‘the ignorant mob’ (as the
populace is regularly characterised), even if the mob represents only a small
minority of citizens. This is even more pronounced if the elite sometimes
have reason to fear this mob or fear losing face before it. And a Roman
crowd by no means had to consist of the poorest of the poor in order for
haughty ‘oligarchs’ to regard it, in all sincerity, as an ignorant mob. Cicero
speaks of ‘the wretched starveling rabble that comes to contiones and sucks
the treasury dry’ (Att. 16.11). This elitist sneer does not, of course, have to be
taken at face value, but it is very unlikely that ‘the Forum’, at any period of
Republican history, could have ‘belonged to the world of the elite rather
than the populace in general’.9 It seems clear that there was an ‘enormous
social divide between the [senators] and the audience at the Rostra’.10
For members of the elite, therefore, alongside the prestige-enhancing
features of facing the people, rightly emphasised in current scholarship,
there were also potentially problematic and even demeaning aspects.
The ‘elite-friendly’ impact of the Republic’s spectacles and rituals is at
the centre of current discussions of Roman political culture. The senatorial
8
See e.g. Cic. De or. 1.228; Brut. 89–90: the notorious case of Servius Galba escaping a conviction by
weeping, displaying his children and making pitiful appeals to the people’s mercy. Galba was
criticised for exceeding the normal bounds of aristocratic humility on such occasions. But cf. De
or. 2.195–6: much senatorial weeping in court, before the spectators, apparently without any
suggestion of impropriety.
9
Mouritsen 2001: 45. According to Mouritsen’s reconstruction, this conclusion does not fully apply
to the Late Republican period, when ‘this cosy arrangement [of elite control of popular assemblies]
broke down [probably as] a consequence of members of the lower classes now turning up for
assemblies they had not previously attended. That happened at the initiative of magistrates who
sought popular support to press through legislation against the opposition of the senate and the
upper classes’ (79). I agree with Jehne’s objections to Mouritsen’s thesis on the composition of
contiones and his conclusion that ‘the plebs contionalis did exist and . . . there is no reason to suppose
that it consisted above all of upper class people. The social background of the contionales seems to
have been modest’ (Jehne 2006b: 234). Cf. Morstein-Marx 2004: 42, 122–3.
10
Tan 2008: 187; cf. 172–80 on the composition of contiones, including the likely participation of the
unemployed and the underemployed (173).
elite’s ‘collective claim to leadership and guidance, to rank, authority and
prestige’, and, as a logical corollary, its ‘permanent demand of strict
obedience, docility, and discipline, deference and respect on the part of the
populus’,11 were solemnly reaffirmed and ritually re-enacted on all the
numerous official occasions when the elite faced the people. This was
achieved with the help of such well-known Roman devices as the pomp
and circumstance surrounding the magistrates (especially the higher ones),
as well as the virtual monopoly of the elite over the right to address (literally
from above) the general public and over the conduct of every public
proceeding, run according to strict and ceremoniously emphasised hier-
archical rules. According to Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp, ‘the ingrained
“publicity” of politics, the perpetual presence and conspicuous visibility,
“audibility” and activity of members of the political class in public’ were
part of the ‘hierarchical communication’ characteristic of Rome’s ‘aristo-
cratic political culture’, whose desired – and, in general, achieved – effect
was ‘integration-cum-hierarchization’ of the common people.12
And yet this also has a flip side, one that should not be ignored. Any
system in which people pursue honour and dignity on a ferociously com-
petitive personal basis is apt to produce not just disappointment but also
a sense of injured dignity in the losers, perhaps doubly so when the prizes of
the competition and the verdicts of defeat are pronounced not according to
the judgement of one’s peers but of one’s inferiors. Canvassing for the votes
of one’s inferiors under the basic rules of Republican petitio might itself be
felt to be demeaning;13 failing to obtain those votes certainly often was.
The wide social gap between elite (especially noble) candidates and the
common people was not just an asset for these candidates in a traditional
and hierarchical society; it made a repulsa (in the nature of things, a routine
fact of political life) doubly humiliating.14 Those pursuing a senatorial
career were not just amassing prestige and popularity, something for which
ample opportunities were indeed provided by the system. They also had to
take great care to avoid unpopularity and loss of dignity. For an aristocrat,
failure to reach the honours of his ancestors – in some measure failure to
reach these in a timely fashion – and certainly having these wrested away,
11
Hölkeskamp 2010: 89. 12 Hölkeskamp 2010: 103, 77.
13
See e.g. Cic. De or. 2.248; Planc. 11–12, 24, 50; [Q. Cic.] Pet. 42; cf. Cic. Att. 1.1.1 (SB 10). According
to Tacitus, the abolition of popular elections by Tiberius was welcomed by senators who were
‘released from the necessity of bribery and of degrading solicitations’ (Ann. 1.15).
14
Caes. B Civ. 1.4.1 (dolor repulsae); Val. Max. 7.5. pr., 7.5.4; Cic. Planc. 9, 51. ‘Repulsae . . . made it
plain that the People had a choice that was real enough, which is why candidates had to beg for their
honours, a demeaning exchange as repellent to aristocratic sensibilities as it was vital for electoral
success’ (Tatum 2013: 133).
even temporarily, by an unworthy competitor, were all keenly felt humilia-
tions. And a Roman aristocrat certainly found it easy to conclude that his
(successful) competitor was unequal and thus unworthy; this was by no
means confined to the relatively rare (and hence more humiliating) even-
tuality of being defeated by a man without senatorial ancestors. Aristocratic
arrogance and exclusiveness, and the norms and expectations of an aristo-
cratic political culture, made the well-born participant that much more
likely to suffer humiliation.
As for the theatre of public spectacles (including the contiones), its
repertoire was not invariably didactic from the ‘oligarchic’ point of view.
For individual ‘oligarchs’, appearing on its stage presented pitfalls along-
side opportunities. Rather than being enhanced, one’s dignity might
sometimes emerge impaired from a public encounter with the populace
and (as often happened) one’s opponents and rivals, sometimes one’s
inferiors in rank and dignity. When an aristocrat’s dignity was thus
impaired, this happened in broad daylight, for the ignorant mob to
enjoy; this naturally applied also to cases where the opponent was ‘worthy’.
An unsuccessful public encounter was not just an embarrassing experience;
it might also cause serious damage to one’s standing and future career.
Generally, in a culture obsessed with honour and dignity, the prospect of
dishonour and indignity had to be constantly borne in mind.
The specific points raised here are well known, as is the general point
that competitive pursuit of honour necessarily entails avoidance (not
always successful) of disgrace.15 The question is, what weight should be
attached, alongside the often-emphasised dignity-enhancing, hierarchy-
reaffirming and deference-fostering aspects of Republican public life, to
those aspects that were negative or problematic from the viewpoint of the
elite? How did these aspects affect the entire relationship between the elite
and the common people? I would argue that the character of the relations
between the elite and the populace, and the fundamental balance of power
between them, cannot fully be appreciated without giving proper weight to
the fact that for every individual member of the elite, the wider public was
not merely a source of the honours he coveted but also a potential source of
indignity and loss of face. This was true even though the political system
served as a powerful mechanism for generating honour and dignity for the
ruling class as a whole, in part precisely because the Roman people’s ability
15
Cf. Hölkeskamp 2010: 50: ‘the extraordinary effectiveness and disciplinary potency that were
inherent in the conceptions and standards of prestige, status and honor (but also of the fear of
losing it and resulting “shame”)’.
to inflict indignity on individual politicians confirmed to them that they
were indeed free and thus had a stake in preserving the system.
What follows is a close look at one scene of Republican public life and
a discussion of its implications. It reflects a challenging and sometimes
demeaning aspect of Republican public life from the viewpoint of mem-
bers of the senatorial elite. In Brut. 216–17, Cicero relates a rather vulgar
joke made by a tribune of the plebs at the expense of the consuls of 76 bc,
summoned by this tribune to a contio. The context is Cicero’s character-
isation of Gaius Scribonius Curio, one of these consuls, as a poor orator: ‘so
poor as to excite the laughter and the ridicule of his hearers’. He had a way
of ‘swaying and reeling his whole body from side to side’, which occasioned
the jest of Gnaeus Sicinius:
homo impurus sed admodum ridiculus . . . is cum tribunus plebis Curionem
et Octauium consules produxisset Curioque multa dixisset sedente Cn.
Octauio conlega, qui deuinctus erat fasciis et multis medicamentis propter
dolorem artuum delibutus, ‘numquam’, inquit, ‘Octaui, conlegae tuo gra-
tiam referes; qui nisi se suo more iactauisset, hodie te istic muscae
comedissent.’16 (Cic. Brut. 216–17)
Cicero does not explain the political context, but according to Sallust’s
Histories,17 this was probably part of the agitation, started by Sicinius, for
the restoration of the tribunes’ powers.
We are in 76 bc, the heyday of the oligarchy under ‘Sulla’s constitution’
and the lowest point for the tribunate emasculated by the dictator –
the year before the right of ex-tribunes to be elected to other offices was
restored. The tribunate is still a dead end, to be avoided by men of
ambition. Gnaeus Sicinius – a mere nobody compared to the consuls – is
facing the two consuls of the year: Octavius, who is a nobilis, and Curio,
who hails from a distinguished praetorian family.18 In fact, Sicinius is not
a nobody, as we shall see, but what matters is that he is surely a nobody in
the consuls’ eyes, a junior magistrate without prospects of advancement
and definitely not a worthy opponent (i.e. not a fellow ‘oligarch’). He is
16
‘A very vulgar sort of man [homo impurus], but exceedingly humorous . . . When as tribune of the
plebs he had summoned Curio and Octavius, who were then consuls [to a contio], and Curio had
spoken at great length, while Octavius sat by, swathed in bandages and reeking of medical salves for
his gout, Sicinius said, turning to Octavius: “You can never thank your colleague enough, Octavius;
for if he had not thrashed about in his usual way, the flies would surely have eaten you alive here
today.”’ Cf. Quint. Inst. 11.3.129.
17
Sall. Hist. 3 F48.8–10M. Sicinius is designated as a Lucius rather than Gnaeus. Cf. [Asc.] Div. Caec.
p. 189.7St. On Sicinius, see also Plut. Crass. 7.9.
18
See Cic. Brut. 124 on the ‘splendour’ of his father; Cicero is surprised that he never reached the
consulship.
powerless against them – certainly not to be compared to any of the
powerful, ‘real’ tribunes who had faced consuls in the past, nor to those
who would soon face the consuls again with the powers of their office
restored. All Sicinius can do is summon them to a contio, over which he is
still allowed to preside, and make them a laughing stock in front of the
crowd. But this is actually ‘a big deal’ in most cultures and certainly in the
Roman Republic.
In a society obsessed with honour, deference, rank and seniority, this
scene looks like an almost Saturnalian inversion of the usual hierarchy of
power and honour. But there is nothing revolutionary, or even particularly
significant and remarkable, about this scene. Everything is strictly in
accordance with the rules, played under their most aristocratic version.
Being a Roman consul included the prospect of being subjected, in public,
to something like this.19 Perhaps the Prime Minister’s Questions in the
British House of Commons may provide an analogy (although, of course,
Members of Parliament are not at all to be compared to an unruly crowd in
the Forum). But there is one difference: in Rome, ‘the honourable gentle-
man opposite’ was actually the presiding officer.
It is a fundamental and often emphasised feature of the Roman contio
that it had to be summoned by a magistrate (including tribunes of the
plebs), who would then preside and maintain tight control over the
proceedings. As an institution, the contio was thus under the strong
influence of the Roman elite, quite unlike the popular assemblies of
democratic Athens. But we should bear in mind that the term ‘elite’, in
this context, includes such people as Sicinius, with a wide gap between him
and the consuls at whose expense he entertained the public. In fact, the
elite included people of considerably more humble birth. Sicinius actually
belonged to an old and (to his supporters, but surely not to his Sullan
opponents) distinguished family. Though he ‘could claim (as far as our
evidence goes) only a distant praetorian ancestor in the early second
century’, after whom ‘the family . . . vanished into obscurity’,20 this
19
See Morstein-Marx 2004: 164–72 on presiding magistrates, often tribunes, ‘producing’ their
political opponents (including consuls and consulars) in a contio and subjecting them to hostile
questioning, often before a loudly hostile audience. See also Pina Polo 1996: 48–52 and in this
volume (Chapter 5) on being summoned to a contio and attendant pressures. A contio presided over
by a tribune is described as ‘a place where the leaders of the state often lost their composure’ (Val.
Max. 3.8.6: ubi principum ciuitatis perturbari fons solebat). In the Late Republic, violence and
intimidation increasingly came into play, but what chiefly concerns us here is the potential for
public embarrassment and loss of face, which members of the Republican ruling class had to reckon
with at all times.
20
Gruen 1995: 74, 184. For a C. Sicinius, quaestor c. 70 bc, see Cic. Brut. 263.
ancestor was distinguished enough to have won two praetorships (183 and
172 bc), and a Sicinius (described as seditionis auctor) appears in Livy’s
account as one of the first tribunes elected following the first secession of
the plebs (Livy 2.33.2). His origins were thus distinguished enough in the
eyes of the public to lend authority to his attacks on the Sullan status quo,
but they will not have made him an opponent of equal worth from the
viewpoint of the consuls.
But a tribune might be far worse than this. Aulus Gabinius, who carried
the first ballot law in 139 bc, which established secret voting in elections, is
said to have been the grandson of a freedman; an evidently hostile tradition
dubs him the ‘grandson of a slave’ (uerna[e nepos]: Livy epit. Oxyrh.
col. 8.193), which is surely how he was regarded by the real Roman aristocrats
and ‘oligarchs’. In Cic. Leg. 3.33 he is described as a man ‘unknown and of
a low ‘degree’ (ab homine ignoto et sordido). The speaker is Quintus Cicero;
his perspective is strongly optimate but not, naturally, that of a nobilis.
Gabinius’ origins were ‘sordid’ from the viewpoint of a homo nouus from
a good equestrian municipal family.21 And in some – admittedly, excep-
tional – cases we even hear of sons of freedmen.22
Of course, sons or grandsons of freedmen might well be quite wealthy
men – an ‘elite’ indeed in the sense that they were much wealthier than the
mass of the populace – though to their aristocratic opponents they must
have looked decidedly ‘un-elitist’. Such people, and more generally people
without senatorial ancestors, had no inherited authority. Nevertheless,
once elected, they enjoyed the authority, both formal and informal (con-
stantly cultivated by the prevailing political culture), conferred by elected
office.
In this situation, the tight procedural control exercised by the Roman
elite over the contio meant, in practice, that a ‘turbulent’ tribune of the
plebs (with or without distinguished ancestry) was in an excellent position
to launch an effective public attack on a consul. Indeed, he was in a much
21
Cf. Sall. Hist. 4 F43M: M. Lollius Palicanus, humili loco Picens: a tribune (later praetor, prevented
from reaching the consulship) characterised as low born by Sallust.
22
For some Late Republican examples, see Mouritsen 2011: 272. Ap. Claudius Pulcher, censor in 50 bc,
is said to have expelled all the freedmen’s sons from the Senate: Dio Cass. 49.63.4. Mouritsen 2011:
272: ‘His actions were considered severe at the time . . . It would seem therefore that while some
censors were willing to admit them, others could reverse the decision.’ The expelled sons of
freedmen would surely not have been admitted to the Senate in the first place without having
held elected office. Cn. Flavius, a freedman’s son, was a curule aedile in 304 bc, and according to one
version reported by Livy, 9.46.4, had been a tribune of the plebs; he ‘maintained a defiant attitude
towards the nobles, who regarded his lowly origin with contempt’ (contumacia aduersus contemnentes
humilitatem suam nobiles certauit).
better position to mount an attack than (to use a British example again) not
merely a radical back-bencher but even a Leader of the Opposition against
a Prime Minister. Every weapon that the Republican ruling class had, vis-à-
vis the populace, was liable to be turned by the competition between its
members into a double-edged sword. When we try to understand what the
contio as an institution meant to a Roman ‘oligarch’ (and what message it
might send to the popular audience), we should not only be thinking about
the ‘oligarch’s’ ‘own’ contio, which he could hope to control (though he did
not always succeed in this), but also about the prospect of being an
involuntary guest at a contio controlled by a rival, and sometimes an
inferior at that.
A public challenge offered to a consul by a tribune – a junior official and
(usually) a much younger man, sometimes (though not always) hailing
from a much humbler background – was a routine feature of Roman public
life, part of an age-old civic tradition. It might be more or less dramatic,
personally offensive and politically significant, but it always involved this
‘subversive’ element – it was built into the system. There were ten tribunes
every year, and patricians were ineligible to hold the office. At all times,
there could have been no lack of ‘low-born’ (in the consuls’ eyes) tribunes.
Even when tribunes were engaged in some bickering within the elite that
had no controversial ‘popular’ implications (as was often the case) – thus
performing an essentially ‘elitist’ rather than a ‘popular’ function – any
such challenge involved a certain public upsetting of the normal hierarchy.
In order to appreciate the symbolic significance of this, and the ‘educa-
tional’ message conveyed by such scenes to the populace, one has to bear in
mind the majesty surrounding a Roman consul.
In his paper entitled, ‘The Roman Republic as Theatre of Power’, K.-J.
Hölkeskamp depicts the Roman consul as the leading actor in this theatre
of power; the power is that of the Senate but, first and foremost, of the
nobility. The lictors, the fasces, the purple-bordered toga, the curule chair
and the complicated rituals and strict rules of etiquette surrounding the
consuls’ comings and goings visibly marked these magistrates as supreme
heads of state under a highly hierarchical social and political order.
The consul was ‘always and everywhere . . . set apart and above any priuatus
by an awe-inspiring aura of aloofness and authority’.23
It is against this background that we can best appreciate the significance
of the scene described in Cicero’s passage. A tribune greatly inferior to the
consuls has summoned both of them to a contio over which he presides.
23
Hölkeskamp 2011a: 170; see also Bell 1997: 10–13.
There is no indication that he abused his powers as a presiding officer, and
we may assume that consuls were generally better protected against such
abuse than anyone else. But even without any abuse of power, the presiding
magistrate can expose them to public ridicule. The reaction of the crowd to
Sicinius’ jab is not reported, but it can be readily imagined.24 A jeering
crowd amused by the image of their consul eaten up by flies is not how we
usually envisage the solemn, ritualised public encounter between the high-
est magistrates of the Roman Republic and the deferential citizenry.
The Roman state took great care to make sure that encounters between
its magistrates – especially consuls – and the general public would enhance
rather than impair their dignity. This dignity was well protected, physically
and symbolically,
whenever the consul proceeds through the busy streets and the crowded
places of the city, the lictors literally make way for him by bodily
removing . . . [by force, if necessary, anyone standing in his way]: this is
yet another way of putting citizens in their place (in the metaphorical as well
as concrete sense of the phrase) . . . it is the main function of the lictors . . .
symbolically to demonstrate . . . the leading role of the consul himself by
verbally and ritually demanding respect, obedience and submission to
imperium as well as to the person presently vested with this power, . . .
[visibly proclaiming] this person’s position of superiority within a strictly
hierarchical order.25
So, to return to our story, where are the lictors, the defenders of consular
dignity, when this dignity is publicly slighted by the ‘vulgar’ tribune of the
plebs? They are presumably right there, standing around and witnessing –
who knows? – perhaps even enjoying – no doubt discreetly – the outburst
of popular hilarity over the idea of their boss being devoured by flies.
Of course, they could not be used directly against the tribune, but there
was also very little they could do to protect the consuls’ ‘aura of aloofness
and authority’ against a jeering crowd. In a contio summoned and presided
over by a consul, he was running the show as regards what happened on the
platform, but neither his insignia nor his lictors would be of much help to
his aura of authority against an outbreak of popular hostility or derision.
24
Cicero’s remark (Brut. 216) that Curio’s ineptness as an orator ‘excited laughter and ridicule’
(cachinos irridentium commouebat) is apparently of a general character, not confined to this
particular incident. The imperfect tense shows that Curio was laughed at on more than one
occasion; cf. Val. Max. 9.14.5; Sall. Hist. 2 F25M; Plin. HN 7.55. As tribune of the plebs in 90 bc,
Curio was humiliated when a ‘whole contio’ deserted him, and he ceased speaking in public for the
rest of the year: Cic. Brut. 192, 305.
25
Hölkeskamp 2011a: 170–1.
Moreover, what message had been conveyed to the spectators by the
two Sullan consuls’ retinue of lictors, as it accompanied the consuls to
a public encounter with the summoning authority, Sicinius, the tribune
of the plebs? When a Roman consul, summoned by a tribune to ‘his’
contio, proceeded in great style through the streets of the city to the
appointed place accompanied by his lictors, in order to play – at any rate
formally – second fiddle to his junior, the message conveyed by this
spectacle to the wider public was unmistakable: the liberty of the
Roman People, for which the tribunes always stood symbolically
(whether or not this corresponded to political realities) was above even
the highest imperium, with all its majesty, possessed by the consuls.
The liberty of the Roman people was in principle, and was unambigu-
ously proclaimed by this spectacle to be, above all rank.
Of course, rank itself was conferred by the people who elected the
magistrates, and in the case of nobles, it had already been conferred by the
people on their ancestors. The greater the prestige accorded to rank, the
stronger was the message of the supremacy of popular liberty, both
because this liberty was the ‘fountain of honour’ for members of the
elite and because the people’s primacy over anyone thus honoured was
symbolically reasserted from time to time. To be sure, in 76 bc, the public
spectacle staged by Sicinius was largely divorced from political reality,
since tribunes could at that time effect nothing beyond staging
a spectacle. Before Sulla and after 70 bc, things were different (though
as a rule, surely less ‘popular’ in practice than the choreography of such
spectacles might suggest).
But the people’s ultimate supremacy was also visibly ‘staged’ at assem-
blies presided over by the higher magistrates themselves. The very lictors
who symbolised and enforced the dignity of these magistrates were also
used to represent, symbolically, the supremacy of the people over them,
through the ritual of lowering the fasces before the people in assembly.26
The fact that the consul’s fasces powerfully proclaimed his supremacy over
every citizen and class of citizens made the bending of these before the
People as a whole all the more significant. ‘The standard ideological
construction of senators’ personal subjugation to the People as a “debt”
originating in popular election’27 was particularly powerful in the case of
consuls. They had received from the people the beneficium of the highest
honour (and thus the heaviest responsibility) and therefore owed the
26 27
Cic. Rep. 1.62, 2.53; Livy 2.7.7; see on this Bell 1997: 11–12. Morstein-Marx 2004: 236.
people, as they routinely said in their public speeches, a supreme duty of
watching over their safety and well-being.28
On occasion, the Senate as a whole might be presented, in a public
speech, as fully ‘subordinate to and depende[nt] on the People’.29
In a famous oration of 106 bc delivered by L. Licinius Crassus in support
of a bill to readmit senators to criminal juries previously panelled exclu-
sively by equites, the nobilis optimate appealed to the people ‘not to permit
us [senators] to serve anyone but all of you together, whom we can and
must serve’ (nolite sinere nos cuiquam seruire, nisi uobis uniuersis, quibus et
possumus et debemus).30 Crassus’ specific point is to contrast the equestrian
juries (allegedly hostile and oppressive) with the popular assemblies, whose
right to judge senators was not at stake and could never be questioned. But
his use of the striking verb seruire in describing the relations between
senators and the people was highly offensive to some senators. They
found such language thoroughly disgraceful for a senator to use (turpiter
et flagitiose). The orator M. Antonius, in Cicero’s account, uses this
example to demonstrate the difference between what a politician might
find it expedient and necessary to say and what would be approved of by an
(aristocratically minded) moral philosopher.31
In the end, this piece of optimate demagoguery worked, and the popular
assembly adopted the bill. But there is no reason to doubt that aristocratic
sensibilities were indeed offended by the language that Crassus found it
necessary to use on this occasion. The dependence of Roman senators on
the people was too real for such an expression to be merely a piece of
harmless ritual self-abnegation. One might recall the famous seruus ser-
uorum Dei of medieval popes, who used such language at the height of their
power presumably without any feelings of discomfort. Though Crassus
must have gone to unusual lengths in making his point, it seems likely that
the less outlandish and quite routine expressions of the same idea were also
capable of making some proud nobles feel less than comfortable. Ideally,
a senator addressing the people was expected to exude confidence
and authority, to be able to restrain popular ‘rashness’ or ‘fury’, to
28
Cicero’s belabouring of this theme, in opposing the agrarian bill of Rullus, is notorious: Leg. agr. 2.
1–10, 17, 100–3. As a homo nouus, Cicero presents his election as a singularly generous beneficium,
placing him under a particularly strong obligation to the people; cf. Marius, with the opposite
political tendency, in Sall. Iug. 75.1–8. But Sallust has Cotta (cos. 75 bc), a nobilis, speak of the
greatness of his debt to the People for their beneficium in similar language (Hist. 2 F47). Cf. App.
B Civ. 1.65 (Cinna in 87 bc).
29
Morstein-Marx 2004: 235; see also 236–7 on the episode and its significance; cf. Cic. De or. 1.226–7;
Brut.164; Parad. 5.41.
30
Cic. De or. 1.225. 31 Cic. De or. 1.226–7.
admonish the people when necessary and to guide them (for their own
good) rather than pander to them – all the while acknowledging the people
as the final arbiter and as the source of his own leading role.32 In practice,
the balance was not always easy to maintain.
The benefits that the Roman ruling class derived from the availability of
a ‘popular’ discourse are obvious: it enhanced the elite’s authority and
enabled its members to sway the assemblies and to oppose hostile ‘popular’
demands with greater legitimacy and credibility.33 However, this does not
mean that the direct content of this rhetorical message, which constantly
paid homage – however manipulatively, at times – to popular liberty and
supremacy,34 was lost on the hearers. This discourse (alongside the more
openly authority- and hierarchy-enhancing aspects of the ‘theatre of
power’) was also a significant part of the people’s state-sponsored ‘civic
education’. To be sure, the mere fact that the rulers proclaim their devotion
to the people, and present themselves as the people’s champions and
defenders, does not necessarily empower the people. Quite the contrary
might be the case – but only if the leadership presents a united front vis-à-
vis the people and can prevent any alternative notion of public good from
being articulated. It is, however, a very different story when the ground
rules of the game are such that in every public debate, everybody is bound
to profess devotion to the people and their interests and to accept in
principle the people as the final arbiter, but while some purport to defend
the people’s true interests by opposing their actual wishes, others do so by
catering to them.
In principle, then, there was no contradiction at all between imperium
or, generally, rank and hierarchy, on the one hand, and popular liberty, on
the other. In practice, the possibility of a clash between the two was keenly
appreciated, and the tribunes of the plebs (elected by the more ‘popular’
tribal assembly) were specifically empowered to defend popular liberty
against the highest imperium. Every instance of tribunes confronting
32
There are also well-known instances of sharp and insulting rebukes of the popular audience (e.g. Val.
Max. 3.7.3; Vell. Pat. 2.4.4 with Val. Max. 6.2.3) and even of open defiance of the popular will (Dio
Cass. 38.4.2–3). But these were clearly exceptional and are described as such. See on this Jehne 2011.
On the usual tone and posture adopted by members of the elite in addressing the populace
(‘Jovalität’), see Jehne 2000.
33
Cf. Livy, 24.8.11: ‘But not so slight are your favours to my ancestors and myself that I can fail to hold
the state of more account than personal ties’ (Fabius Maximus ‘Cunctator’ justifies his high-handed
consular interference in the voting of the centuriate assembly in order to prevent the election of
a relative of his whom he thought unworthy of military command; this is accepted by the people).
34
Cf. Morstein-Marx 2004: 230–40 on the ‘ideological monotony’ prevailing in Late Republican
contiones, with all speakers professing unwavering devotion to the people, their liberty and their
interests.
holders of imperium was an act of institutionalised and ritualised upsetting
of rank and hierarchy. This was the symbolic message of any such proceed-
ing, even if it was devoid of any ‘demagogic’ political content (and even
when tribunes were actually defending the interests of the oligarchy).
The upsetting of the normal hierarchy of honour and power in a public
confrontation between a tribune and a consul found dramatic expression in
the rules governing these encounters, at the centre of which was tribunician
sacrosanctity. Interference by anyone – including a consul – with
a tribune’s contio was considered a violation of the leges sacratae (Cic.
Sest. 79), and a tribune had a right to imprison a consul whom he accused
of interfering with his activities. In 91 bc, the tribune Livius Drusus had the
consul Philippus throttled by a client and led away to prison, his nose
bleeding, for interrupting his contio.35 Though a spectacular (and unusually
brutal) assault on consular dignity, this was at least a confrontation
between two nobiles. But Quintus Cicero, in his blistering attack on the
tribunate in Cic. Leg. 3.19–22, accuses it of having made ‘the lowest equal to
the highest everywhere’ and of having produced ‘utter confusion and
disorder’ (19) and recalls with horror that ‘even five years before
[Tiberius] Gracchus, the plebeian tribune Gaius Curiatius, the meanest
and vilest of men [homo omnium infimus et sordidissimus] . . . cast into
prison, in an act without precedent, the consuls Decimus Brutus and
Publius Scipio – and what men they were!’ (20).
In fact, however, there had already been a precedent for what happened
in 138 bc: both consuls of 151 bc had similarly been imprisoned by tribunes
(Livy Per. 48.16). In both cases, the background was an argument about
exemptions from military service. Livy says that the tribunes of 151 bc had
failed to obtain an exemption for their friends. No major political con-
troversy seems to have been involved, and the imprisonment must have
been brief and symbolic. It is precisely the symbolic, theatrical aspect of
such an event that evidently horrifies Quintus Cicero (or the typical
optimate whose part he plays in the dialogue), because of the scandalous
message of ‘equalising the lowest to the highest’ it conveyed to the
spectators.
However ‘mean’ (to someone like Quintus Cicero), a tribune of the
plebs belonged to what we call ‘the ruling class’ and the ‘senatorial elite’.
This class as a whole, for all the differences of rank within it, is often
contrasted with the Roman populace, and the wide hierarchical gap
between the two is stressed. Although ‘the internal hierarchies based on
35
Val. Max. 9.5.2. See on this Russell 2013: 102–3 with the references in n. 6.
the cursus honorum . . . permanently produced differences of political
rank . . . these differences did not affect the principle of basic social equality
between members of the privileged (“senatorial”) class’, while ‘all senators –
no matter whether of junior or senior rank . . . – were always superior to all
the other social strata of the populus Romanus collectively, as well as to the
man in the Roman street individually’.36
But while the most dangerous challenges to the oligarchy, and to the
consuls that stood for it, came from such people as Livius Drusus, who
were indeed junior in official position (and younger men) but socially equal
(and sometimes in fact superior) to their opponents, every powerful
Roman ‘oligarch’ knew that he might sometimes be challenged in public
by people whom he would never dream of regarding as his social equals.
Such a challenge, in front of a crowd – curiously watching, sometimes
angry and noisy, sometimes enjoying itself after the manner of Sicinius’
contio – must often have involved a keenly felt affront to aristocratic
dignity. One wonders if genuine aristocrats (or even men such as
Quintus Cicero) had any sense of belonging to the same ‘class’ as such
people or regarded them as closer to ‘us’ than to ‘them’ (i.e. the populace
that was watching these confrontations).
On such occasions, the notional oligarchic equality within the ruling class
had the effect of empowering the common people vis-à-vis the ‘inner’ elite
(whereas deference to nobility had this subversive effect when the people’s
champions were themselves true aristocrats). ‘Low-born’ tribunes were in
some sense equal in principle to those aristocratic consuls who defended the
status quo only from the viewpoint of the people (and from the viewpoint of
the popular aspect of the system itself). Their official position, conferred by
the people’s votes, made them equally entitled to take part in the manage-
ment of public affairs; hence, deferring to their judgement and authority was
no less legitimate, under the values instilled in the people by the system (at
any rate, according to one possible interpretation of these values), than
deferring to the authority of their opponents. Whenever it gave such people
its support, the Roman populace was in fact telling the oligarchy: the elite of
the Roman state consists of those whom we have elevated with our votes,
even if you consider them low born and inferior. Of course, nobody could
question the elitist credentials of powerful ‘popular’ aristocrats.
This ‘popular’ aspect of oligarchic equality within the ruling class, with
the resultant upsetting of the normal hierarchy, applied also to situations
36
Hölkeskamp 2010: 32. In the German original, members of the senatorial elite, ‘bewegten sich . . .
auf der Ebene der grundsätzlichen Gleichheit’ (Hölkeskamp 2004: 39).
where the gap between protagonists was less pronounced and dramatic.
Nor was it confined to the activities of tribunes, though in the case of the
tribunate this element was part of the very raison d’être of the institution.
‘True’ Roman aristocrats refused to regard as their equals not only tribunes
of the kind Quintus Cicero saw as ‘sordid’ but also, notoriously, his own
brother Marcus, even after he had reached the consulship; Cato the Elder,
as a new man, had to face similar aristocratic prejudice in his time.37 There
is certainly no difficulty in defining Cato and Cicero as part of the
senatorial elite. Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of a nobilis, a contest –
political, judicial or electoral – with such men was not a contest between
equals; in some measure, even having to enter it, and certainly losing it, was
no doubt often felt to be demeaning;38 for all that, this was a routine part of
Roman public life from which no aristocrat was immune.
When Cicero, in his speech Pro lege Manilia in 66 bc, calls on the
highest leaders of the state (isti principes) who opposed the bill to ‘at last
admit that they too, as well as all others, must bow to the authority of the
Roman People’ (64), he speaks as a (mere) praetor to consulars and as
a homo nouus to nobles. Nevertheless, he enjoys the full authority of
a member of the senatorial elite. ‘Now, when there is that authority in
me which you, by conferring honours on me, have chosen that there
should be’ (2). The ‘grundsätzliche Gleichheit’ between members of the
governing class plays a (mildly) subversive, hierarchy-upsetting role in such
a case.
It is true that a senator regularly adopted, in addressing the people,
a ‘hierarchical’ and ‘asymmetrical’ posture, claiming ‘the role of leadership
and guidance . . . based on superiority of sapientia, knowledge, experience,
and insight, hence auctoritas and dignitas’.39 But virtually by definition, he
was thereby also challenging, in every public controversy, the expert
knowledge and claims to leadership and guidance of other members of
the ruling class, his opponents in the debate (whether or not they were
actually present). The rank and dignitas of these opponents may have been
higher – sometimes much higher – than the challenger’s own; by making
the challenge, he was solemnly recognising the people as the rightful judge
37
See Livy, 39.40.9, 41.1; Plut. Cat. Mai. 16.4, cf. 11.3. Astin 1978: 67 argues that Livy’s description of
Cato as a consistent opponent of the nobility should not be taken at face value, but notes that as
a ‘new man’ striving for the highest honours (especially the censorship), he ‘was bound to meet with
much aristocratic prejudice’.
38
Cf. Cic. Plan. 50–2. Even a candidate from an old praetorian family might be felt by a defeated
nobilis competitor in consular elections to be so blatantly inferior in birth as to raise a prima facie
suspicion of bribery: Cic. Mur. 15–18.
39
Hölkeskamp 2013: 23.
in the controversy.40 Of course, the very notion of a magistrate’s or
senator’s superiority vis-à-vis his listeners was inseparably connected with
the principle of popular choice (always, rhetorically, ‘your’ choice).
No doubt Sicinius also claimed the role of leadership and guidance in
addressing the people. The consul whom he ridiculed had doubtless
assured the people, in his speech, of his devotion to their liberty and
their (rightly understood) interests – all in vain, apparently. A Roman
contio was indeed a paternalistic institution in structure and spirit, and so
was the whole theatre of Roman public life, but the ‘parents’ were con-
stantly fighting in front of the children.
Moreover, another crucially important aspect of Roman public life,
those judicial and quasi-judicial hearings, held in public, in which the
highest personages of the state were often involved (in various capacities),
might sometimes expose these personages to public abuse or ridicule from
people of lower status. These people did not even have to enjoy the
minimum of respectability required for elected office. To be sure, they
were mere priuati, without the authority and protection provided by
elected office, and they certainly did not run the show, as Sicinius did at
his contio, but what matters above all is that these scenes were played out in
public. In fact, even a non-citizen might inflict a public embarrassment on
a high-ranking member of the elite on such occasions. Cicero relates the
ironic remark of a Sicilian to a praetor presiding at a trial who had assigned
to him an inept advocate: ‘please, praetor, assign that advocate to my
opponent, then you won’t need to assign anyone to me’ (De or. 2.280).
The Sicilian is not being openly disrespectful, but we should think of the
probable reaction of the audience.
Pompey (apparently in 55 bc) was viciously assailed by a freedman’s son,
Helvius Mancia, at a public hearing before the censors (Val. Max. 6.2.8).
‘A man of municipal birth, reeking of his father’s enslavement’ (as Valerius
Maximus calls him, obviously shocked by the impropriety), described in
gory detail a series of murders during the Civil War of the 80s bc, blaming
them on Pompey, the ‘teenage butcher’ (adulescentulus carnifex).41 Valerius
Maximus notes Pompey’s usual equanimity in the face of public abuse by
40
Cf. Jehne 2011: 119. Though senators addressing the people had ‘to acknowledge the right of the
people to have the last decision about everything’, ‘in return for this behaviour of the ruling class the
people were obliged to follow the lead of their advisors. So, in the end, the people could be expected
to obey, and this was part of the system.’ But it was also part of the system that the people were free
to choose which of their numerous advisors, who regularly disagreed (cf. Jehne 2011: 115), they
should follow.
41
See on this Steel 2013a: 151–9, esp. 159.
his rivals; ‘by such tolerance he gave even people of low birth and degree an
opening against himself’ (6.2.7). He then cites two examples: the case of
Helvius Mancia, and that of a popular actor who used his performance to
attack Pompey (6.2.9). Whatever the degree of one’s personal ‘stoicism’,
public slights inflicted by one’s inferiors were part of what a Roman
aristocrat had to be prepared to endure in the course of his career.
An exchange of jabs and insults between two members of the elite at
a trial, as well as on other public occasions, must have been a much more
common occurrence; this also had a certain hierarchy-upsetting and
potentially degrading aspect, since it took place before a popular audience.
Thus, Q. Hortensius was denounced for effeminacy by a fellow aristocrat
at a trial in highly insulting language. He replied in a mockingly effeminate
voice, apparently to the satisfaction of the audience. This was clearly an
effective riposte, but probably not an aristocrat’s first choice as far as
maintaining dignity and decorum was concerned (Cic. Brut. 303; Val.
Max. 8.10.2; Gell. NA 1.5.2–3).42 L. Murena, the consul-elect defended
by Cicero on charges of ambitus in 63 bc, was called a dancer (saltator) by
Cato in the course of the trial (Cic. Mur. 13). Being insulted by Cato was
perhaps not quite the same thing as being ridiculed by Sicinius, but still, as
Cicero points out, the (future) consul of the Roman People was being
insulted in public. Yet the very fact that a sitting Roman consul could, like
Cicero, appear as an advocate and face the rough-and-tumble of a public
trial inevitably derogated something from the aloofness and dignity of the
highest office (cf. Plut. Cat. Min. 21).
Despite all this, we need not distress ourselves over the lot of Roman
nobles and senators. They were hugely powerful and derived enormous
benefits from their privileged position. When challenged in public by an
inferior, they were often capable not merely of standing their ground but of
administering a powerful rebuff and a stern rebuke, often winning the
approbation of the popular audience in the process. The sources abound
with accounts – usually sympathetic – of such assertions of auctoritas by
great men. One of the most famous examples is that of Scipio Africanus,
proudly rebuffing the tribunes who attacked him and his brother; though
in the end, whatever the much-disputed details of this episode, the Scipio
brothers would succumb to the tribunician assault (said to have been
supported by more powerful personages).43 The Roman ‘oligarchs’ also
42
Cf. Cic. De or. 220–89, with a long list of examples (forensic and otherwise) of witticisms exchanged
in public mostly by senators, some of them quite biting. See Bell 1997: 15.
43
See Briscoe 2008: 170–9. Cf. Asc. 22C, another famous example.
demonstrated, repeatedly, their ability to settle accounts with those who
had earned their resentment. Sicinius, too, suffered his fate,44 apparently
through a conviction, which would presumably have been easy to procure
in a ‘Sullan’ senatorial court. His fall is attributed to the consul Curio,
acting in revenge for his agitation but possibly also for his ridiculing of the
consuls in public. The ability of the oligarchy to get rid of its enemies in
this way (and, in the Late Republic, sometimes also by violence) should
certainly be borne in mind when assessing the character of the system;
though in the long run the Senate could not resist the tide of popular
pressure in favour of restoring the tribunes’ powers, nor could it preserve its
monopoly over public courts.
The spectacles of the Republic did not always send to the populace
a message favourable to the oligarchy, nor did they always enhance the
dignity and prestige of the individual members of the elite. Sometimes they
had the opposite effect. No doubt the negative aspects of all this publicity,
from the viewpoint of the ‘oligarchs’, performed a long-term positive
systemic function. We may, however, assume that the consuls of 76 bc
would have preferred to contribute to the popular legitimacy of the system
in some other way.
44
Sall. Hist. 3 F48.8, 10M. Exitium here evidently signifies political destruction (via condemnation)
rather than physical liquidation.
chapter 2
Political Communication in the Late Roman

Republic
Semantic Battles between Optimates and Populares?
Claudia Tiersch
The Late Roman Republic was one of the most turbulent and destructive
but also one of the most dynamic stages of Roman history. It brought
about new political developments and issues. New political agents, such as
veterans, Italians and the plebs urbana (‘urban plebs’), articulated their
group interests in public.1 It is not by chance that our sources present many
cases where contemporaries or later authors expressed their confusion
about an abundance of events that they could not categorize and much
less manage. A growing insecurity was spreading: traditional codes of
behaviour and former modes of language did not work any longer. Livy
truly defined the problem when he commented that the Romans could no
longer bear either their vices or the remedies against them.2 And Cicero
grieved that the colours of the famous painting of ancestral custom (mos
maiorum) had faded and that nobody would know how to restore them.3
An adequate assessment of the complex and dynamic changes that
occurred in the last century of the Roman Republic has been hampered
by the fact that contemporary notions of the categories and forms of
change do not match modern concepts at all. There was social uproar,
certainly, but there were no parties or other formal organizations with
permanent leadership, no clear-cut political concepts or slogans that could
serve to describe the political developments considered here, neither from
the perspective of the supporters nor of the opponents of those changes.4
Consequently, Robert Morstein-Marx has pointed out that despite the
fundamental clashes and the bloody and often violent conflicts in this era,
all participants competed more or less for the same values, such as libertas,
I’d like to thank Catherine Steel and Henriette van der Blom for their invitation to the conference, and
I’m indebted to them as well as to Christa Gray and Richard Marshall for several helpful remarks.
1
Cf. now Steel 2013b: 9, 42, 226; Flower 2011: 80. 2 Livy, pr. 9. 3 Cic. Rep. 5.1.2.
4
This has already been shown by Meier RE Suppl. X, s.v. populares: 549–615.
35
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Calgary Library, on 14 May 2018 at 14:20:45, subject to the Cambridge
36 claudia tiersch
iustitia, dignitas, labor, pietas or fides (‘freedom’, ‘justice’, ‘dignity’, ‘work’,
‘piety’ or ‘faith’), which originated directly from the traditional world of
mos maiorum. Therefore, he drew the conclusion that the crisis of the Late
Roman Republic was no fundamental political conflict but rather a bloody
personal battle among competing members of the elite, fighting for the
assertion of their personal dignity.5 Likewise, Maggie Robb, in her pub-
lished dissertation, Beyond Populares and Optimates: Political Language in
the Late Republic, has convincingly proven that the two terms optimates and
populares, which are regularly used in modern scholarship to describe the
opposing political forces in the Late Roman Republic, were applied by
contemporary sources with very different meanings.6 A precise semantics
which would enable us to allocate the terms optimates and populares to real
political opponents is thus not discernible.
My analysis therefore raises the question: through what kind of language
were the political conflicts of the Late Republic settled? Are there sub-
stantial differences recognizable in particular terms or in their semantics
within political debates? Was it, perhaps, not only a fight in words but also
for words? I would like to test here the concept of ‘semantic battles’ that has
been developed by Reinhard Koselleck for explaining the relationship
between political conflicts and political language. The term ‘semantic
battles’ denotes disputes between the participants of political and social
conflicts concerning the definitions of political and social situations in
times of crises. According to Koselleck, one reason for such heated disputes
can be found in people’s disappointment with the shrinking capacity of
traditional terms and slogans to represent actual conflicts, which is con-
comitant with growing pressure to find appropriate terms and solutions for
these conflicts.7
But Koselleck developed this concept in the context of the French
Revolution and its associated explosion of linguistic innovations,
a phenomenon, of course, that cannot be claimed in the same manner
for the ancient society of the Late Roman Republic. However, it is
important to address the question of whether the peculiar Roman kind
of political communication makes it impossible to discern any linguistic
differences at all in the crisis of the Roman Republic. In this chapter
I explore this question in four sections as follows: (1) the special form of
political communication in the Roman contiones, (2) changes in the com-
municative atmosphere in the Late Roman Republic, (3) the opposing
semantics of optimates and populares and (4) the political matters at stake.
5 6 7
Morstein-Marx 2004: 280–4. Robb 2010. Koselleck 1985: 113.
Political Communication in the Late Roman Republic 37
Political Communication in the Roman Contiones
It cannot be doubted that public communication had an enormous sig-
nificance in the Roman Republic. It was decisive for the perception of the
res publica as a real ‘public’ matter by a majority of the Romans despite
deep social hierarchies. In the last decades, therefore, scholarship has
stressed that the amazing stability and duration of the Roman res publica
have to be attributed essentially to the intensive communication between
nobility and people in the numerous contiones. These informal gatherings
were designed to create consensus and compromises before the formal
voting assemblies, the comitia, were (going to be) convoked.8
The magistrates used the contiones to inform the Roman population
about general themes of public interest, for example, imminent dangers or
glorious victories that had been won by the legions. Even impending trials
were announced there.9 But first and foremost, it was the place where legal
initiatives were introduced in public for the first time. The remarkable
prestige which the contiones enjoyed among the population was based on
the fact that the people were not simply confronted there with decisions
that had already been fixed by the Roman Senate; in fact, the opposite was
the case. The almost 400 contiones in Republican times collected by
Francisco Pina Polo include many meetings where projects that met
considerable resistance were withdrawn.10 Some compromises were only
made after heated debates in subsequent contiones. And in any case, the
magistrate concerned was forced to campaign for the intended initiative in
front of the audience. Failed contiones were an embarrassing blow for the
magistrate’s reputation.11 Some of those disgraced after such failures never
dared to convoke a contio again.12 Occasionally, even political issues that
seemed threatening to the nobility and represented instead the interests of
other social groups reached this political setting.13 As a whole, successful
communication in the setting of the contiones must be regarded as the
8
Cf. now Steel and van der Blom 2013; further, Tiersch 2009: 40–68; Flaig 1995: 77–127; Hölkeskamp
1995, esp. 27–41 = 2004b: 234–47, 1997, 2001, 2003; Millar 2002b: 144.
9
Contiones before trials: e.g. 325 bc (Livy, 8.33.9–35.8); 212 bc (Livy, 25.3.13–19); 204 bc (Livy, 29.22.
7–9); 170 bc (Livy, 43.4.6; 8.3); 169 bc (Livy, 43.16.5). Contiones before executions: e.g. 354 bc (Livy,
7.19.3; Diod. Sic. 16.45.8); 313 bc (Diod. Sic. 19.101.3); 271 bc (Polyb. 1.7.12; Livy, 28.28.3); 216 bc
(Livy, 22.57.3); 214 bc (Livy, 24.20.6); 138 bc (Livy, Per. 55).
10
Pina Polo 1989.
11
To be successful as an orator was extremely important for aristocratic self-perception in the Roman
Republic: cf. Tac. Dial. 10, 18–21; 36; Cic. Brut., esp. 183–92; De or. 1.35, 141; Morstein-Marx 2004:
60–7.
12
At the beginning of the first century bc, C. Scribonius Curio was abandoned by his contio (Cic. Brut.
89, 305), as were two tribunes around 187 bc (Tac. Dial. 36).
13
Livy, 22.63.2 (lex Flaminia, 232 bc); Cic. Verr. 2.5.45 (lex Claudia, 218 bc).
38 claudia tiersch
decisive reason for the astonishing fact that only a fraction of the legal
projects transmitted by our sources for the 500 years of Republican history
failed in the comitia. The only explanation is that the comitia merely
ratified the compromises that had already been achieved in the contiones
through the flexible channels of public communication.14
But this represents only one side of the phenomenon. In fact, political
communication in Republican Rome was restricted in many ways. There
existed no formal rules as to how many contiones must be held within
a year, and only magistrates had the power to convene a contio. Moreover,
in fundamental contrast to the Athenian assemblies, not everyone who was
interested in speaking had the right to do so, but only those who had been
admitted by the magistrates.15 In spite of all the communication between
nobility and people that took place there, the contiones in general symbo-
lized a very hierarchical order of communication: the responsible magis-
trate sat on his sella curulis, elevated on a rostrum, surrounded by his
friends and other aristocrats. His audience was only allowed to murmur, in
order either to approve or disapprove the proposal.16 But even when
a contio was doomed to failure, there were enough opportunities to turn
the situation around; in such a case the magistrate normally dissolved the
assembly while the nobles were making the rounds bidding for support
among their clients, and after the contio was reconvened (again), usually the
desired result was achieved. The typical rhetorical gesture of contional
speeches indicates that it was a victorious aristocratic elite convinced of
their own superior authority that staged their claims vis-à-vis a population
whose obedience was taken for granted and trained by long years of
military service.17
The most relevant precondition for any regulation of public communica-
tion, however, was the unwritten prerogative of the Senate to debate public
14
This has been stressed correctly by Flaig 1995: 84–91; Flaig 1998: 59–65; now Flaig 2004: 193–6;
Nippel 1988: 55; Eder 1991: 179.
15
Gell. NA 13.16.1; Fest. [= Paul.] p. 34L: contio significat conuentum non tamen alium quam eum qui
a magistratu uel a sacerdote publico per praeconem conuocatur (‘contio signifies a meeting of no other
kind than one which is summoned by a magistrate or a public priest through a herald’) (this
translation and all the following are my own unless marked otherwise), Varro, Ling. 6.90; cf.
Mommsen 1887–8: I: 389; Pina Polo 1989: 43–53.
16
Livy, 43.16.8; Val. Max. 3.7.33; Plut. Mor. 201F; Plut. Pomp. 25; Cic. Rab. perd. 18; Mouritsen
2001: 47.
17
E.g. Livy, 5.24.5–25.3 (395 bc); 5.29.8–10 (393 bc); 5.49.8–9; 5.50.8 (390 bc); 6.14.1–13 (385 bc); 6.35.6
(376 bc); 6.38.34 (368 bc). When a contio was doomed to failure, it was usually stopped by the
responsible magistrates. Afterwards the senators used all means to influence their clients in order to
turn the tide; e.g. Livy, 6.14.11–13 (385 bc); 6.18.16 (384 bc); 9.46.7 (304 bc); 44.1.9–2.1; cf. Flaig 1997:
33–50; Flaig 2004: 99–122. Cf. Pina Polo 1996: 98.
matters first. Therefore, it was the Senate’s decision whether a matter was
declared political and in what form and whether a magistrate was then
allowed to present the problem together with a possible solution, convenient
for the Senate, to the Romans within a contio. It is no accident that several
problems never found their way into a public debate or that the Senate at
least tried to prevent this from happening for as long as possible.18 Even
when political initiatives were sometimes presented in the contiones, the
overwhelming number of those assemblies was devoted to giving out infor-
mation, such as the publication of victory news.19 Because of this predomi-
nant power of the Roman Senate to regulate and restrict political
communication, the contiones should be interpreted more as a medium for
reaching social consensus than for negotiating hard political compromises, as
Egon Flaig has correctly noted.20
The consequences of this reduced political discourse are illuminated in
an episode from the ongoing debate about Ti. Gracchus’ proposal for the
agrarian law in 133 bc. When Ti. Gracchus was ready to have his
colleague M. Octavius deposed because of his intercession against the
agrarian law, and seventeen tribes had already given their votes in favour
of the dismissal, Tiberius was summoned before a contio by T. Annius
Luscus.21 In full view of the audience, Luscus then denounced the tribune:
by his campaign for the deposition of M. Octavius, Tiberius would not
only prevent a people’s tribune from practicing his legal right, but, what
was much worse, would also severely injure the sacrosanctitas (‘sacrosanc-
tity’) of the tribune. Despite all the good reasons in favour of the agrarian
law that M. Octavius by his actions was threatening to impede, Tiberius
was not able at this moment to contradict Luscus with constitutionally
founded arguments. He left this contio without a word.
It was only several weeks later, when Tiberius realized that not only the
Senate but also a broader section of the public was enraged by his handling
of M. Octavius, that he convened another contio.22 There, finally, he
justified his actions by establishing the legitimacy of the tribunate not
with regard to the tribune’s individual rights of action but in the context of
his responsibilities to the people as the relevant electorate: a tribune, he
18
Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp helpfully observes that the nobility quite often managed to prevent
a politicization of grauamina (Hölkeskamp 1997: 234).
19
Announcements of victories at contiones: at Zama 202 bc (Livy, 30.4.3), at Thermopylae 191 bc (Livy,
36.21.8), over Antiochos III 189 bc (Livy, 37.52.2), at Pydna 168 bc (Livy, 45.2.6), and for the defeat at
Lake Trasimene (Livy, 22.7.7; Polyb. 3.85.7; Plut Fab. 3.4).
20
Flaig 1995: 84–91.
21
Annius Luscus ORF4 17 F3–4 (= Livy, Per. 58; Plut. Ti. Gracch. 14.5); see Chapter 5.
22
Ti. Gracchus ORF4 34 F16 (= Plut. Ti. Gracch. 15.1).
40 claudia tiersch
said, was sacred and inviolable because he was consecrated to the people
and was a champion of the people.
ἂν οὖν μεταβαλόμενος τὸν δῆμον ἀδικῇ καὶ τὴν ἰσχὺν κολούῃ καὶ
παραιρῆται τὴν ψῆφον, αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν ἀπεστέρηκε τῆς τιμῆς, ἐφ’ οἷς
ἔλαβεν οὐ ποιῶν. ἐπεὶ καὶ τὸ Καπετώλιον κατασκάπτοντα καὶ τὸ
νεώριον ἐμπιπράντα δήμαρχον ἐᾶν δεήσει· καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ποιῶν
δήμαρχός ἐστι πονηρός· ἐὰν δὲ καταλύῃ τὸν δῆμον, οὐ δήμαρχός ἐστι.
πῶς οὖν οὐ δεινόν, εἰ τὸν μὲν ὕπατον ὁ δήμαρχος ἄξει, τὸν δὲ δήμαρχον οὐκ
ἀφαιρήσεται τὴν ἐξουσίαν ὁ δῆμος, ὅταν αὐτῇ κατὰ τοῦ δεδωκότος χρῆται·
καὶ γὰρ ὕπατον καὶ δήμαρχον ὁμοίως <ὁ> δῆμος αἱρεῖται . . . οὔκουν οὐδὲ
δήμαρχος ἀδικῶν <τὸν> δῆμον ἔχειν τὴν διὰ τὸν δῆμον ἀσυλίαν δίκαιός
ἐστιν· ᾗ γὰρ ἰσχύει δυνάμει, ταύτην ἀναιρεῖ. καὶ μὴν εἰ δικαίως ἔλαβε τὴν
δημαρχίαν τῶν πλείστων φυλῶν ψηφισαμένων, πῶς οὐχὶ κἂν ἀφαιρεθείη
δικαιότερον πασῶν ἀποψηφισαμένων; ἱερὸν δὲ καὶ ἄσυλον οὐδὲν οὕτως
ἐστίν, ὡς τὰ τῶν θεῶν ἀναθήματα· χρῆσθαι δὲ τούτοις καὶ κινεῖν καὶ
μεταφέρειν ὡς βούλεται τὸν δῆμον οὐδεὶς κεκώλυκεν. ἐξῆν οὖν αὐτῷ καὶ
τὴν δημαρχίαν ὡς ἀνάθημα μετενεγκεῖν εἰς ἕτερον. ὅτι δ’ οὐκ ἄσυλον οὐδ’
ἀναφαίρετον ἡ ἀρχή, δῆλόν ἐστι τῷ πολλάκις ἔχοντας ἀρχήν τινας
ἐξόμνυσθαι καὶ παραιτεῖσθαι δι’ αὑτῶν.23 (Ti. Gracchus ORF 4 34 F16 (=
Plut. Ti. Gracch. 15.2–6))
Obviously, after the struggle of the orders there had been no further
fundamental debate on political institutions and offices and their rights,
duties and responsibilities in the Roman Republic. This contrasts, for
example, with the extremely lively Athenian debate that had developed
as a consequence of the democratic changes of the fifth and fourth
centuries bc. Even the Roman sources themselves speak of the egestas patrii
23
Trans. Perrin 1921: ‘If, then, he should change about, wrong the people, maim its power, and rob it
of the privilege of voting, he has by his own acts deprived himself of his honourable office by not
fulfilling the conditions on which he received it; for otherwise there would be no interference with
a tribune even though he should try to demolish the Capitol or set fire to the naval arsenal.
If a tribune does these things, he is a bad tribune; but if he annuls the power of the people, he is
no tribune at all. Is it not, then, a monstrous thing that a tribune should have power to hale a consul
to prison, while the people cannot deprive a tribune of his power when he employs it against the very
ones who bestowed it? For consul and tribune alike are elected by the people . . . Therefore it is not
just that a tribune who wrongs the people should retain that inviolable character which is given him
for service to the people, since he is destroying the very power which is the source of his own power.
And surely, if it is right for him to be made tribune by a majority of the votes of the tribes, it must be
even more right for him to be deprived of his tribuneship by a unanimous vote. And again, nothing
is so sacred and inviolate as objects consecrated to the gods; and yet no one had hindered the people
from using such objects, or moving them, or changing their position in such manner as may be
desired. It is therefore permissible for the people to transfer the tribunate also, as a consecrated thing,
from one man to another. And that the office is not inviolable or irremovable is plain from the fact
that many times men holding it resign it under oath of disability, and of their own accord beg to be
relieved of it.’ For the striking importance of Ti. Gracchus’ refusal to accept Octavius’ veto and his
institutional re-definition of the tribunician magistracy, see Steel 2010: 39–41.
sermonis, the scantiness of the ancestors’ speech, as a known deficit of
philosophical and poetic language and one that probably pertained to public
political language as well.24 The constant references to the mos maiorum, the
argument that something would be against the Roman tradition, appear to
have been applied here as mere prohibitions from unrestrained thinking, and
they obviously hampered the development of appropriate categories. Only
the extraordinary situation of deeply opposed group interests in the second
half of the second century bc, exacerbated by the burdensome problems of
the age as expressed by the agrarian bill of Tiberius Gracchus, now forced
a rethinking of hitherto unsolved institutional contradictions.
Changes in the Communicative Atmosphere

of the Late Roman Republic
Seen from this perspective, it becomes plain how far-reaching the chal-
lenges were that the activities of the Gracchi constituted for the conserva-
tive part of the Roman Senate not only in respect of the content of their
initiatives, which was uncomfortable for many aristocrats anyway, but
probably also with regard to the changes in the sphere of public commu-
nication and its deeply ingrained habits. Preserved fragments of their
speeches indicate how carefully and eloquently the Gracchi argued for
the validity of their proposals. Thus, they cut through the predominant
aristocratic monopoly of setting or denying political agendas. If Appian
and Plutarch can be relied upon to have preserved the content and the
phraseology of Ti. Gracchus’ speeches, he not only proposed the agrarian
bill but also justified the legitimacy of this law with emotional words.
Deploring the miserable fate, in spite of Rome’s military conquests, of the
landless Italian poor as a flagrant injustice, he may have ascribed to groups
beyond the nobility a specific value and dignity and declared their peculiar
interests and needs as legitimate within the horizon of the res publica.25
Likewise, his younger brother Gaius repeatedly referred to the mos
maiorum in his speeches and denounced the nobility’s deviation from these
values.26 In this way, he justified his initiatives for a transfer of the courts
24
Lucr. 1.832, 3.260.
25
Ti. Gracchus ORF4 34 F13–14 (= Plut. Ti. Gracch. 9.4; App. B Civ. 1.9). On the transmission
problems of Ti. Gracchus’ rhetoric, see Flower 2013: 87.
26
E.g. his speech against Maevius (ORF4 48 F58 = Isid. Etym. 19.32.4): considerate, Quirites, sinistram
eius; en, quoius auctoritatem sequimini, qui propter mulierum cupiditatem ut mulier est ornatus
(‘inspect, citizens, his left hand: look! He whose authority you follow, because of his lust for
women, is adorned like a woman’); cf. also his speech against the lex Aufeia (ORF4 48 F44 = Gell.
42 claudia tiersch
from the senators to the knights, referring to the recent negative examples of
L. Aurelius Cotta, Cn. Pedanius Fuscus Salinator, and Manius Aquillius (the
conqueror of Asia), all notorious bribe-takers. They had all been acquitted by
the judges, although ambassadors from the plundered provinces sent to
complain about their conduct were still present in Rome, going around
and uttering bitter accusations against them. At least in this case the Senate
felt so ashamed about these evident briberies that it yielded to the law, and
the people ratified it.27 As for his famous grain bill, Gaius legitimized it by
appealing to central values of the mos maiorum as a bare necessity for the
survival of large parts of the Roman population. He declared it to be
expedient, useful and not luxurious at all: ‘they say that those measures
were taken because of luxury [luxurii causa],’ and further on in the same
speech, ‘whatever is needed to sustain life is not luxury [luxuries]’.28
The perspective of the opposing, senatorial side is illuminated by the
revealing appearance of L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, one of the harshest
adversaries of C. Gracchus. When Gracchus was going to hold the first
public distribution of subsidized grain, he was surprised to see Piso Frugi,
a senator, standing in the line, in spite of his enormous private wealth.
When Gracchus asked what his motivation was, Frugi responded fiercely,
‘I strictly oppose your decision to divide my goods man by man, but when
you are doing that anyway, I want to have my share.’29 The public
aerarium, whose actual purpose was to finance common duties, was thus
perceived by the Senate as its own revenue (‘my goods’), funding purposes
(such as senatorial embassies or warfare) that were strictly in the Senate’s
interest. In spite of the general confidence that the Roman people at this
time still bestowed on Roman aristocrats,30 this experience may have
created a bitter taste for the audience. The conflict was exposed as
a dispute about the political balance of rights and financial means that
had now reached the public sphere.
NA 11. 10.1). Likewise, he justified his own behaviour by references to the mos maiorum, as his speech
after his return from Sardinia proves (ORF4 48 F28 = Gell. NA 15.12.1–4).
27
C. Gracchus ORF4 48 F45 (= App. B Civ. 1.22).
28
C. Gracchus ORF4 48 F51 (= Gell. NA 9.14.16): ea luxurii causa aiunt institui; et ibidem infra ita
scriptum est: non est ea luxuries, quae necessario parentur uitae causa; on the debate about the grain
supply, see Tiersch (2014).
29
L. Piso Frugi ap. ORF4 48 F41 (= Cic. Tusc. 3.48): nolim, inquit, mea bona, Gracche, tibi uiritim
diuidere libeat, sed si facias, partem petam.
30
Cf. the dispute between P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio and the tribune C. Curiatius 138 bc on
whether the price of grain should be reduced. Serapio commented on the initiative with the famous
words: ‘Keep quiet, I know better than you what benefits the res publica’ (ORF4 38 F3 = Val.
Max. 3.7.3).
Of course, the traditional authority of the senatorial aristocracy, bol-
stered by its age-old victorious image, still persisted for several decades.
This could help to explain the astonishing acceptance on the part of the
Roman population of Nasica’s claim that the Gracchans and their adher-
ents had been killed in the interest of the Roman state (pro patriae salute).31
The following years were marked by the success of the conservative
majority of the Senate in suppressing any attempts to revive this debate.
Cicero later proudly mentions Q. Metellus Macedonicus, P. Cornelius
Scipio Nasica (who led the attack on Ti. Gracchus), L. Opimius and
P. Lentulus (who were involved in the killing of C. Gracchus),
C. Marius, the Scauri, Metelli, Claudii, Catuli, Scaevolae and Crassi
(who all took part in the attacks on Glaucia) and Saturninus as politicians
who accepted the killing of opponents as a necessary means, if the state was
in danger.32 From this perspective, the erection of the temple for concordia
by L. Opimius, the murderer of C. Gracchus and 3,000 of his followers,33
has to be seen not only as staking the nobility’s claim to have restored the
unanimity of the citizenship, disturbed by the ‘criminal’ insinuations of the
Gracchi, but also as a symbolic message that the Romans should stop all
future destructive public debates because the Senate alone knew how to
govern the state. Just as this senatorial elite had been victorious against
external enemies for many centuries, this claim underlined that they would
be similarly successful in their fight against internal foes. It was a strict
warning, therefore, to potential followers of the Gracchi and to the Roman
people as well to abstain from similar political projects in the future.
The only thing that really mattered from this perspective was the main-
tenance of public order and unanimity.
Maybe it was no mere accident that the devastating blow dealt to the
victorious image of the nobility by the Jugurthine war and wars against the
Cimbrians and Teutons, in connection with the yet unsolved problems of
recruitment and grain supply, ended all attempts to suppress public debate
about the fundamental problems of the Roman Republic after only ten
years. If the evidence given by Sallust is roughly reliable, the tribune
C. Memmius in 111 bc,34 as well as the consul C. Marius in 107 bc,35
used their magistracies for blazing attacks on the arrogance of the nobility,
on their greed and venality, their lack of motivation, their lack of interest in
the needs of the ordinary Romans and the res publica and their pursuit of
31
Plut. C. Gracch. 18.1; Livy, Per. 61; Cic. Sest. 140. 32 Cic. Phil. 8.13–15; Robb 2010: 76.
33
Plut. C. Gracch. 17.8; App. B Civ. 1.120; August. De civ. Dei 3.25. 34 Sall. Iug. 31.
35
Sall. Iug. 85.
44 claudia tiersch
narrowly defined party interests. The political success of both men in the
following years may serve as an indicator that their complaints (really)
articulated a widespread suspicion. Memmius was elected praetor, prob-
ably in 104 bc, and Marius held the consulate five more times until 100 bc,
in contravention of all institutional rules.36 His military reforms at least
solved the problems of recruitment that had already been denounced by
Ti. Gracchus thirty years before, although they still offered no permanent
solution for the maintenance of veterans.
During the following years, a recurring pattern shaped the political
landscape of Republican Rome. On the one hand, individual politicians,
men such as Saturninus, Glaucia, Drusus, Cinna, Crassus, Cornelius,
Pompeius, Clodius and Caesar, started initiatives to address the most
urgent problems of different groups of the Roman population: the urban
poor, the Italians, the veterans, the publicans and several more. On the
other hand, they had to face the embittered resistance of the majority of
senators, and several of them were even murdered. As a consequence, the
liberty of speech that Amy Russell has correctly marked out as an out-
standing trait of Roman Republican culture was decisively restricted as
soon as it turned out that the assassination of the Gracchi would be
followed by further examples of violence.37
Of course, tribunes still had a certain scope of action, and sometimes the
political situation was far from being explicit, as Russell has shown for the
aftermath of the assassination of Saturninus in Rome. However, against her
assumptions, it is not impossible to detect certain political patterns. Some of
the interesting case studies she has presented for the years 99–97 bc can, in
fact, give clear indicators for the growing importance of interest groups.38
The seemingly contradictory behaviour that some of the tribunes displayed
in fact had rational motives in the specific political climate of those years. For
example, the tribune Sex. Titius continued the policy of Saturninus without
referring to him as an example: in 99 bc he passed an agrarian bill by violence
that was later declared invalid and possibly introduced a bill on quaestorian
provinces. That he secretly kept a bust of Saturninus in his house only
became obvious after a house search.39 This behaviour can be interpreted
36
Sall. Iug. 114.3; Livy, Per. 67; Plut. Mar. 14.9–14, 22.1–5, 28.1–9; CIL VI: 41024 (Marius); MRR I: 559;
562 (Memmius).
37
Russell 2013: 101–15. Sigismund 2008 analyses twenty-two cases of political murder between 133 and
52 bc.
38
Cf. Linke 2005: 92–4; Gruen 1966: 32–64.
39
Cic. Rab. perd. 24; Cic. De or. 2.48; Jul. Obs. 46; Cic. Brut. 225; Cic. Leg. 2.31; Val. Max 8.1.damn.3;
Cic. Mur. 18; Dig. 11.5.3; Russell 2013: 111–12.
plausibly as an attempt by Titius to continue in some aspects the policy of
Saturninus under strained political circumstances, during which the Senate
tried hard to suppress Saturninus’ memory and supporters.40 P. Furius,
tribune in the same year, also seems to have pursued a completely irrational
strategy: he is said to have vetoed the recall of Q. Caecilius Metellus
Numidicus, but by contrast, he also confiscated Saturninus’ property. He
was prosecuted several times and was lynched before the end of his last trial.41
Furius may illustrate the case of a politician who overestimated his personal
scope of action and the power of interest groups: he first supported
Saturninus but ultimately broke with him and so lost the support of
Saturninus’ adherents. Because of personal enmity, he resisted the recall of
Numidicus and enraged conservative senators. At the end he may have been
slain by people from both groups. A third tribune, M. Duronius, abrogated
the sumptuary lex Licinia in 97 bc, possibly with the argument that the
willing should now have the chance to kill themselves with luxury, and was
expelled from the Senate by the censors.42 In fact, his initiative could have
been a poisoned present to the Senate, because it enabled a further erosion of
the fragile balance between the senators; thus, the censorial reaction might
have involved substantive concerns.
There are certain indicators of common ground among the politicians
called populares. Their initiatives often concerned material issues: land
allocations, measures for securing the grain supply (at least for the mega-
city of Rome), reliefs in connection with military service, the equal dis-
tribution of the newly enfranchised Roman citizens of Italian origin among
all the voting districts and so on. But in his famous article on the populares,
Christian Meier has already pointed to the fact that the measures of these
politicians, designated as populares by our sources, were not at all restricted
to a concern for material welfare.43 Overall, it is possible to assign their
initiatives to roughly three areas of policy. The first is the above-mentioned
sphere that related to the material facilitation of daily life.44 The second
40
Cf. L. Equitius, a supporter of Saturninus, who shared his fate (Cic. Rab. perd. 20) or the fate of
C. Appuleius Decianus, who expressed regret for Saturninus’ death and was subsequently exiled:
Cic. Rab. perd. 24; Cic. Flacc. 77; Val. Max. 8.1.damn.2; Schol. Bob. p. 95.12–16St. Cf. table 6.1 in
Russell 2013: 110.
41
Cic. Rab. perd. 24; Val. Max. 8.1.damn.2; App. B Civ. 1.33; Dio Cass. 28.59; Oros. 5.17.10–11; Russell
2013: 113.
42
Val. Max. 2.9.5; Cic. De or. 2.274; Russell 2013: 114.
43
Meier RE Suppl. X, s.v. ‘populares’: 599–610; cf. now also Mackie 1992: 64.
44
E.g. leges agrariae; App. B Civ. I 9.37; Cic. Leg. 2.68; Off. 2.78; leges frumentariae: Livy, Per. 60; App.
B Civ. 1.21; Plut. C. Gracch. 5; Auct. ad Her. 1.12; Cic. Leg. 2.6; Verr. 3.70, 5.21; for more even
distribution of the voting districts, see Asc. 45, 65C.
46 claudia tiersch
concerned institutional regulations destined to restrict the wide range of
magisterial competences by legal rules. It pertained, for example, to the
laws that praetors should abide by their own edicts, that censors henceforth
should only be allowed to downgrade a citizen to a lower rank after he was
convicted in a regular trial, as well as restrictions on the magisterial right to
observe the sky, and that the rule that the allotment of provinces by the
Senate should take place before the consular elections to avoid
manipulation.45 The third policy area aimed at stronger protections or
renewed enforcements of formerly existing individual citizen rights, that is
to say, the implementation of the people’s maiestas into material law. This
comprised the debates for and against the leges de prouocatione and against
the emergency laws. Moreover, several laws codified the maiestas of the
people as a political obligation for acting magistrates to preserve or sought
to restore the tribunate with all its political competences after Sulla.46
Between individual initiatives there was often, in fact, an interval of
several years, which has been identified by scholarship as a decisive argu-
ment against the existence of a comprehensive popularis political agenda or
a coherent political tendency. However, these long gaps had rather differ-
ent causes and were not caused by the lack of any continuing political
agenda or lasting substantial problems, but quite the contrary. The real
reason for the obvious discontinuities in ‘popular’ politics lay in the
political system of the Roman Republic. Every magistrate had only
one year for carrying out his office, and several tribunes did not even
survive a whole year. Whoever was willing to initiate laws against the
interests of the conservative majority of the Senate had to reckon with
enormous pressure from his opponents, which could go as far as politically
motivated assassination. This was a deterrent for anyone willing to address
the problems before him. Therefore, only a minority of the tribunes can be
assigned to those magistrates called populares.
However, several indicators affirm the existence of a ‘popular’ identity,
a common denominator for several politicians, if only because the political
problems mentioned in our sources, such as grain supply, the problem of
45
Lex Clodia concerning the leges Aelia et Fufia: Asc. 8C; lex ut praetoris suis edictis perpetuis ius dicerent:
59C; censorial reproofs: Dio Cass. 38.13.2; Asc. 8C; allotment of the provinces: Cic. Prov. cons. 2.3,
7.7; Sall. Iug. 27.3.
46
Lex Cornelia ne de capite ciuis iniussu populi iudicaretur: Cic. Rab. perd. 12; lex Cornelia ne quis iudicio
circumueniatur: Cic. Clu. 148; cf. Miners 1958; restoration of the tribunate: Sall. Hist. 3 F48.1, 12M;
Cicero attacked as a violator of the ius prouocationis: Cic. Att. 3.15.5 (SB 60); 8.3.5 (SB 153); lex
Apuleia de maiestate: Cic. De or. 2. 107, 201; lex Varia de maiestate: Cic. ap. Asc. 79C (= Cic. Corn. 1
F54Cr); Plut. C. Gracch. 4.1; Cic. Mil. 72; leges Cassiae: Cic. ap. Asc. 78.1C (= Cic. Corn. 1 F50Cr.);
Asc. 78C; cf. Seager 1967; Arena 2012: 138.
veterans and the integration of the Italians, were undeniably constant over
a long range of time. It is a remarkable phenomenon that many of these
politicians explicitly referred to their predecessors such as the Gracchi or
Saturninus as exempla for their methods, in spite of all the dangers
connected with this kind of political posture, and thereby presented a self-
conception as belonging to a common political movement.47 Moreover,
they were perceived even by their adversaries as a group of politicians with
similar political strategies and initiatives. As Cicero concedes, for example,
in his second speech against Verres, it would have been acting populariter to
produce in court the son of a Gracchus, a Saturninus, aut alicuius hominis
eius modi (‘or of some other man of the same stamp’).48 In his speech Pro
Rabirio perduellionis he notes that at the time of Saturninus’ death, one
simply had to make a choice: one was either for Saturninus or against him,
either with the ‘good men’ led by the consuls or with the tribune.49
Elsewhere he names politicians such as C. Flaminius, L. Cassius, Ti. and
C. Gracchus, Saturninus and Cinna among the politicians called
populares.50 In this respect, there are good arguments for the assumption
that the political agenda and the political dynamics of the last decades of
the Roman Republic were shaped by several individual politicians in no
indiscriminate way.51 They responded to some substantial problems con-
cerning different groups of the Roman population in a political language
that attempted to legitimize those specific needs in the context of res
publica – hence they were called populares.52
Their senatorial adversaries had little to offer in response. Men such as
Q. Lutatius Catulus, Cato the Younger, Cicero and M. Calpurnius Bibulus
presented an embittered resistance against any initiatives and a hard-bitten
defence of the existing system in order to preserve senatorial predominance
and a privileged hold on the treasury.53 An illuminating example is the
indignant objection made by Catulus against the lex Gabinia in 67 bc –
a law which had been introduced to support Pompeius in his fight against
the pirates, who threatened not only Roman security but also the grain
supply – ‘nothing must be done against the mos maiorum’.54 In the same
manner, Bibulus responded in 59 bc to Caesar’s initiative for supplying
47
De uir. ill. 73.3; Sall. Iug. 31.2, 7; Auct. ad Her. 4.22.31; cf. von Ungern-Sternberg 1973: 152–62;
Mackie 1992: 56; Seager 1972b: 331.
48
Cic. Verr. 2.1.151; Seager 1972b: 232. 49 Cic. Rab. perd. 24; Russell 2013: 101.
50
Cic. Luc. 13; Sest. 101–5; Har. resp. 40–3.
51
I am thus rather less sceptical than Russell 2013: 101–15. 52 Mackie 1992: 52–9.
53
Cf. Burckhardt 1988: 159–209, citing many examples.
54
Dio Cass. 36.31–6; cf. Tiersch 2009: 62. He showed a similar attitude towards the ‘lex Manilia’: Cic.
Man. 60; Bleicken 1975: 187.
48 claudia tiersch
land to the Pompeian veterans, after the Senate had conceded that no
institutional objections against this law could be asserted: ‘you will not
have this law this year, even though you all want it.’55 In the long run,
utterances such as this gradually reduced the widely respected senatorial
authority because the Senate created an image of an exclusively self-
oriented factio, without any regard for the needs of the groups standing
behind the law projects that Sallust repeatedly mentioned.56
In the medium term, however, the representatives of the conservative
majority still had various options for achieving their aims, even though
major physical attacks on the political rights of the people, such as the
destruction of the arches leading to the ballot boxes in 103 bc – to prevent
a grain law by Saturninus – remained a singular exception.57 Much more
common was the defamation of an initiative or its originator, charging him
with pursuing only personal interests with his project, with harming the
interests of Rome and its citizens, with collaborating with Roman enemies
or with establishing a tyranny. Such arguments are visible not only in the
attacks against popular tribunes such as Ti. and C. Gracchus, L. Appuleius
Saturninus, L. Cornelius Cinna, P. Servilius Rullus and P. Clodius Pulcher
but also against any initiator of reform, as is proved by similar allegations
against a more moderate tribune such as M. Livius Drusus the Younger.58
Moreover, Roman political culture offered a whole range of fairly
effective measures for obstruction. The institutional logic behind them
was the overarching need to secure concordia against external enemies, at
the expense of addressing and solving political differences. What might
have been effective for securing the survival of the Roman community in
the face of the threats to which it was exposed in the early years of its
existence, or what might have supported Roman expansion in the centuries
thereafter, now served instead to safeguard senatorial hegemony against
any challenges. Especially once Sulla’s attempts to limit the institutional
opportunities available to tribunes had failed after the final restoration of
their powers in 70 bc, the senators increasingly preferred the strategy of
restraining the political public by the obstructive methods detailed earlier,
thus interfering directly with the communicative processes of the
55
Dio Cass. 38.4.3 (trans. FRRO); App. B Civ. 2.10–12; Plut. Cat. Min. 33; Pomp. 47.4.
56
Sall. Iug. 29.2, 31.1, 4, 41.5; [Sall.] Ep. ad. Caes. 2.2.4, 8.6, 9.4, 10.9, 11.6; Hanell 1945: 268–71.
57
The responsible magistrate, the quaestor urbanus Q. Servilius Caepio, legitimized his action with the
words that the aerarium would only be endowed with scarce means, which meant that the law could
not be funded: Auct. ad Her. 1.21, 2.17; Burckhardt 1988: 247.
58
Plut. Ti. Gracch. 19.2; Flor. 2.2.7; De uir. ill. 6.4.6 (on Ti. Gracchus); Vell. Pat. 2.6.2; Plut. C.
Gracch. 6 (on C. Gracchus); Livy, Per. 70 (on M. Livius Drusus); the largitio of the tribunes has been
perceived by annalistic sources as the basis for their interest in regnum: see Sion-Jenkis 2000: 81.
informational assemblies, the contiones.59 In 67 and 62 bc, senatorial
opponents tried to avoid the public reading of legal initiatives by silencing
first the reading usher and then the reading tribune.60 Their aim was to
impede public knowledge of these laws, thereby reducing resistance against
the tribunes who planned to intercede against the laws.61 The excessive
observation of heavenly omens and the repeated use of tribunician inter-
cession point to similar intentions.62 And in 55 bc Cato the Younger
resorted to filibuster tactics to prevent the transfer of extraordinary com-
mands to Crassus and Pompeius by an interminable speech, eventually in
vain.63
Because of their repeated use, though, these methods lost their efficacy
over the years. On the one hand, such practices were exposed as fraudu-
lent techniques, aiming only at the securing of power positions, as, for
example, Cicero’s verdict on obnuntiationes in the De diuinatione plainly
demonstrates.64 As a result, the authority of the Senate was eroded, and
thus it lost precisely the credibility needed to ensure the acceptance of the
often very informal and symbolic means that demonstrated its supremacy
over the population. The inimical mood that conservative politicians
such as Cicero had to face from the Roman citizens and the negative
reception that several known optimate senators such as Cato the Younger
and Munatius Plancus found before the contiones65 are clear indications
of one indisputable phenomenon: as even Cicero explicitly acknowl-
edged, the populares were now the masters of the assemblies.66 On the
other hand, the intimidation and violence that had once been initiated by
the Senate to choke any opposition, at least after the Marian military
reforms and their militarization of Roman policy, were turning against
their former instigators. Violence in fact became an everyday instrument
to enforce political interests, and in the confrontations with the social
power of the military veterans, the Senate gradually lost its control.67
A deep clash of political interests divided the Roman public, and the
Senate was not at all able to solve the conflicts. This became obvious from
at least the time of Caesar.
59
Burckhardt 1988, esp. 178–209; Libero 1992, passim.
60
Asc. 58, 60C; Cic. Vatin. 5; Dio Cass. 36.39.4; Quint. Inst. 4.4.8, 5.1318, 10.5.13 (for the case of
C. Cornelius in 67 bc) and Plut. Cat. Min. 26–9; Dio Cass. 37.43.1–3 (for the case of Metellus in
62 bc).
61
Cf. Meier 1968: 86–100.
62
Burckhardt 1988: 159–209 gives many examples. See also de Libero 1992.
63
Plut. Cat. Min. 43; Dio Cass. 39.34; de Libero 1992: 15–22. 64 Cic. Div. 2, passim.
65
Cic. Q Fr. 1.2.15 (SB 2). 66 Cic. Clu. 4; Sest. 124; Pina Polo 1996: 113–19.
67
Cf. Nippel 1988, e.g. 108–28.
50 claudia tiersch
Semantic Battles between Optimates and Populares?
But the existence of diverging material interests still does not say anything
about how this fight was settled with words. The fact that all politicians
referred to more or less the same categories, such as the res publica and the
mos maiorum, or values such as libertas, dignitas and ius, remains undeni-
able. None of them pleaded for the removal of the existing res publica or its
institutions, for example, through a mass revolution. Moreover, even such
terms as optimates and populares were applied by contemporary sources less
unambiguously than might have been expected, if both terms were used for
the designation of different political configurations. Does this exclude
altogether the existence of systematic semantic differences, of semantic
battles between optimates and populares?
An almost incidental remark by Sallust from the Bellum Catilinae points
in the opposite direction. In his description of the political situation in
Rome after the reestablishment of the tribunate in 70 bc, he comments on
events as follows:
nam postquam Cn. Pompeio et M. Crasso consulibus tribunicia postestas
restituta est, homines adulescentes summam potestatem nacti, quibus aetas
animusque ferox erat, coepere senatum criminando plebem exagitare, dein
largiundo atque pollicitando magis incendere, ita ipsi clari potentesque fieri.
contra eos summa ope nitebatur pleraque nobilitas senatus specie pro sua
magnitudine. namque, uti paucis uerum absoluam, post illa tempora qui-
cumque rem publicam agitauere, honestis nominibus, alii sicuti populi iura
defenderent, pars quo senatus auctoritas maxuma foret, bonum publicum
simulantes pro sua quisque potentia certabant. neque illis modestia neque
modus contentionis erat: utrique uictoriam crudeliter exercebant.68 (Sall.
Cat. 38.1–4)
Sallust thus underlines that both sides primarily pursued their own inter-
ests but that they therefore had to adapt their political rhetoric according to
their respective reference groups. As a contemporary witness, Sallust
68
Trans. Watson 1867, slightly modified: ‘For after the powers of the tribunes, in the consulate of
Gnaeus Pompey and Marcus Crassus, had been fully restored, certain young men, of an ardent age
and temper, having obtained that high office, began to stir up the populace by inveighing against the
Senate, and proceeded, in course of time, by means of largesses and promises, to inflame them more
and more; by which methods they became popular and powerful. On the other hand, the most of
the nobility opposed their proceedings to the utmost; under pretence, indeed, of supporting the
Senate, but in reality for their own aggrandizement. For, to state the truth in few words whatever
parties, during that period, disturbed the Republic under honourable slogans [honestis nominibus],
some, as if to defend the rights of the people [sicuti populi iura defenderent], others, to make the
authority of the Senate as great as possible [senatus auctoritas maxuma foret], all, though affecting
concern for the public good, contended everyone for his own interest. In such contests there was
neither moderation nor limit; each party made a merciless use of its successes.’
certainly deserves some credibility. What hints at such an opposite rhetoric
could the speeches handed down in our various sources give if we take into
account the problematic transmission of popular rhetoric at large and the
general dominance of Cicero’s tendentious speeches? Did they offer dif-
ferent assessments of the kernel of the political crisis, its causes and
originators and possible solutions and general aims? What evidence
could be provided for a phenomenon that Guy Achard once called the deux
éloquences?69
To start with some examples from the oratory of politicians known as
fervent adherents of the conservative part of the Roman Senate, there are
indeed hints of how the enhancement of the auctoritas senatus was imple-
mented rhetorically. One such indication relates to the causes of the crisis.
No substantial causes, for example, the growing number of urban inhabi-
tants in Rome and the necessary strain upon the grain supply, or public
security or the problem of veteran settlement, are ever mentioned in
optimate rhetoric. Likewise, almost no notice is taken of social movements,
in other words, of masses that threaten to rise up because of poverty and
distress. This does not mean that larger groups of people are never part of
the oratorical agenda, quite the opposite. But it is not they or their specific
needs that are designated as triggers for the crisis; they are only given the
status of manipulated followers of their aristocratic leaders.70
Consequently, the whole crisis is blamed on individual aristocratic politi-
cians, men such as Ti. and C. Gracchus, Saturninus, Cinna and Clodius.71
Optimate rhetoric is pervaded throughout with a perspective that sees any
causes of political difficulties only in personal terms: in the deviant beha-
viour of the magistrates, the seditiosi, who disdained the mos maiorum and
all institutions of the res publica and were motivated by their greed, their
interest in subverting everything prompted them to crush the authority of
the Senate and the rule of all boni by their criminal minds.72 How carefully
those politicians have been constructed as monsters has been shown by
Guy Achard’s Pratique rhetorique et idéologie politique dans les discours
‘optimates’ de Cicéron. Cicero discredited them as nefarious, politically
incompetent, driven by their personal fury and hurt, licentious in their
drinking habits, greedy for other people’s property, ready for every crime
and a terrible danger to public peace and stability.73
69
Achard 1981: 9. 70 Sall. Hist. 1 F77.7M; Cic. Sest. 100; Dom. 89.
71
Cic. Dom. 35; Sest. 77; Vat. 18, 23; Rab. perd. 24; Cat. 1.1; Sall. Hist. 1 F77.2M.
72
Cic. Sest. 77, 94, 99, 103, 110; Dom. 12–15, 35, 82; Vat. 18, 23; Rab. perd. 24; Cael. 78; Clu. 37, 93–5, 102,
113, 130, 138; cf. Robb 2010: 152–8; Tiersch 2002: 284–9.
73
Achard 1981: 186–355 gives many examples.
52 claudia tiersch
Closely connected with this kind of ‘analysis’ were the proposals for the
solution of the crisis. The only means was to disarm the villain, render his
dealings ineffective and, ultimately, kill him and his adherents. Other
people who were prepared to support these criminal schemes must be
deterred from pursuing their plans.74 One further strategy, of course, was
persuasive manipulation. In order to put the Romans off supporting
Rullus’s initiative for an agrarian law in 63 bc, Cicero pulled out all the
stops to discredit Rullus and his law and to evoke the alleged disadvantages
of the project.75
Only when these culprits were eliminated, their projects impeded
and their supporters intimidated, according to the widely spread con-
viction in optimate speeches, would it be possible to save the res publica
and its institutiones, to defend its otium and concordia and the authority
of the Senate. ‘My greatest wish would be that the res publica had its
peace or . . . that the pernicious dealings would damage their origina-
tors’, Senator L. Marcius Philippus is made by Sallust to exclaim before
the Senate, ‘but now, quite the contrary, everything has been thrown
into confusion by seditions’. Therefore, he demanded: ‘If you prefer law
and liberty, make a decision that will be worthy of your names . . .
A fresh army is ready for us, as well as colonies/settlements of experi-
enced veterans, the whole aristocracy, the best generals . . . Soon those
adversities that have accumulated through our negligence will
dissipate.’76
If we try to summarize the essential items of this rhetoric, which
generally point in the same direction, we can see quite a revealing picture
of how the conservative majority of the Senate perceived the res publica, the
position of the various groups of citizens within it and the ultimate aim of
politics. The most prominent element of this picture was a res publica
completely arranged around its leading group – the senatorial aristocracy –
and exclusively defined by its interests and needs. Different groups, such as
the Italians, the urban poor, the knights and the provincial inhabitants,
were of course mentioned in their speeches, but only as rather meaningless
appendages whose specific problems and interests were not deserving of
political treatment. They were not even considered seriously; rather, they
had to obey, as soldiers have to obey the commands of their generals. This
image expressed the notion that Rome was always at war and that the
74 75
Sall. Hist. 1 F77.17–22M. Cic. Leg. agr. 2.16. 39, 47, 71.
76
Sall. Hist. 1 F77.1, 21M. He was known as a great Roman orator and a stunning opponent to the
reforms of M. Livius Drusus: Cic. Leg. 2.12; Hor. Ep. 1.7.
senatorial nobility, as the commanding military elite, were empowered and
obliged to take all necessary measures themselves to preserve calm and
unity and to defend the res publica.77
Consequently, the ultimate aim of every political measure was to pre-
serve senatorial authority in its existing form. Obviously, the military tone
that underpinned Roman political culture as part of its tradition and the
incentive system of the aristocratic career path moulded the political
approach of the Senate in a very general way. Rhetorical strategies were
mostly targeted at repressing initiatives, not supporting them.78
The defensive and static semantics that underline order, stability and
calm as the only desirable issues, and the necessity to defend and preserve
the res publica and its institutions (that is, in its existing form) against
unrest and upheaval, changing nothing because change in itself would be
destructive and dangerous, fits into this overall perception. In this sense, all
dynamics needed to be disqualified. Politics was defence, not creation, an
indicator of the surprising semantic poverty in expressing and evaluating
political strategies.79
Moreover, this political language mirrored the patronal style of the
Roman Republic. Magistrates were judged predominantly according to
their ‘friendly’ or ‘unfriendly’ behaviour towards the leading group in the
Senate or the significance that their initiatives would have, or were entitled
to have, for the status and dignity of their fellow aristocrats, that is, on the
basis of social criteria.80 It was a system in which only the small aristocratic
group, connected by a web of mutual social relations, and their fragile
balance of dignities really mattered. The lower-status clients in this system,
by contrast, did not matter substantially, maybe because the patrons
themselves were occupied by their own status problems.
Likewise, optimate speeches often give a very abstract picture of the
political institutions: the functionality of the institutions was not debated
or questioned but rather affirmed or tacitly assumed. Their content and
their substance were not spoken about in detail. In his public speeches, at
least, Cicero sometimes alludes very briefly to these institutions.81 One
cannot avoid the impression that the factio expressing its opinion here was
the group with full command over the institutions and was not at all
willing to debate this command or the effectiveness of the institutions.
The implication of this treatment of the leges, the mos maiorum, the
77
Cic. Rep 2.26; Leg. agr. 1.23, 2.9, 102; Cat. 4.17; Sest. 98–101. 78 Cf. Cic. Leg. 3.42.
79
On the military semantics of senatorial speeches, see Tiersch 2002: 295.
80
Hellegouarc’h 1972: 130–221. 81 Cic. Sest. 98; Dom. 17.
54 claudia tiersch
auspicia and all the other institutions is that they form a unity with the
Senate and its authoritative interpretation; they almost belong to the
senators: every initiative offering a different interpretation (for example,
against the unlimited right of the magistrates to use the auspicia or the leges
at will) has to be fought as a dangerous challenge.
Compared with this picture, the ‘popular’ speeches differ fundamentally
in several aspects. A starting point may be the question of the causes of the
political crisis. All speeches that could be ascribed to a popular environ-
ment completely agree in this respect: it is the factio paucorum (the ‘faction
of the few’), occasionally reinforced by the super-aristocrat Sulla in its
exploitative effectiveness, which is assigned the guilt of having consistently
suppressed the whole Roman population.82 This self-interested majority of
the Senate, it is alleged, is to a high degree driven by greed, avarice and lust
for power. They extend their rights and privileges at the expense of
ordinary Romans, they disfranchise them and they plunder the aerarium
for their own military interests and thereby doom the poorer parts of the
citizenry to bitter poverty and inequality. The central message of all these
speeches and fragments is that the former balance of privileges, goods and
rights between different groups has fallen into imbalance in favour of
senatorial privileges, the senators allocating to all groups beneath them
an inequitable status and preventing an equal share of common goods.
Therefore, the ‘former’ balance according to the mos maiorum must be
redressed by abolishing the present abuses.83
Consequently, these orators saw the solution of this crisis in a staged
strategy. They described their own role as spearheads of the just cause,
denouncing impending evils, formulating initiatives appropriate for sol-
ving the problems on hand and rousing the citizens to stand up for their
rights by supporting their particular measures.84 But as the most decisive
point, they declared the willingness of the population to end their long-
lasting fear and obedience. They eventually had to counter the unjustified
authoritative claims of the nobility in order to end oppression and exploi-
tation. Therefore, popular politicians sometimes stressed the lack of effi-
ciency and ability on the part of the nobility to challenge their claims to
authority and leadership and tried to shake the deep-rooted trust of the
population in the superiority of the Senate and make apparent to them the
institutional obstacles presented by the political system.85 Unfortunately,
82
See e.g. the speeches of the tribune C. Memmius in 111 bc (Sall. Iug. 31.1–17) and of the tribune
C. Licinius Macer in 73 bc (Sall. Hist. 3 F48.1–13M); cf. Mackie 1992: 52–9.
83
Sall. Iug. 31.18–29; Hist. 3 F48.14–28M. 84 Sall. Iug. 31.5; Hist. 3 F48.3M.
85
See e.g. C. Marius’ sharp attack on the leading nobility: Sall. Iug. 85.4, 10–15.
the rhetorical substantiation for many legal initiatives has not been pre-
served. But it should be beyond doubt that many measures, such as the law
forcing the praetors to abide by their own edicts or the restriction of the
magistrates’ right to observe the omina, could be perfectly legitimized as
remedies for the bad habits of the nobility, as indeed C. Gracchus had
already done.86 In the long term, this strategy had some success. Whereas
the Senate increasingly lost control over public order and was found to be
incompetent at solving urgent problems, the Romans preferred to transfer
their trust to individual politicians, be they tribunes or consuls, to men
such as Clodius, Pompeius and Caesar, who in all likelihood stood up for
the needs of those entrusted to their care.87
Accordingly, it seems consistent with this analysis that the ‘popular’
speeches also exhibit a perception of the state that differs from the world-
view of the optimates. Naturally, even here the res publica represents the all-
embracing community, but this community is not configured by the
Senate and its obedient dependents as forming a unanimous unity, but
by a plurality of different groups, each with its own specifics, problems,
interests and needs.88 To legitimize the dignity of these specific groups and
the justification of their interests within the context of res publica, mostly
designated as commodum, was always one of the essential concerns of
popular politicians.89 But the former social balance, in which the different
groups existed with each other, has now tilted in favour of the unjustified
dominance of the nobility and has to be reconstituted (or restored).
The semantics of institutions and values in the ‘popular’ speeches has to
be seen in the context of this overall perception of the res publica as
a flexible and complex social configuration. Whereas both were referred
to as catchwords in the optimate speeches, without any deeper explanation,
in their popular counterparts the established institutions and values were
debated in many ways. They were questioned with regard to their func-
tionality and accompanied by proposals of how to improve this.
Sometimes there are general discussions of what can be done to restore
the former efficiency of the institutions, now severely damaged, and of how
larger parts of the population can be supported to obtain equal access to the
86
C. Gracchus ORF4 48 F48 (= Gell. NA 10.3.2).
87
Vanderbroek 1987: 171 appropriately called this phenomenon the ‘rise of public clientelae’.
88
See e.g. Ti. Gracchus’ speech on the agrarian law: ORF4 34 F13–14 (= Plut. Ti. Gracch. 9.4; App.
B Civ. 1.9); or Macer’s speech for the full restitution of the tribunate, where he warns his audience
against sharing in the military adventures of the nobility, because only the nobility gains glory and
booty from them, whereas the soldiers will only lose their lives: Sall. Hist. 3 F48.17–19M.
89
Hellegouarc’h 1972: 556.
56 claudia tiersch
institutions again. Moreover, many traditional values, established as rheto-
rical set-phrases in aristocratic oratory for the citizens, such as ‘your
imperia’ or ‘your prouinciae’, were challenged for their credibility and
unmasked as hypocrisy, without any real content.90
In consequence, a somewhat ambivalent interpretation of the evi-
dence becomes plausible: on the one hand, the traditional values and
institutions remained without alternative; they were valid and were
never challenged in total by any of the political groups. On the other
hand, the enduring validity of these traditions was inappropriate for
creating political orientations, much less compromise: they could not
even cover over the fundamental differences between the Romans,
which were expressed in surprisingly different interpretations of the
traditional values. The disputes thus run on several levels.
Political Matters at Stake

The first political matter at stake was the assessment of political initiatives,
events or politicians. For example, was the law for the reduction of grain
prices that the tribune C. Curiatius proposed in 138 bc useless (minime
utilis), as its opponent, the consul P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio
claimed, or did it pertain to the requirements of the Roman people
(commoda populi Romani), as Curiatius maintained?91 Were the Gracchi
guilty of having caused riots and revolution, and even the ultimate down-
fall of the res publica, by their initiatives, as their optimate enemies (among
them Cicero) maintained, or were their deeds appropriate and necessary
because of the greed of the nobility, as a tradition preserved by Sallust
stated?92 Was Sulla rightly praised for having stabilized the staggering res
publica again, or was he correctly charged with being one of the worst
criminals?93 And as for Cicero himself, was he really committed to sup-
porting unanimity within the citizenship, or was his violent treatment of
the Catilinarian conspirators in particular responsible for splitting the
citizenry, pushing them into a renewed stasis that had just now been
overcome after the difficult years of Sulla’s dictatorship (thus a tradition
preserved in Cassius Dio)? Should he be blamed for being a suppressor of
liberty instead of being praised as its defender?94
90
Sall. Iug. 31.25. 91 Val. Max. 3.7.3.
92
Cic. Har. resp. 41; Rep. 1.31, 2.49; Leg. agr. 2.10, 81; Sest. 103–5; Off. 2.72; Cat. 1.4; Dion. Hal. Ant.
Rom. 2.11.2; Sall. Iug. 31.6–8, 42.1–4; cf. Akar 2013: 125–37.
93
Sall. Hist. 1 F77.5, 10, 13–15M; Asc. 62–4C; Sall. Hist. 1 F55.2, 6, 9, 17, 24–6M; Akar 2013: 200–35.
94
Akar 2013: 279–300.
This debate went hand in hand with a dispute about the notion of terms
and concepts, as, for example, the debates on the terms maiestas and libertas
may prove. The term maiestas has a long history in Roman thinking, came
with religious underpinnings and is located in close proximity to auctoritas
and magnitudo, sublimitas and dignitas, designating superiority, magnitude,
height, dignity or overall pre-eminence.95 Attested from the beginnings of
Latin literature with different coexisting denotations such as the majesty of
the gods, of the Senate, of the populus (e.g. in matters of foreign policy) and
its magistrates,96 the term is seen to have become controversial in public
debate at the end of the second century bc: what group, value or institution
mattered most in the Roman Republic and was therefore respected above all,
the Senate, the aristocratic magistrates or the people? And it may not be an
accident that the tribune L. Appuleius Saturninus in 103 bc fixed, for the first
time, a defined aspect of this maiestas in a law – the maiestas populi Romani –
soon followed by his colleague Varius Severus Hybrida in the 90s bc.97
What was at stake may be illustrated by an example given in the
Rhetorica ad Herennium, written by an unknown author in the 80s bc:
cum definitione utemur, primum adferemus breuem uocabuli definitionem,
hoc modo ‘maiestatem is minuit, qui ea tollit, ex quibus rebus ciuitatis
amplitudo constat. quae sunt ea, Q. Ca<e>pio? suffragia, magistratus. nempe
igitur tu et populum suffragio et magistratum consilio priuasti, cum pontes
disturbasti.’ item ex contrario: ‘maiestatem is minuit, qui amplitudinem ciui-
tatis detrimento a<d>ficit. ego non a<d>feci, sed prohibui detrimento: aerar-
ium enim conseruaui, libidini malorum restiti, maiestatem omnem interire
non passus sum.’ primum igitur uocabuli sententia breuiter et ad utilitatem
adcommodate causae describitur; deinde factum nostrum cum uerbi descrip-
tione coniungetur; deinde contrariae descriptionis ratio refelletur, si aut falsa
erit aut inutilis aut turpis aut iniuriosa: id quod ex iuris partibus sumetur de
iuridiciali absoluta, de qua iam loquemur.98 (Auct. ad Her. 2.17)
95 96
Hellegouarc’h 1972: 314–20. Dietzfelbinger TLL s.v. maiestas: 152–8.
97
Drexler 1956; Gaudemet 1964: 699–709; Gundel 1963; Seager 2001: 143–53.
98
Trans. Caplan 1954: ‘When we deal with the issue of definition, we shall first briefly define the term
in question, as follows: “He impairs the sovereign majesty of the state who destroys the elements
constituting its dignity. What are these, Quintus Caepio? The suffrage of the people and the counsel
of the magistracy. No doubt, then, in demolishing the bridges of the Comitium, you have deprived
the people of their suffrage and the magistracy of their counselling.” Likewise, in reply: “He impairs
the sovereign majesty of the state who inflicts damage upon its dignity. I have not inflicted, but
rather prevented, damage, for I have saved the Treasury, resisted the licence of wicked men, and kept
the majesty of the state from perishing utterly.” Thus the meaning of the term is first explained
briefly, and adapted to the advantage of our cause; then we shall connect our conduct with the
explanation of the term; finally, the principle underlying the contrary definition will be refuted, as
being false, inexpedient, disgraceful, or harmful – and here we shall borrow our means from the
departments of law treated under the absolute juridical issue, which I shall soon discuss.’
58 claudia tiersch
The maiestas debate over the following years led to several more heated
battles.99 For Cicero, the solution of this dilemma was quite simple: he
took it for granted, of course, that the maiestas populi was a significant value
in the res publica, a good that is always to be maintained and preserved.
But, as he declared, the Roman people had delegated its power to the
magistrates: therefore, it was the maiestas of the Senate and the magistrates
that counted most.100
A comparable difference could be noticed in the value of libertas. Jochen
Bleicken actually speaks of ‘two libertates’.101 The differences depended on
how the respective groups perceived their own liberty, corresponding to
their status and the particular dangers they feared. For the Senate, the
continuation of their hitherto unlimited freedom of political action was the
most precious item, and for them, this was the real essence of res publica.
Therefore, liberty for them meant the preservation of the existing condi-
tion against the real or presumed threat of the rule of one powerful single
individual.102
For most of the other citizens, the damage to their personal liberty was
much more real and had already occurred. It consisted, for example, of
numerous transgressions against personal inviolability, committed under
the pretext of a senatus consultum ultimum, or as part of aristocratic
despotism against the right of provocatio. Another danger was the loss of
property, for instance, as part of the Sullan policy of supplying land to his
veterans, which led to the expulsion of many Romans, or the impediment
to full voting rights of many Italians or the countless political manipula-
tions by the nobility that were aimed at controlling the political process in
the interests of the optimates.103
The notion of liberty in the popular sense, therefore, referred to an
improvement of the deplorable conditions in which the majority lived: this
meant reinforcing former legal security by abolishing the arbitrary killing
of Roman citizens without trial, rolling back property confiscations,
inscribing the Italians into all voting districts and reducing the opportu-
nities for aristocrats to manipulate political procedures. It is not surprising
that a further debate on the notion of aequa libertas (‘equal rights’) was
circulating just around this question: was it sufficient for all citizens, as the
optimates maintained, to be equal according to the laws and to be entitled
to vote, because liberty has to be split according to grades of dignity, or was
99
Auct. ad. Her. 2.17. See the somewhat different case of C. Cornelius: Cic. Vat. 5; Asc. 59C; Bleicken
1975: 447.
100
Cic. Inv. rhet. 2.53. 101 Bleicken 1962: 13. 102 Cf. Tiersch 2015: 27–49.
103
Arena 2012: 139.
it necessary, as their opponents underlined, also to have the right to be
elected in order to defend effectively the libertas of the people?104
What these divided notions of liberty meant in reality is indicated by an
episode from the time immediately after the assassination of Julius
Caesar. M. Iunius Brutus, having just committed the murder, convoked
a public contio to communicate his deed to the Roman people as an
expression of libertas and the restitution of the former res publica. But his
hopes were in vain. Instead of applauding enthusiastically after his blazing
speech, the Roman audience kept silent with horror, because with the
murder of Julius Caesar, perceived by them as a protector of the people
against the arrogance of the Senate, their hopes had vanished. The liberty
of the nobilis Brutus was no longer theirs.105
A further debate circulated around the ultimate aims of politics, often
originating out of concrete problems but achieving more primary signifi-
cance. Florus attests, for example, that those who proposed and supported
land distributions did so by claiming that nothing could be fairer (iustum)
than that the commons should receive from the Senate what was really their
own, because they and their forefathers were involved in conquering this
land.106 They adopted a similar argument in support of corn legislation,
which, from their point of view, was aequum: what could be more just than
that people in need should be maintained from their own treasury?107 Cicero
and many of his fellows, however, represented a fundamentally different
worldview. Deliberating on the benefit of agrarian laws, for example, Cicero
in his treatise De officiis strictly argued against those measures:
deinde aequitatem, quae tollitur omnis, si habere suum cuique non licet. id
enim est proprium, ut supra dixi, ciuitatis atque urbis, ut sit libera et non
sollicita suae rei cuiusque custodia . . . quam autem habet aequitatem, ut
agrum multis annis aut etiam saeculis ante possessum qui nullum habuit
habeat, qui autem habuit amittat?108 (Cic. Off. 2.78–9)
Cicero admits that the land in question used to be a common good, but
this was the nature of every property that has changed its status in the
104
Cato ORF4 8 F252 (= Fest. p. 313.2L); Scipio ORF4 21 F32 (= Isid. Etym. 2.21.4); Cic. Rep. 1.47;
Cogitore 2010: 64–9; Arena 2012: 142. See also Wirzubski 1950.
105
App. B Civ. 2.121; Dio Cass. 44.21; cf. Tiersch 2009: 66. 106 Florus 2.1.2; Arena 2012: 150.
107
Cf. App. B Civ. 1.10; Plut. Ti. Gracch. 9.5; Sall. Hist. 3 F34.17, 28M, with similar arguments,
pointing to the existence of a particular tradition of thinking.
108
Trans. Arena 2012: 145: ‘They destroy fairness [aequitas] which is utterly subverted, if everyone may
not keep that which is his. For, as I said above, it is the peculiar function of the res publica and the
city to guarantee to every man the free and undisturbed control of his possessions . . . and how is it
fair [aequitas] that a man who never had any should take possession of Lands that had been owned
for many years or even generations, and he who had them before should lose them.’
60 claudia tiersch
meantime. The duty of the responsible statesman was to preserve the actual
state undiminished.109 Cicero even went so far as to allege that the
proponents of agrarian laws planned a complete wealth equalization by
means of redistribution, following the notion of arithmetic equality,
whereas in reality the intention was to support veterans by providing
them with the means for making a living.110 In this respect it seems
consistent that Cicero was also an eager supporter of the tribunician
right of veto: ‘It is better’, he commented, ‘that a good measure should
fail than that a bad one should be allowed to pass.’111
Considered from this perspective, the dispute was not only about the
distribution of land or the revenues of the treasury but rather about the
following question: could innovative ideas, presumably implemented to
solve urgent troubles, have a chance of being realized after public debates,
or should the defence of existing conditions, under the pretext of preser-
ving calm, public order and the mos maiorum, enjoy absolute priority, no
matter what unexpected problems should arise on the political horizon?
The conflict could thus hardly be more fundamental: was a rebalance of
political interests and of the distribution of public revenues negotiable at all
between the groups involved, or was a political stalemate the only option?
There were, of course, minor political compromises on the part of the
Senate in moments of extreme pressure, but public opinion was also
shaped by public statements such as that of Bibulus: ‘you will not get
this law this year, not even if you all want it’.112
In these increasing tensions we may find the explanation for a fourth
level of the debate: evaluative keywords that the nobility and people used to
denote the other side. Despite all the harmonizing rhetoric that was
normally used in public oratory, designed to stress the connection between
an aristocratic magistrate and the Roman citizens, many indicators in the
course of the first century bc point to recriminations, thus revealing
deteriorating relationships and mutual suspicions. Some of the terms
used were shared by both sides. Competing politicians often accused
each other of planning to establish a regnum or a dominatio or of being
a tyrannus, and rival groups complained of being subjected to slavery by
their opponents.113 But there were also semantics specific to the Senate and
109
Cic. Off. 1.21, 51, 2.73, 3.42; Arena 2012: 155. On Cicero’s strongly held belief that the state’s prime
function was to guarantee private property, see Garnsey 2007: 111–18 and Straumann 2016: 169–90.
110 111
Cic. Rep. 1.49; Off. 2.78; Arena 2012: 143. Cic. Leg. 3.42.1; Arena 2012: 129.
112
Dio Cass. 48.4.3.
113
Cic. Leg. 33.24; Rab. perd. 13–15; Dom. 24, 91, 102; Sest. 103; Har. resp. 41; Sall. Hist. 1 F77.3, 6M; 3
F48.1, 11, 13, 16M; Iug. 31.2, 9–11, 13, 20, 22.
the people, respectively. Among them could be counted aristocratic com-
plaints that the people would confuse libertas with lenitas because of their
desire for grain laws. Other sources indicate a popular tradition contrasting
the clementia populi with the saeuitia and crudelitas of the optimates, thanks
to their habit of not compromising and their reckless prosecution of
opponents and their adherents.114
The crucial point here, as Valentina Arena has correctly stressed in her
recent book on libertas, is that popularis or optimate notions were not to be
equated with philosophical schools or the political programmes of indivi-
dual politicians; rather, they reveal the intellectual and mental traditions of
a broader public, conceptions and beliefs that were evolving in public
opinion via continuous debate.115 Politicians could in fact adopt this set
of surprisingly homogeneous referents of political values as and when they
deemed them most appropriate and influence this discourse, but none of
them could exclusively dominate the debate, as Clodius as well as Cicero
had to realize. Of course, they could play with words, but the words
themselves had a much older semantic history, shaped by the everyday
language that every politician had to take into account.
Therefore, the question of whether it is possible to determine semantic
differences between specific groups, intellectual traditions or political
programmes (although the categories that have usually been applied to
designate them are not used with sharp distinction by our sources) must
now be raised from a new perspective. This may likewise clarify the
problem of the optimates and populares. We must therefore return to the
thesis of Maggie Robb regarding these two categories.
Robb notes correctly that the competing political forces in the Late
Roman Republic were not indiscriminately designated by these terms in
contemporary sources. Sallust does not use categories such as optimates and
populares at all, while Livy employs them for characterizing group conflicts.
Even Caesar never speaks of optimates. But Cicero has to be regarded as the
most remarkable case. He uses especially the term populares, but in a rather
contradictory manner: for example, his claim that the populares, whom he
normally accuses of posing the greatest threat to the res publica and the
Senate, are not necessarily in fundamental opposition to the Roman
Senate. From these correct observations Robb draws the conclusion that
the terms populares and optimates are not appropriate for distinguishing the
antagonistic forces prevailing in this period. She argues in favour of using
the term seditiosi instead to designate the opponents of the Senate because
114 115
Flamerie de Lachapelle 2011: 22–30. Arena 2012: 116.
62 claudia tiersch
this denomination is used by several sources and manifests the widely
accepted authority of the Senate to represent the interests of the res publica
and its citizens.116
However, it must be objected against this perspective that it closely
reproduces the position of the conservative aristocrats who had obstructed
political initiatives and their initiators with strict determination. The negative
semantics of the term seditiosi bears witness to this fact, declaring the main-
tenance of the political order and the authority of its representative forces to
be the only legitimate political aim. Moreover, the phenomenon of an
increasing political disintegration, a mutual alienation, is mentioned in all
sources, even when they disagree on the causes or the persons responsible for
it. Maybe it is not astonishing that the sources do not use the terms optimates
and populares with strict consistency because they were not party labels in the
modern sense but were descriptive and evaluative language used according to
their own agendas. By contrast, Robb rightly underlines that the denomina-
tion populares in particular retains an enormous importance in the political
language of Republican Rome, independently of specific sources. Therefore,
the question has to be asked: why was the importance of both terms so
obvious, and how could they be interpreted?117 How could Roman authors
play with the word populares and its semantics? What were their interests in
applying it? Can terms such as optimates and populares possibly still provide
evidence for the political tensions in the Late Roman Republic, albeit in
a form which must still be analysed?
Let me begin with the term optimates, which occurs rather seldom in the
sources, as Robb correctly stressed.118 I completely agree with her observa-
tion. It remains true even if the term boni is added, which mostly pertains
to the same phenomenon. This rarity seems perfectly plausible, but this is
not because the term does not denote a specific grouping but because it
proves to be disadvantageous for the purposes of public communication,
especially for any attempts at substantiating senatorial claims to lead the res
publica for the best of all. On the one hand, the term optimates/boni
represents an elitist inner-group designation, a self-perception that com-
prises excellence, higher social and possibly moral qualities, and that
marked off the foundations for any senatorial claims of superiority.119
116
Robb 2010: 164. 117 Cf. in more detail Tiersch (forthcoming). 118
Robb 2010: 95.
119
Cf. Strasburger RE s.v. optimates; Hellegouarc’h 1972: 501; Enn. Trag. 284: quae Corinthum arcem
altam habebant | matronae opulentae, optimates (‘rich and noble women, who lived in Corinth, lofty
citadel’); Serv. Aen. 4.682; Cic. Har. resp. 40, 54; Inu. 2.52; Rep. 1.42, 50, 55, 65, 69, 2.23; Leg. 2.30,
3.10, 33; Tusc. 1.108; Flac. 54, 58; Livy, 4.9.8, 11, 10.18.8, 24.2.8, 3.9, 23.10, 32.3, Nep. Alcib. 5.3;
Phoc. 3.1.
On the other hand, however, it stood for a limited, even enclosed circle
and could by its public use lend credence to known allegations that the
Senate was an assembly of haughty aristocrats, a self-interested factio
paucorum whose belief in their own superiority was simply inappropri-
ate. Moreover, using this term implied the acceptance of the assessments
connected with it, which is why Sallust and Caesar avoided it
completely.120 Other sources openly challenged this positive semantics,
for instance, the allegation of C. Sempronius Gracchus against the
murderers of his brother Tiberius: the bad ones (improbi) had killed
his good (bonus) brother.121 Therefore, possible alternative ways of
communicating the authoritative role of the Senate persuasively might
either be found in exaggerating the number of the optimates, seemingly
integrating wider strata of the Roman population to broaden their
importance (as Cicero had attempted in his Sestiana), or in using
more neutral terms such as senatus in public oratory.122 Optimates and
senatus more or less meant the same, but both terms bore a different
semantics and consequently a different message; it depended on the
audience which term should be preferred.123
An even more interesting case is offered by the term populares. In its
fundamental sense, the term has a significance that is different from the
term optimates. It denotes, from very early times onwards, primarily
a quality: the belonging (of persons, institutions or things) to the group
of populus, bearing the basic sense of ‘familiar’, ‘close’, ‘public’ or ‘com-
mon’. Later on, probably from the second half of the second century bc,
the term acquired an extended semantics, denoting the popular behaviour
of a politician or the popular significance of a measure in relation to the
people.124 Maybe this is one reason why Sallust, who frequently gives us
narratives about groups and their interactions, seldom uses this term,
whereas, for example, Cicero, who was mostly speaking about the
120
Hellegouarc’h 1972: 507; Hanell 1945: 266.
121
C. Gracchus: ORF4 48 F17 (= Char. p. 313.19B): pessimi Tiberium fratrem meum optimum inter-
fecerunt (the worst men killed my most excellent brother).
122
Hellegouarc’h 1972: 492; cf. Cic. Off. 1.124; Rab. perd. 3; Sest. 21, 103; Har. resp. 60.
123
Hellegouarc’h 1972: 496–505.
124
Plaut. Amph. 193: [sc. dux] praeda . . . adfecit populares suos (‘the general has provided his country-
men with booty’); Naev. Carm. F42: [sc. milites nolunt] cum stupro redire ad suos popularis (‘soldiers
do not wish to return with disgrace to their fellow countrymen’); Cato Or. F42: inspectantibus
popularibus suis (‘with their countrymen looking on’); Cic. Att. 10.1.2 (SB 190): Solonis, popularis tui
(‘Solon, your compatriot’); Livy, 25.41.2: Numidae nuntiantes [sc. Marcello] populares suos . . .
quieturos in pugna (‘The Numidians announced to Marcellus that their comrades would be inactive
during the fight’); Hellegouarc’h 1972: 518–52.
64 claudia tiersch
behaviour of individual politicians, made frequent use of it, acknowledging
the wide acceptance of this category.125
But right here was one essential problem for Cicero. The word popu-
laris has a long tradition in Roman public discourse, and it was on
balance charged with a positive meaning, as ‘close to’ or ‘friendly towards
the people’ or ‘on behalf of the interests of the people’. This is established
by the large number of sources collected in Yelena Baraz’s TLL entry for
popularis; the sources given by Maggie Robb, which are less partial than
Cicero, point in the same direction.126 In a community that always
referred to its legitimacy as a res publica, a common affair, the label
senatus populusque Romanus was of great significance, and populus was
a frequent keyword in public oratory. How a politician behaved towards
the people was therefore essential for his political legitimacy. To be
charged with being an enemy of the Roman people was dangerous for
any further career. This criterion became part of the political agenda from
the time of the Gracchi and acquired further semantic sharpness, as
several attacks on individual politicians and the Senate as a whole
prove.127
Cicero’s juggling with the different significances of the word popu-
laris is thus to be seen in the context of this heated political debate, in
which the Senate had to face a gradual loss of public acceptance, and
some opposing politicians, sometimes deeply revered by the Romans,
advertised their initiatives with the argument that they were for the
well-being of the people (commoda populi Romani).128 Cicero, however,
during his whole political career tried to enhance the Senate’s claim to
act on behalf of all, and he mobilized his full rhetorical mastery to find
the right arguments. The use Cicero made of the word popularis was
125
Robb 2010: 182–4 with the relevant evidence.
126
Cf. Livy, 6.20.3: consensu opprimi popularem uirum, quod primus a patribus ad plebem defecisset (‘a
general conspiracy to put down the people’s friend because he had been the first to forsake the
patricians for the plebs’); 2.24.3: ingenium magis populare erat (‘his character appealed more to the
people’); 6.11.7: [sc. M. Manlius Capitolinus] primus omnium ex patribus popularis factus (‘M.
Manlius Capitolinus was the first of all the patricians to become a friend of the people’); Lucan.
6.795: popularia nomina, Drusos (‘Drusus, people-friendly name’); 7.694: Pompei nomen, populare
per orbem (‘the name of Pompey, popular the world over’); Livy, 3.44.7: Vergini patris sponsique Icili
populare nomen celebrabatur (‘the names of Verginius her father and Icilius her fiancé were popular
and celebrated’).
127
Cf. particularly the speeches given by Sallust, such as the speech of the tribune C. Memmius in
111 bc (Sall. Iug. 31) or the speech delivered by the tribune C. Licinius Macer in 73 bc (Sall. Hist. 3
F48M).
128
Val. Max. 3.7.3 (C. Curiatius); C. Gracchus ORF4 48 F50–1 (= Gell. NA 9.14.16): ea luxurii causa
aiunt institui; non est ea luxuries, quae necessario parentur uitae causa (‘they say that those measures
were taken because of luxury; whatever is needed to sustain life is not luxury’).
therefore not unclear or contradictory at all but has to be assessed as
a very apposite, almost desperate fight against a strong trend in public
opinion which asserted that Cicero and his fellows could not deserve
the positive label popularis.129 His fight with and for the term popularis
has to be comprehended as a fight to regain interpretive dominance
over this politically essential word, and Cicero’s position here was
a rather defensive one. Hence, his seemingly contradictory strategies
must be interpreted in relation to the question, ‘what was he fighting
for and against?’
Here Robb’s observation that Cicero applies the term populares in an
ambivalent way hits the point.130 What does Cicero’s strategy imply?
On the one hand, he discredited politicians who (according to the testi-
mony of our sources) had the public reputation of being popularis – men
such as the Gracchi, Saturninus, Cinna and Clodius – with the argument
that their real objectives were not the well-being of people and state but the
increase of their private power to the point where they could establish
a tyranny.131 Cicero vilified them personally, depreciating the quantity of
their supporters and the value of their respective political aims; in a word,
he did everything to deny the label of popularis to these politicians and to
everything that was connected with them.132 The orator certainly differ-
entiated between the objects of his slanders, but even here a certain pattern
can be detected: it was easy, for example, to judge the Gracchi somewhat
more favourably, because they had been dead for a long time and thus
could serve as a positively connoted example in the collective memory, to
129
Especially illuminating are the attacks waged by the tribune P. Clodius against Cicero as a ‘traitor’
to libertas, referring to his behaviour against the adherents of Catiline. See Nippel 1988: 116–23.
130
Robb 2010: 145.
131
Cic. Leg. agr. 2.10: neque enim, Quirites, illud uobis iucundum aut populare debet uideri (‘for neither,
Citizens, ought it to appear pleasant or popular’); in an ironic vein, Cic. Leg. agr. 2.15; Rab. perd. 12:
popularis uero tribunus pl., custos defensorque iuris et libertatis! (‘what a friend of the people is the
tribune, guardian and defender of right and liberty!’); Clu. 113: illa . . . omnia Quinctiana . . .
turbulenta, popularia, seditiosa iudicia fuerunt (‘all those Quinctian trials were rowdy, demagogic,
seditious’); Clu. 94: hic tribunus plebis . . . non modo non seditiosus, sed etiam seditiosis aduersarius, ille
autem acerbus, criminosus, popularis homo ac turbulentus (‘this tribune was not only not seditious, but
an opponent of the seditious; by contrast, that one was a bitter, slanderous, vulgar and violent
man’); cf. Rab. perd. 13; Sest. 104: ut popularis cupiditas a consilio principum dissideret (‘that the desires
of the people differed from the advice of the leading men’); Sest. 141: propositis tot exemplis iracundiae
leuitatisque popularis (‘having before them so many examples of the rage and fickleness of the
people’); Clu. 93: contiones cotidianas seditiose ac populariter concitatas (‘daily public meetings stirred
seditiously and demagogically’); Clu. 134: inuidiae populariter excitatae (‘suspicion aroused among
the people’).
132
See the masterly book by Achard 1981, which deconstructs the set of refined strategies used by
Cicero to denounce his popular enemies.
66 claudia tiersch
underline the even greater wickedness of the actual, living populares such as
Clodius.133
On the other hand, against this dark picture of the damaging, tyranni-
cal, greedy politician, the ‘false’ popularis, Cicero set the positive, alter-
native ideal of the real popularis, embodied in himself and his adherents.
This type of a popularis never proposed useless legal initiatives such as
agrarian laws, which were devastating for the treasury and for the public
order, nor would he try to push the state into political turmoil, turning
everything upside down, but was instead eager to secure political tranquil-
lity and stability together with all the boni.134 Therefore, Cicero claimed, it
was not only unnecessary for a popular politician to lapse into inimical
relations with the Senate, but such an attitude unmasked the false popu-
laris, who was only interested in sowing discord and destruction to the
disadvantage of all Romans.135 In Cicero’s construction, there was simply
no difference between optimates and populares, not because there was none
in reality and public opinion but only because this orator was very eager to
downplay the distinction in order to preserve the authority of the Senate as
the head of the res publica and the guardian of the people’s interests.
The most urgent concern of populares and optimates alike must be, accord-
ing to Cicero, to preserve the res publica and its institutions against any
changes. This is the same abstract conception as that revealed in the
133
Cic. Sest. 105; Leg. agr. 1.25 on Rullus: insidias, quae ipsi populo Romano a popularibus tribunis plebis
fiant, ostendero (‘I will show the trap that is laid by the popular tribunes for the Roman people
itself ’); Leg. agr. 2.7: [sc. nonnulli] cum populi . . . commoda . . . impediunt, oratione adsequi uolunt,
ut populares esse uideantur (‘some, while they hinder the interests of the people, wish to achieve
through their speeches that they may appear to be friends of the people’); Dom. 77: maioribus nostris,
qui non ficte et fallaciter populares, sed uere et sapienter fuerunt (‘our ancestors, who were friends of the
people not falsely or mendaciously, but truly and wisely’); Dom. 24: C. Gracchus qui unus maxime
popularis fuit (C. Gracchus, who alone was most devoted to the people); Dom. 77: [sc. Clodius] ubi
tu te popularem, nisi cum <pro> populo fecisti [sc. Bonae Deae sacris adfuisti], potes dicere? (‘what act
can you say was in the people’s interest, except your “sacrifice” [illicit attendance at the rites of Bona
Dea] on the people’s behalf?’); Phil. 8.19: Calene . . . ante deterrere te, ne popularis esses, non
poteramus; exorare nunc, ut sis popularis, non possumus (‘Calenus, previously we could not deter
you from being a “people’s friend”, now we cannot implore you to be a “people’s friend”’); Sest. 37
positively on Saturninus: tribuno plebis . . . in causa populari si non moderate, at certe populariter
abstinenterque uersato (‘a tribune . . . who acted in the popular cause if not with moderation, at least
in accordance with the people’s wishes and selflessly’).
134
Cic. Dom. 77: qui non ficte et fallaciter popularis, sed uere et sapienter fuerunt (who were friends of the
people not falsely or mendaciously, but truly and wisely); Sull. 25: populi utilitati magis consulere
quam uoluntati (to be more concerned about the people’s interests than about their wishes); Brut.
97: homo non liberalitate ut alii, sed ipsa tristitia et seueritate popularis (a man not popular for this
generosity, like other men, but for his very harshness and severity) (all translations by author and
editors); similarly, Cic. Rep. 2.54; Har. resp. 43; Leg agr. 1.23, 2.102; Off. 2.78; Sest. 105, 109, 113–14,
119; Rab. perd. 12–15; Phil. 1.21, 37, 7.4; cf. Seager 1972b: 334.
135
E.g. Cic. Sest. 98–100; cf. Sall. Hist. 1 F77M, for the speech of L. Marcius Philippus.
rhetoric of a known optimate, L. Marcius Philippus.136 It was Cicero’s
attempt to completely redefine the long-established term popularis and its
semantics.
However, this attempt met its limits not only in public opinion and the
successful efforts of his political enemies to debunk Cicero as a traitor to
liberty and brand him the most unpopular politician Rome had ever seen
but also in Cicero’s own political actions, above all in connection with the
Catilinarian conspiracy. Therefore, in addition to his redefinition of the
term popularis, Cicero tried to downplay the significance of the word in
order to minimize its widespread positive semantics and to demonstrate
that it was rather negligible for the well-being of the Roman people and in
the political vocabulary of Rome. Ciceronian statements such as the
following may be integrated into this context: ‘a tribune in this year
acted most popularly because he did not do anything in his year of office’
or ‘the most popular manner is now to be not popular at all’.137 But in the
end this strategy did not prove to be effective, and Cicero’s recourse to the
term popularis in the Philippic speeches seems to be a clear indicator that
a politician had to communicate his affectionate attitude towards the
populus if he wanted to mobilize strong majorities in the Roman
Republic.138 And it is especially this desperate fight of Cicero for the
redefinition and downplaying of the term popularis against an obviously
strong public opinion that he could not dominate which underlines the
importance of this term and of the semantic battles between optimates and
populares in the Late Roman Republic.
Summary
My basic question was whether there were semantic battles in the Late
Roman Republic, that is to say, not only battles with words but battles for
words. This question can be answered in the affirmative at the end of this
analysis, even if the range of semantic differences cannot be compared with
modern times. However, the growing importance of group interests and
factual agendas left visible traces in the political language of this time.
Especially politicians who planned to propose laws against the resistance of
the majority of the Senate as the traditional guardian of mos maiorum were
forced to justify their initiatives elaborately. My aim was to prove that in
spite of shared general values such as libertas, res publica and virtus, these
values offered an enormous scope for different interpretations and were in
136 137 138

Cf. Cic. Leg. agr. 2.6–8. Cic. Sest. 114. Cic. Phil. 1.39, 5.49.
68 claudia tiersch
fact filled with deeply opposing meanings by political opponents. These
different semantics gave an impression of what hopes and fears affected
various groups of the Roman population. Actually, Achard’s characteriza-
tion of deux éloquences as an indicator for optimates and populares has been
confirmed, even if complexities and strategies of adaptation have to be
taken into consideration.139
The heterogeneous semantics that shaped the terms populares and
optimates proves to be especially illuminating, because it reflects the nature
of political conflict during the crisis of the Roman Republic. Whereas the
term optimates as a self-designation of the conservative majority of the
Senate shows that this group was deeply convinced of their own qualitative
superiority and was rather sparingly used, the term populares stood for
something completely different. To be acknowledged as popular was
highly esteemed, but it was reserved for the judgement of a broad public.
It was connected not only with rhetorical strategies but also with political
behaviour and initiatives. Therefore, it was more than likely that public
opinion could change when the citizens felt that a politician no longer
deserved his reputation, as Cicero was to realize after his decisions in the
Catilinarian conspiracy. Because this did severe damage to his political
image, it is not at all surprising that Cicero thereupon tried to discredit this
term and the politicians vested with it. Both terms might thus stand as
a symbol for the growing disintegration of the res publica. It may be
rewarding for a future analysis to ask what continuities and discontinuities
are manifest for the terms designating the leading politicians and their
politics during the process of transformation towards the Roman
Principate.
139
Achard 1981: 9.
chapter 3
Political Participation and the Identification

of Politicians in the Late Roman Republic
Cristina Rosillo-López
The degree of participation of Roman citizens in politics has been the

subject of debate over recent decades. Scholars agree that the political elite
had to take the Roman people into account to a certain extent, and it is the
degree and intensity of that participation that are the real bones of
contention. Some scholars claim a symbolic role for the Roman people
in politics; necessary for the fulfilment of political life and rituals, their role
was nonetheless not decisive.1 At the other extreme, scholars have asserted
that the popular presence in politics was determinant: the people voted on
laws, magistrates had to conduct their business under the eye of the people
and elections were not merely a pretence, since the vote of the plebs could
also be decisive, especially in cases in which the vote of the elite was
dispersed among various candidates.2
Scholars have tried to identify ways to measure the degree of involve-
ment in politics. For instance, voter turnouts have been employed as
a proxy to determine political participation, with attempts made to esti-
mate how many people could vote in the elections, though with different
results.3 Mouritsen has gauged voting times for assemblies, taking into
account the physical spaces of the Comitium and the Saepta Iulia; no more
than 3,000 people could be gathered in the Forum, for instance.4 Jehne has
measured the percentage of participation, taking into account the census
figures of 70/69 bc, with a maximum of 3.3 per cent of the whole Roman
This research was financed by the project ‘Opinión pública y comunicación política en la República
Romana (siglos II–I a de C.)’ (2013–43496-P) through the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad,
Spain.
1
Jehne 2000; Mouritsen 2001; Hölkeskamp 2010, 2011b. This trend has also been studied by archae-
ologists: see Zanker 1988.
2
See Millar 1998: 9 and Yakobson 1999 for the elections, but note that Yakobson 2010: 4 points out
that publicity ‘is not necessarily democratic’. Hölkeskamp 2010: 135 and Crawford 2011: 112 assert that
openness and democracy should not be confused.
3
Nicolet 1988: 391–401; MacMullen 1980. 4 Mouritsen 2001: 18–37.
69
70 cristina rosillo-lópez
population in the Campus Martius, 1.1 per cent in the Forum and
0.4 per cent in the Comitium.5 However, the state of the sources means
that quantification can be unreliable. Qualitative proxies should also be
employed to arrive at a conclusion about political involvement, as the rest
of this chapter will demonstrate.
If we pay attention to the possible political involvement of Roman
citizens, we should not neglect its opposite, that is, political apathy.
If involvement in politics is estimated, then the degree of political apathy
among citizens should also be considered.6 Did people ignore politics? Was
political apathy rampant? Political apathy has been described as the degree
of interest that people have towards politics, with different scales within
this concept. It could be also considered as the degree of psychological
engagement in the political process.7 Political apathy is a much-discussed
subject, since there is a widespread (and debated) feeling that it has been on
the rise during recent decades in Western democracies.
First of all, I propose a wider conception of political life for the Late
Roman Republic. Voting or attending an assembly is not the only act that
defines somebody’s involvement in political life, either in Roman times or
today. Casual and sporadic political participation should also be taken into
account. In the second and first centuries bc, citizens performed political
acts beyond attending assemblies or voting on legislative acts or candidates
for magistracies. Circulation of political news, rumours, nicknames and
political socialisation are also important political acts, without which the
habitual workings of politics could not be successful, since they depend
upon each of these factors.8
How can we identify proxies to determine the degree of political apathy
in Rome? Modern polling methods measure the degree of apathy by
asking, for example, about the amount of time citizens devote to political
news, whether they watch or read news, whether they are involved in
political associations, the amount of knowledge they have of current
political issues or whether they recognise the names of leading
politicians.9 Similar questions could also be pondered for Late
Republican times. This chapter focuses on just one of the many
5
Jehne 2006b: 224; calculations based on Mouritsen 2011: 32.
6
For theoretical considerations on political apathy, see Bennett 1986: 31–59 and DeLuca 1995: 10–11.
7
Bennett 1986: 36–9. Political apathy has been related to non-voting since the first modern studies in
the early twentieth century (Bennett 1986: 24–5; relationship refuted 32–3).
8
On this wide interpretation of political life, see Rosillo-López 2017a. On nicknames and popular
political culture, see Rosillo-López 2017b.
9
See Bennett 1986: 39–58 on different approaches to measuring political apathy.
Political Participation and the Identification of Politicians 71
possibilities: were politicians recognisable by their names or by their facial
features? This study will focus on post-Sullan politics (after 80 bc) for two
reasons: firstly, the availability of sources, and secondly, Sulla’s changes to
the Senate and the cursus honorum, which increased the number of elected
magistrates and senators, thus enlarging the number of potentially recog-
nisable politicians (see below).
It was a mark of pride for a Roman politician to know the names of
citizens when he canvassed or went around the city. Cicero decided to
remember all the names he could.10 This was apparently one of Crassus’
strengths.11 Almost all candidates, though, were pragmatic enough to
realise the impossibility of this feat of memory, exaggerated or not.
During the elections, candidates went to the Forum accompanied by
a nomenclator, a skilled slave who whispered in their ear the names of
those whose hands they were shaking. But did the citizen identify the
candidate who was standing before him? Did he know who the magistrate
was who spoke in a contio in favour of, or against, a law? If lictors were not
around, would he recognise the consuls, urban praetors or tribunes of
the year? Would he be aware of their names? Was facial or name recogni-
tion a sign of interest in politics? Facial recognition presupposes, at least,
that the citizen had been into the Forum and had seen the politician from
a relatively close distance at least once. The elite and the plebs shared few
other spaces of socialisation. What does this tell us about the degree of
political apathy of Roman citizens?
To determine whether the people recognised politicians or failed to do
so necessarily entails the study of how Roman politicians could make
themselves recognisable. The Roman Republican political system is char-
acterised by an intense agonistic model. The number of political posts
available diminished as politicians rose to the top, creating a bottleneck.
After Sulla’s reforms, every year forty-four politicians entered into office
after an election (not taking pro-magistrates into account): two consuls,
eight praetors, ten tribunes of the plebs, twenty quaestors and four
aediles.12 Every five years two censors were elected. Many of the candidates
had never held a magistracy and were new to the political game. Thus, this
fierce competition implied that newcomers had to make themselves known
beforehand or, if elected, during their term of office to remain in the
political game and be elected to other magistracies in the future. Some of
them started with the advantage of belonging to a family whose name was
10
Plut. Cic. 7.1–2. 11 Plut. Crass. 3.3.
12
The number of praetors and quaestors fluctuated during the Republic.
already known for its services to the State; the nomen Scipionis, for instance,
assured instant recognition, and the glorious deeds of its bearer’s fore-
fathers reflected upon him. Imitation of a glorious forefather’s deeds was
one way to ensure instant recognition.13 Reflecting on the future
in May 49 bc, Cicero claimed that he would leave his name to his son as an
inheritance.14 In 54 bc, M. Aemilius Scaurus was acquitted of provincial
corruption, according to Valerius Maximus, because of the memory of his
father.15 Cicero complained that his enemy Piso had been elected to
a magistracy only because of his glorious name, a bonus of which new
men were deprived.16 Some politicians even had more repute than power,
as Plutarch claimed of Cato the Younger.17
Even young descendants of glorious and well-known families had to
make themselves known and talked about in the city. When surveying the
reasons that incited Tiberius Gracchus to draft his agrarian law, Plutarch
included a selfish desire to be well known and to differentiate himself from
the other tribunes.18 Securing the spotlight for a long period was not easy to
do. Cicero recommended that a defendant for whom he was pleading in
a trial should use his opportunity, for the following day he would be
a nobody.19
The Roman Republic was a political system that involved a certain
degree of direct contact between politicians and citizens. Roman citizens
would have been familiar with the names and faces of politicians through
socialisation and political sociability. Political business was mainly con-
ducted in the Forum, which was also the centre of economic and financial
life, ensuring that many people would pass through and move around that
space. Magistrates were surrounded by lictores in different numbers accord-
ing to the magistracy. Apparitores (‘civil servants’) also hovered around
them.20 Candidates were surrounded by throngs of people, making their
presence evident, and they wore striking white togae, which proclaimed
their status.
Contiones were a useful means for politicians to present themselves
before the people and announce their names, also allowing the audi-
ence to identify them in the future. When Octavian arrived in Rome
in May 44 bc, L. Antonius, a tribune of the plebs, summoned a contio
to present him publicly as the legal heir of Caesar.21 It was a necessary
13
Richardson 2012. 14 Cic. Fam. 2.16.5 (SB 154).
15
Val. Max. 8.1.10. On the trial, cf. Alexander 1990: 143–4; no. 295.
16
Cic. Pis. 2. See van der Blom 2010 on the alternative strategy of a homo nouus.
17
Plut. Crass. 7.7. 18 Plut. Ti. Gracch. 8.6. 19 Plut. Cic. 26.8.
20
On apparitores, see Purcell 1983. 21 Cic. Att. 14.21.4 (SB 375), 15.2.2 (SB 379).
move, since Octavian’s young age meant that he had not held any
magistracies and was unknown. In one of the most interesting cases of
misidentification (more on this later), the poet Helvius Cinna was
mistaken for Lucius Cornelius Cinna, one of the murderers of Caesar,
and was put to death by a crowd of people. In the confusing hours
and days that followed the dictator’s death, avenging partisans of
Caesar clearly knew that a Cinna had spoken in a contio against
Caesar just the previous day.22
The contio was summoned by one or more heralds (praeco, praecones),
who went through the streets of the city announcing the place for the
meeting.23 Would they also have mentioned who convoked it and who was
going to speak at it? Or did the praeco announce these names when the
meeting began? In fact, the number of people who attended a contio also
depended on the interest of the topic and on the speaker. In any case,
people would attend the contiones of famous or infamous politicians, those
who were well known. Once the contio had started, speakers were sum-
moned and were called upon by name, probably spoken out loud so that
the public would know who was speaking and could identify him after-
wards. Gaius Gracchus wanted to call on his political enemy Lucius
Calpurnius Piso, named Frugi for his virtue and integrity.24 His uiator,
trying to avoid a mistake, requested that Gracchus specify which Piso he
was talking about. The tribune resented having to name his adversary by
such a complimentary cognomen.25
Unless they had some distinctive features, descriptions of the physical
characteristics of politicians would not be of much help in identifying
them. Publius Vatinius’s facial swellings and gout made him widely
recognisable and were used as a reason to mock and criticise him.26
For the Romans, physical and moral deformities went together.27
Citizens could learn their facial features through surrogates, that is,
other people who resembled them, especially if they appeared in public,
such as actors. Roman writers loved striking resemblances, as the long
22
Suet. Iul. 85; Val. Max. 9.9.1; Plut. Caes. 68; Brut. 20; App. B Civ. 2.147; Dio Cass. 44.50.
23
Pina Polo 1989: 87–9. Cf. Livy, 4.32.1 (uici); Dion Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.37.1, 76.4. On the praeco, see
Pina Polo 1989: 88–9.
24
On calling enemies at contiones, see Chapter 5.
25
Cic. Font. 39 (123 bc). On this contio, see Pina Polo 1989: App. A, no. 193. A uiator and a lictor had
analogous functions, especially those of the tribune of the plebs, since the latter had no lictores at
their service (Daremberg and Saglio, s.v. uiator).
26
Cf. Cic. Vat. 4, 39; Sen. Dial. 2.17.3; Macr. Sat. 2.6.1; Plut. Cic. 9.3. Vatinius was the subject of heavy
abuse by Cicero and other Romans because of such physical deformities. Cf. Corbeill 1996: 46–55.
27
Corbeill 1996.
sections devoted by Pliny the Elder and Valerius Maximus to this
subject attest.28 Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica (RE 354, cos. 138 bc)
was called Serapio for his resemblance to an ugly slave of that name.29
It became part of his name and thus figured on the base of an equestrian
statue placed in the Capitol.30 Cornelius Scipio Pomponianus (RE 357)
was nicknamed Saluitto for his resemblance to a homonymous actor.31
The same thing happened to the consuls Lentulus (Spinther) and
Metellus Nepos (Pamphilus), colleagues in the consulship in 57 bc,
with two actors who gave them their nicknames.32 Pompeius Strabo
was named Menogenes for his likeness to his cook of that name.33
Particularly in the case of actors onstage, they reminded the public of
the physical features of the politicians they resembled.
Statues represented a way of displaying permanently both the physical
features and the names of living politicians, thus constantly making them
identifiable to passers-by. In 105 bc, the war against Jugurtha ended.
The king surrendered not to the general, Marius, but to Sulla, who was
a quaestor. This episode started a bitter political fight between Marius and
Sulla, since both claimed to have brought the conflict to its end. Bocchus,
King of Numidia, dedicated on the Capitol a gilded group of statues, on
which the episode of the surrender was clearly featured, along with Sulla’s
presence.34 This group created political debate: Marius felt that it corro-
borated Sulla’s version of events and took away from him the glory of
having concluded the war.35 He thus wanted to have the statues taken
down, but he faced opposition to this desire.36 Marius was no stranger to
this kind of display, since he had set up two monuments in Rome com-
memorating his victories, one over Jugurtha and the other over the Cimbri
and Teutones.37 Brennan asserts that the erection of the monument was
part of Sulla’s early campaign for the consulship.38 It would have been
a bold move, since it would remind the citizens constantly of his glory, his
name and (probably) his physical appearance. Mackay has highlighted that
both Sulla’s and Marius’s monuments were erected in Rome rather than on
28
Plin. NH 7.52; Val. Max. 9.14. On physiognomy, see Evans 1935, 1950 and Wardman 1967.
29
Livy, Ep. 55; Val. Max. 9.14.3; Plin. HN 7.54.
30
Cic. Att. 6.1.17 (SB 115). The statue was not of him, since Cicero complained that Scipio Metellus
had committed a huge blunder, putting Africanus’ statue over Serapio’s name.
31
Plin. HN 7.54. 32 Plin. HN 7.54; Val. Max. 9.14.4. 33 Plin. HN 7.54; Val. Max. 9.14.2.
34
Plut. Mar. 32; Sull. 6. Cf. Mackay 2000: 162–8; Erkelenz 2001: 155–65, 338–41.
35
Mackay 2000: 166–7. 36 Plut. Sull. 6.1–2.
37
Val. Max. 6.9.14; Suet. Iul. 11. On their location, see Mackay 2000: 164–6.
38
See Brennan 1992: 156 on episode; also Badian 1970: 11–12.
the site of the victory, since their clear purpose was political prestige before
the eyes of the citizens.39
Whereas the statues just mentioned could be seen by all citizens, small
terracotta portraits of Roman politicians were clearly aimed at a less
affluent audience. Busts in terracotta are relatively common for the
Principate but a rarity for the Late Republic.40 Interestingly, all those
preserved belong to one of the most popular politicians: Pompey. Four
busts are known, although only two are extant nowadays.41 All of them
share the same characteristics: they are small (around 12 centimetres high)
and are roughly manufactured. Pompey can be identified by his basic
features, mainly his tuft, modelled on the feature by which Hellenistic
sculptors presented Alexander the Great, the anastole. It seems that the
four busts were created from a mould and not freely modelled.42 They
represent Pompey in all his power as general.43 On the basis of stylistic
criteria, Jucker suggests a dating of the second quarter of the first
century bc.44 Walker has dated the Stuttgart busts to around the 60s
and 50s bc.45
The most important feature of the busts is their inelaborate construction
and the humble material used – terracotta.46 Pompey’s facial features are
insinuated, not marked very clearly; only the hairstyle allows recognition of
the man portrayed. A rougher style also meant a cheaper price and, thus,
that these statues could have been bought and displayed by people of
a lower status. These four small busts are the only survivors of a possibly
much wider phenomenon from the Late Republic: cheap reproductions of
important and popular politicians, to be bought by citizens of non-affluent
means. In a letter from the second century ad, Marcus Cornelius Fronto
tells his pupil Marcus Aurelius that when promenading around the Forum,
he passed by some statues of his student that were being sold: they were
badly painted and modelled, but his features could just about still be
recognised.47 Similar Imperial busts have been found in situ in lararia or
small domestic altars and in tombs, especially in Pompeii.48 The compita or
39
Mackay 2000: 168, n. 21: ‘The point was not merely to make an offering to the gods but to do so
where Roman citizens would see it on a regular basis.’ Sulla’s signet ring also commemorated the
surrender (reproduced in a coin by his son Faustus: RRC 426/1) so that people would remember it
every time he signed a document.
40 41
Cf. Dahmen 2001 for the Imperial period. Jucker 2006: 42.
42
Jucker 2006: 43 and n. 11.
43
Cf. Jucker 2006: 43–4, who examines the busts in contrast with other representations of Pompey.
44
Jucker 2006: 44–5. 45 Walker and Higgs 2001: 158.
46
A material with a long Italian and Etrurian tradition. See Fejfer 2008: 177–8.
47 48
Fronto Ep. pp. 66.25–67.4vdH. Jucker 2006: 45.
crossroads could also represent a likely location, since they constituted an
important place of socialisation for the plebs.49 Taking into account
Fronto’s comments and the rough mould of the statues, it could be
surmised that the buyers did not belong to the elite. If prospective buyers
were more likely to belong to a lower class, they were expressing their
support and preference for Pompey by owning these busts. Thus, the little
statuettes were, in fact, expressions of public opinion and political
attachment.50
Names could also circulate around the city, spreading identity in many
ways. Euergetism, often expressed though the construction or renewal of
public buildings, ensured that the names of the politicians who had paid
for them were permanently displayed. The erection of commemorative
statues was a useful way to associate a name with prestigious forefathers or
family members. Caesar placed himself in the shadow of Marius’s success
and on the side of the populares, when he displayed imagines of Marius and
the latter’s son publicly during the funeral of his aunt Julia, Marius’
widow.51 Three years later, when aedile in 65 bc, he unexpectedly re-
erected gilded statues of his uncle Marius at his memorial monument on
the Capitol.52 This was the bold move of a young and ambitious man, since
all public representations of Marius had been banned by Sulla.53 However,
public sympathy for the glorious general had not waned.54
Not all these displays of a politician’s name were aimed at a wide
audience. Electoral campaigns were times when candidates were extremely
interested in getting citizens to remember their names. For that purpose,
they walked around the Forum, shaking hands and greeting people.55
However, not all candidates behaved in manners sanctioned by laws.
The lex Tullia de ambitu forbade the provision of banquets for all citizens
regardless of their tribes, which allows us to infer that these events were
held too frequently.56 Two cups with the names of Catiline and Cato
inscribed on them may constitute archaeological remains of such banquets.
The first inscription refers to L. Cassius Longinus, praetor in 66 bc, who
supported the election of Catiline: ‘Cassius Longinus, who asks for the vote
for Catiline’.57 The second mentions another candidate, Cato the Younger:
49
Laurence 1994: 38–50; Marco Simón and Pina Polo 2000; Rosillo-López 2017a: 64–70.
50
See further analysis in Rosillo-López 2017a: 226–9. 51 Plut. Caes. 5.2; Flower 1996: 124.
52
On this monument, see Sehlmeyer 1999: 192–3.
53
On Sulla’s policy of destroying Marius’ monuments and memory, see Stein-Hölkeskamp 2013.
54
Plut. Caes. 6.5; Suet. Iul. 11; Sehlmeyer 1999: 217–18. 55 Yakobson 1999.
56
On this law, see Ferrary 2001 = 2017; and Rosillo-López 2010: 46–7, 60–2.
57
Ed. Panciera 1980: L Casius Longinu(s) quei Catilinae {su}/sufragatur.
‘M. Cato, who is a candidate for the tribunate of the plebs’.58 These cups
were probably offered as gifts at banquets organised in favour of the
candidates, so people could bring them home and remember the name
of the politician in order to write it down on the day of the election.59
Finally, popular verses ensured the circulation of a name throughout the
city. The only problem for the politicians alluded to in such verses is that
these were not usually complimentary, so their subjects became infamous
instead of famous (more on this later).
In summary, the formal and informal systems of Roman politics ensured
that politicians had the possibility of displaying their physical features and
names in public. Ancient sources did not focus much upon issues of
recognition. They were more interested in cases of mistaken identities
and not in the recognition of politicians who, of course, provided an
interesting subject for their readers. Narratives of misidentification, for
instance, flourished during the proscriptions of the Triumvirate, when
many members of the political elite went into hiding to escape death.60
In any case, we should take into account the large number (forty-four) of
new magistrates every year, which is a considerable number of people to
remember and recognise, even for the elite.
Recognition of politicians was something gradual that the elite built up
slowly throughout their political lives. The struggles and challenges of
being identified feature frequently in the accounts of the early political
careers of future important figures. For many of them, the great leap
forward was to become sufficiently well known to be elected to the first
step on the cursus honorum. Once there, recognition by other citizens was
easier. The position of military tribune was one of the first possibilities;
however, it entailed a problem in that it was a posting outside Rome and
Italy.61 Recognition by fellow citizens could be achieved by impressive
deeds that would compel fellow soldiers and officers to write home and
circulate one’s name. Sertorius’ exploits in the siege and victory at Castulo
made his name known in Rome and earned him the quaestorship.62
Marius’ first steps on the cursus honorum provide a key case of the recogni-
tion of a politician in his first election, even before joining the army as
military tribune. Marius’ facial features were unknown, but the stories
58
Ed. Panciera 1980: M. Cato quei petit tribun[at]u[m] plebei. Cato decided to canvass for the
tribunate in order to counter the actions of another candidate, Metellus Nepos (Plut. Cat. Min. 20.
1–3).
59
Rosillo-López 2010: 64–5. 60 On the narratives of the proscriptions, see Gowing 1992: 247–69.
61
Suolahti 1955. 62 Plut. Sert. 4.1.
attached to his name and to his achievements made him successful in the
elections.63
This system worked even for less junior magistrates. Soldiers in
Africa in 148 bc were stunned by Scipio Aemilianus’ military deeds
and so informed their families and friends in Rome, thus crafting an
effective campaign for his consulship.64 The report of the commis-
sioners sent by the Senate was also highly complimentary.65 It was
probably at this moment that the legend appeared of the nomen
Scipionis, the providential fate of this family that predestined them
always to win in Africa.66 The irregular campaign and the election
that ensued have been the subject of much scholarly discussion. Only
thirty-seven years old, Scipio Aemilianus aimed at the aedileship, but
the citizens elected him to the consulship.67 Astin has pointed out
that this was not a surprise for Aemilianus, since he had played an
active role in his election.68 Develin, however, dismisses the idea of
active propaganda and considers that, in voting for him, Roman
public opinion was condemning the way in which the war in Africa
was being handled.69 In any case, the letters from Africa were instru-
mental in creating a climate of public opinion in favour of a man who
was not present in Rome but whose name had circulated quickly and
had become familiar.
Even though Rome was a small city, the number of members of the
political elite was not small, with 600 senators after Sulla’s reforms, plus their
political non-senatorial friends. Furthermore, the political elite were quite
permeable.70 Members were expected to know each other: political business
and shared sociability ensured this.71 During the proscriptions, Mark
Antony refused to acknowledge any acquaintance with Caesetius Rufus,
a senator whose head was presented to him. Valerius Maximus remarks what
a haughty attitude this was, not only in not accepting his part in the murder
63
Sall. Iug. 63.3–4. 64 App. Pun. 109; Flor. 1.31.12. 65 App. Pun. 105.
66
Plut. Caes. 52.4–5; Suet. Iul. 59.2; Dio Cass. 42.57.5–58.1. Linderski 1996a: 171, n. 93 = 2007: 159,
n. 93; Etcheto 2002: 128–31. Pace Weinstock 1971: 97–8, who places that legend in the times of
Africanus maior.
67
One of the main discussion points is whether Scipius Aemilianus announced his professio or
candidacy. Develin, who considers that the professio was not compulsory (for other cases, see
Develin 1978a: 484–85), suggests that Aemilianus would not have dared to do so and defy the
law, since he was not qualified for the consulship (Develin 1978a: 486).
68
Astin 1967: 61–9.
69
Develin 1978a. On the negative climate of public opinion in Rome, see App. Pun. 112.
70
On demographic patterns of senators and political succession, see Hopkins and Burton 1983; on
homines noui, see Wiseman 1971.
71
On senatorial sociability, see Rosillo-López 2017a: 42–74.
but also in stating that he did not know him.72 However, this was an
exceptional case, and understandably, members of the elite did not always
know or remember all the details of the political lives of their peers.
In 149 bc, the Senate embarked upon the Third Punic War. Leaving
Rome for the country, Q. Fabius Maximus met on the road P. Licinius
Crassus Dives Mucianus, who, he remembered, had been quaestor three
years earlier. Certain that he was a fellow senator, Fabius Maximus pro-
ceeded to explain to him in detail the secret deliberations of the Senate
regarding the war.73 However, he forgot that, at the time, such magistrates
did not gain automatic entry to the Senate, a measure enacted by Sulla.74
It was the censors who enrolled them as senators, and no censors had held
power between 153 and 147 bc. Licinius Crassus was not a member of the
Senate, yet Fabius Maximus passed on sensitive information to him.
The latter’s honest mistake was easy to make. Certain priuati, newly elected
magistrates and ex-magistrates, were allowed to participate in senatorial
deliberations before being included in the lectio senatus by the censors.75
In any case, it is important to note that even though Fabius Maximus did
not remember that Licinius Crassus was not a senator, he did recollect that
he had been one of the eight quaestors (or more, since the numbers were
not fixed until Sulla) elected three years before.
Not all elite members were so up-to-date with political life. In a well-
known anecdote, which Cicero himself told self-deprecatingly in public,
the orator related his return from what he thought had been a much-
discussed glorious quaestorship in Sicily. At his arrival in Puteoli, he met
someone, probably from the fashionable elite (lautissimus), who threw cold
water on Cicero’s great expectations. First of all, he ignored the fact that
Cicero had been abroad; upon being corrected, he thought he had been in
Africa. A second party intervened to point out that Cicero had been
quaestor in Syracuse, whereas in fact he had served in Lilybaeum.76 His
interlocutors were ignorant not only of the province in which he had served
but even of the fact that he had been out of Rome. This funny exchange, or
perhaps a similar one, made an impression on Cicero, who tried to avoid
leaving the city of Rome throughout the rest of his life: he did not go to
a province after his consulate, and he fought with all his might, unsuccess-
fully, against being sent away as proconsul in 51 bc.
72
Val. Max. 9.5.4; App. B Civ. 4.29. He was included in the proscriptions because it was alleged that
Fulvia, Mark Antony’s wife, coveted his house. He tried to give it to her as a gift when the
proscriptions started, but to no avail.
73 74
Val. Max. 2.2.1a. Rotondi 1912: 330, 353–4, 362. 75 Livy, 23.32.4; Gell. NA 3.18.7.
76
Cic. Planc. 65; Plut. Cic. 6.3–4.
Even more difficult than recalling somebody’s cursus honorum was to
determine his political views. Roman politics worked mainly through the
establishment of short-term political allegiances, which made this even
harder.77 C. Scribonius Curio became tribune of the plebs in 50 bc after the
conviction of Servaeus, tribune of the plebs–elect. When transmitting the
last piece of news to Cicero, Caelius commented that Curio inspired
people who did not know him with some apprehension, despite his
accommodating nature.78 Curio was not an unknown in senatorial circles.
His father and grandfather had held important magistracies; Curio pater
had publicly declared his discomfort with Caesar’s politics.79 In 59 bc,
Curio had galvanised and led the Roman iuuenes against Caesar publicly.80
Caelius was hoping (spero et uolo) that Curio would join the boni against
Caesar.81 If, despite being closely acquainted, Caelius was expressing such
wishes about Curio’s political views, it is understandable that other people
felt that they did not know him. Nevertheless, Curio did not accommodate
Caelius’ expectations and ended the year 50 bc working closely with
Caesar. If fellow politicians found it hard to define which political views
were held by each senator, it was probably harder for the rest of the citizens,
whose contact with them was more restricted.
Nevertheless, in some cases citizens managed to keep themselves more
or less informed about the political backgrounds and connections of
Roman politicians. In his autobiography, Sulla blamed his defeat in the
praetorship on the people of Rome, who, aware of his close relationship
with King Bocchus of Mauretania, preferred him to be an aedile first.
The rationale behind this was that the king would provide him with wild
African beasts, which would appear in the games at Rome.82 Regardless of
whether or not the story was true, it was a plausible explanation. Sulla’s
friendship with Bocchus had been displayed in public in the city: as
mentioned earlier, the king dedicated on the Capitol a gilded group of
statues in which Sulla appeared receiving the surrender of King
Jugurtha.83 Such an outstanding monument in the centre of the city
would not have passed unnoticed.
The few cases in the sources of recognition and misrecognition of
Roman politicians attest to the fact that first-rate politicians were widely
recognised because their political positions were eminent and they usually
appeared constantly in public.
77
Meier 1980: 174–90; Brunt 1988: 36–45. 78 Cic. Fam. 8.4.2 (SB 81). 79 Cic. Brut. 218.
80
Cic. Att. 2.8.1 (SB 28), 2.18.1 (SB 38), 2.19.3 (SB 39). 81 Cic. Fam. 8.4.2 (SB 81).
82
Plut. Sull. 5.1; Keaveney 2005: 28–9.
83
Plut. Mar. 32; Sull. 6. Cf. Mackay 2000: 162–8; Erkelenz 2001: 155–65, 338–41.
Pompey is, at the same time, a symptomatic and exceptional case. His
military exploits made his name widely popular in the city; his triumphs
and consulships featured him in public. His political importance and
popularity granted him a frequent presence in contiones, but he never-
theless lacked the well-honed negotiating skills of other senators.84
Pompey was physically recognised in the city of Rome, and not only by
his political colleagues. As mentioned previously, cheap statuettes of his
likeness were probably sold to non-affluent people. Valerius Maximus
noted in his section about curious resemblances that two men looked so
much like him that people turned their heads to gawk at them.85 It is worth
pointing out that people would recognise a Pompey lookalike in the streets.
Pompey was also recognised outside the city and not in the best
circumstances or dressed in distinguished attire. After the defeat at
Pharsalus, Pompey escaped with a few trusted friends in a small boat, in
which they drifted until rescued by a merchant ship. Peticius, the master of
the vessel, knew him by sight; although they were not acquainted, he
recognised the general instantly.86 Amela Valverde has suggested that
Peticius would have met Pompey when the latter was in charge of the
cura annonae, the grain supply.87 In any case, Pompey was sufficiently well
known by both name and physical features to be identified easily.
What about less prominent politicians, those who were not the top
players of the Late Republic?
Their recognition depended upon the political circumstances and, of
course, upon the interests of those who met them. Decimus Brutus
Albinus, who participated in the murder of Caesar, was chased by Mark
Antony in 43 bc. When his enemies caught him, his friend Servius
Terentius pretended to be Decimus Brutus. Apparently the ruse was
successful until Furius, who had been charged with executing the mur-
derer, recognised Servius.88 The wife of Gaius Antistius Rheginus, legate of
Caesar in Gaul, disguised her husband as a charcoal dealer, together with
ass and coals. Nevertheless, he was recognised by a soldier at the gates, who
had served under his orders and who let him go.89
Other politicians tried to escape proscription by disguising their physi-
cal features, fearing recognition. Either their ruses were successful, or they
were not likely to be identified by their faces. M. Volusius, aedile of the
84
Plut. Crass. 7.3. 85 Val. Max. 9.14.1. Cf. Plin. HN 7.53. 86 Plut. Pomp. 73.3–5.
87
Amela Valverde 2005.
88
Val. Max. 4.7.6. The accounts of Decimus Brutus’ death vary; in other versions he was murdered by
a Gallic chief. See Münzer RE suppl. V: 384.
89
App. B Civ. 4.40; Hinard 1985: 421–2.
plebs, dressed himself as a priest of Isis and managed to reach safety.90
Appius Claudius Pulcher, son of the praetor of 56 bc, survived because one
of his slaves dressed as him and died on his behalf, while Pulcher was
standing next to him, in a slave’s clothes.91
In an interesting case, Pomponius (according to Appian) or Sentius
Saturninus Vetulo (according to Valerius Maximus) disguised his slaves as
lictores and apparitores and passed himself off as a praetor charged by the
Triumvirs to negotiate a settlement with Sextus Pompeius.92 He actually
traversed the city without anybody noticing that he was not one of the few
current praetors who was present in Rome. Another two members of the
elite disguised themselves as centurions and their slaves as soldiers and left
the city pretending to be on the lookout for fugitives: they were
probably M. Appuleius, proquaestor in Asia in 44 bc, and L. Arruntius,
whose political activity is not attested before this time, although he was an
orator and had written a History of the Punic Wars.93
Interestingly, in many of these cases during the proscriptions, the
members of the elite had held no magistracy or at least not one that
brought them into the spotlight in Rome, with the exception
of M. Volusius, who was aedile. Antistius Rheginus was recognised by
one of the soldiers he had commanded. Pomponius (or Saturninus Vetulo)
may have been very lucky, but no one spotted a fake praetor traversing the
city in full regalia, surrounded by lictores and apparitores.
Gratidianus represents a case of active recognition. In 85 bc, he passed
a monetary reform, which made him so popular with the plebs that they
erected statues in his honour in the uici of the city.94 In fact, he was even
90
Val. Max. 7.3.8; App. B Civ. 4.47. In 43/42 BC: Hinard 1985: 550–1, who suggests that he belonged
to the Volusii linked to Cicero and that he would share Cicero’s political views, hence the
proscription.
91
App. B Civ. 4.44; see Hinard 1985: 453–6 on the difficulty of identifying this Appius Claudius, who
was adopted by his uncle Appius, consul 54 and censor 50 bc. Hinard distinguishes him from an
Appius Claudius Pulcher maior, who also escaped the proscriptions and was consul 38 bc (App.
B Civ. 4.51).
92
App. B Civ. 4.45; Val. Max. 7.3.9; Hinard 1985: 507, 518–19. Identification of Pomponius is not
possible. The cursus honorum of Sentius Saturninus Vetulo is uncertain. Dessau RE s.v. ‘C. Sentius
Saturnius’ proposed that Vetulo was the father of the consul of 19 bc. He accompanied the mother
of Mark Antony to his son in 40 bc and tried to convince the latter to make a deal with Octavian
(App. B Civ. 5.52). In 36 bc he fled from Sextus Pompeius’ side to Mark Antony’s (App. B Civ.
5.139).
93
App. B Civ. 4.46; Hinard 1985: 426–7 (Appuleius who, as proquaestor in Asia, turned over to Brutus
the funds and the army that he controlled); 432–3 (Arruntius, who would be consul in 22 bc and was
linked to the Pompeii).
94
Cic. Off. 3.80; Plin. HN 33.132; Selhmeyer 1999: 199–201; Marco Simón and Pina Polo 2000 suggest
that these statues were located in the compita.
praetor a second time. When Sulla stormed the city in 82 bc, he ordered his
murder and the destruction of all his statues. Gratidianus was not the only
living politician whose name and facial features were recognised by the
people through the erection of a statue. In 74 bc, M. Seius supplied the
Roman citizens with cheap grain, and the people erected statues of him on
the Capitol and the Palatine.95 The statues were located in the centre of the
city, so they are less likely to have been set up through a popular initiative
than those erected to Gratidianus. In any case, both examples are linked to
senators who were deeply favoured by the people for having passed laws
that benefitted them. At the opposite end of the spectrum were, for
example, the golden equestrian statue erected to Sulla after taking Rome
over in 82 bc96 and the statues of Verres erected by Sicilians in Rome.97
Names of politicians could be remembered, thus ensuring their identi-
fication. Two examples of this took place during elections, when remem-
bering somebody’s name was important in order to vote or not to vote for
him. In both of the cases that will be described, the senators involved had
their names remembered because the people were angry with them and
wanted to retaliate. A candidate for the praetorship, of disputed identity,
started to offer stork in his dinners. Apparently, the new custom of eating
this delicacy did not catch on with the people; a popular verse that
circulated around the city attributed this to his electoral defeat.98 This
verse, sung throughout the city, doubtless made popular by its joking
character, probably did much to help the people remember the name of
the gourmet during the voting. Even if it circulated afterwards (as the
quoting authority suggests), his name was attached to that unfortunate
dining choice.
The Commentariolum petitionis suggested that a candidate should encou-
rage rumours about competitors during the elections.99 These could circu-
late quickly and ruin the chances of a candidate completely, as Publius Scipio
Nasica realised when he was canvassing for the curule aedileship. Shaking
95
Plin. HN 18.16. Pliny mistook his name for T. Seius; cf. Münzer RE s.v. ‘Seius’ nos. 3 and 5.
Sehlmeyer 1999: 211–12.
96
App. B Civ. 1.451–2; Cic. Phil. 9.13; CIL I²: 720 = ILLRP 351; representation on a coin, RRC 381;
Selhmeyer 1999: 204–11.
97
Sehlmeyer 1999: 213–15.
98
Porphyrio, ad Hor. Serm. 2.2.50. The gourmet is probably C. Munatius Plancus (praetor 43 bc), who
became L. Plotius Plancus after his adoption. Some scholiasts thought the candidate in question was
a Roman named Rufus, while rufus could be used as an insult, because of the servile connotations of
such hair colour: Courtney 2003: 472–3. Berg has taken the cognomen Rufus for a fact and suggests
that the unnamed gourmet in Horace’s Satires and the inventor of stork as a delicacy was Nasidienus
Rufus: Berg 1995: 149–51.
99
[Q. Cic.] Pet. 52–3.
hands with the crowd, as was the custom, he encountered a citizen who
worked in the fields. His calloused hands prompted Scipio to ask, as a joke,
whether he was accustomed to walking on his hands. Those standing nearby
heard the remark, which spread like wildfire. The rural tribes felt offended,
and Scipio lost the election.100 The timeline of the anecdote is unknown,
that is, how much time passed between Scipio’s remark and the day of the
elections. However, the rumours were effective enough, and circulated
widely enough, to cost him election to the magistracy. His name circulated,
the rural tribes felt offended, and they gave vent to it through their votes,
recognising someone they did not want to elect.
There are also cases of non-recognition or even misidentification of
people by their names. Quintus Numerius Rufus (tribune of the plebs
57 bc), together with his colleague Sextus Atilius Serranus Gavianus,
opposed Cicero’s return from exile. The fact that only two tribunes sus-
tained that opinion probably made Quintus Numerius Rufus and his
colleague the leading voices in many contiones. He escaped a skirmish in
that turbulent year, according to Cicero, dressed like a peasant and profiting
from confusion over his name: some people were looking for Numerius,
others for Quintus.101 The question of the two names has puzzled scholars,
and alternative names have been proposed.102 In any case, Quintus was
a very common praenomen; Numerius was a relatively rare name. We do not
know whether Numerius Rufus’ disguise was the reason for his successful
escape or whether, instead, he managed to get away because his pursuers
could not recognise his face. Apparently they had some inkling about his
name, although their information was incomplete.
Of course, the most well-known case of misidentification was that of the
tribune of the plebs Gaius Helvius Cinna, in the aftermath of Caesar’s
murder, who was mistaken for the praetor Lucius Cornelius Cinna and put
to death by an enraged crowd. The tragic story was widely reported by later
historians (Suetonius, Valerius Maximus, Appian, Plutarch and Dio
Cassius) and captured minds for centuries to come.103 Shakespeare
included it in his play Julius Caesar.104 Plutarch’s version identified the
tribune Helvius Cinna with the homonymous poet, part of the Neoteric
100
Val. Max. 7.5.2. 101 Cic. Sest. 82.
102
Kaster 2006: 297; Shackleton Bailey proposed reading ‘Numerius Quinctius’.
103
Suet. Iul. 85; Val. Max. 9.9.1; App. B Civ. 2.47; Plut. Brut. 20; Caes. 68.3–6; Dio Cass. 44.50.
104
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act. III, scene 3, based around Plutarch’s version of the events. Orson
Welles’ controversial version of the play in 1937 dressed the actors in uniforms similar to those of
Fascist Italy and Germany, drawing contemporary analogies with authoritarian governments.
Despite reducing its length greatly, Welles retained the episode of the murder of Cinna, which
he described as the centre of the play: Lloyd 1993. In 2012, the contemporary playwright Tim
group in Rome, and a friend of Catullus, although this identification has
sometimes been called into question.105
Ovid rightly described the fate of the poet Cinna by stating succinctly
that the latter was laesus cognomine, harmed because of his cognomen.106
L. Cornelius Cinna was apparently not among those who handled the
daggers, but he had been in favour of the coup. In fact, after the murder, he
discarded his praetorian toga, claiming that he had received it from
a tyrant.107 More importantly, the day before, he had delivered a bitter
speech in a contio, heavily criticising Caesar.108 The plebs, then, knew that
a certain Cinna had spoken against the dictator but did not recognise his
facial features. If they had attended the contio, they could have been placed
far away, or their view could have been (partially) blocked, so that they did
not have a complete view of the speaker. Secondly, it is possible that they
had simply not attended the assembly and were told that a certain Cinna
had spoken, not knowing which specific Cinna he could be, as Plutarch
suggested.109
Another interesting fact is that the killers of Cinna, a tribune of the
plebs, took him for one of Caesar’s abusers in the public assemblies. Thus,
his face was not familiar to them, since they had to ask who he was, despite
the fact that he was a tribune. It was clearly familiar to those who identified
him as Cinna but not to those who did not realise that they were searching
for a completely different individual. Twelve tribunes are known for
the year 44 bc, since two of them, L. Caesetius Flavus and C. Epidius
Marullus, were replaced when they removed the diadem placed on Caesar’s
statue and arrested those who had called Caesar rex in the streets.110
Crouch wrote I, Cinna (The Poet), a play based upon Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, aimed at young
audiences, in which he allowed Cinna to tell his own story.
105
Such identification has been criticised: see recently Wiseman 1974: 44–6; Deroux 2002 disagrees
that the praenomen of both the poet and the tribune of the plebs was Gaius. Pace Morgan 1990.
106
Ov. Ib. 539; the allusion in these verses to Cinna was established by Housman 1883. Cf. Morgan
1990.
107
Nic. Dam. F130.22; Val. Max. 9.9.1; Suet. Iul. 85; App. B Civ. 2.121. Cinna’s casting away of his toga
enraged the listeners. At the meeting of the Senate in the temple of Tellus of 17 March, Cinna, who
was again wearing his toga, was stoned and pursued until he found shelter in a house. At that point,
only the intervention of Lepidus and his soldiers saved the house from being burned (App. B Civ.
2.126).
108
Suet. Iul. 85; Val. Max. 9.9.1; Plut. Caes. 68; Brut. 20; App. B Civ. 2.147; Dio Cass. 44.50. Pina Polo
1989: 310. Morstein-Marx 2004: 151, n. 166, believes that Suetonius’ pridiem, which would locate
a contio by Cinna the day before the funeral of Caesar, is a slip, preferring the versions of Appian
and Plutarch.
109
Plut. Caes. 68.5.
110
See the complete list of tribunes in MRR II: 323–5. On Caesetius and Marullus, see Cic. Phil. 31.31;
Nic. Dam. F130.20; Livy, Per. 116; Val. Max. 5.7.2; Suet. Iul. 79–80; Plut. Caes. 61.4–5; Ant. 12.4;
Dio Cass. 44.9–10, 46.49.2; App. B Civ. 2.108, 122.
Tribunes were usually elected during the summer and had entered office
on 10 December 45 bc, so Helvius Cinna had not been in charge for long,
nor had Cornelius Cinna as praetor, who had taken up his position on
1 January 44 bc. However, Helvius Cinna had been busy, according to the
sources. He was instrumental in stripping Caesetius and Marullus of their
tribunician power, as he proposed the measure that started the procedure.
Thus, he had been exposed to the public in a much-discussed affair, but
apparently not sufficiently to ensure his correct identification.
In conclusion, a picture of post-Sullan daily political life would involve
forty-four new magistrates every year and around six hundred senators
(three hundred before that date, although one should add the many
magistrates waiting to be enrolled between two censuses). These numbers
are rather similar to those of many modern democracies.111 They are not
unmanageable, but they made issues of recognition and misidentification
much more complicated than, for instance, during the Principate, when
competition for the spotlight was less obvious and much more closely
controlled by the emperor. How would this work in terms of practical daily
life? Politicians had a variety of means and events to display themselves and
their names. Their exposure to the public eye would depend, for instance,
on whether they were pursuing controversial or popular politics, in which
case they would be much discussed, or whether they could speak in a contio.
As we have seen, we should think about different degrees of recognition:
just the name, the facial features, or even specific details about the cursus
honorum and habitual political allegiances, with the last two demanding
a more in-depth knowledge, which was not usual even for members of the
elite.
Evidence suggests that some top politicians were well recognised not
only by their peers but also by the rest of the citizens. People took notice of
Pompey lookalikes in the streets and stared at them. Few senators probably
shared this experience. It is likely that populares politicians were recognised
in the streets of Rome. The statues erected in the uici in honour of
Gratidianus probably guaranteed him recognition in the streets, but his
actions had made him well known to many citizens beforehand.
The Gracchi brothers and Clodius probably also experienced this. Cicero
acknowledged that the populares of the past were much admired, since
people loved their names, speech, faces and walks.112 Cases of
111
The numbers are not unmanageable, though. To put them into perspective, the Congress of the
Deputies in Spain has 350 members and the Senate 266; the US Congress has 535 voting members;
the UK Parliament is composed of 781 Lords and 650 Members of Parliament.
112
Cic. Sest. 105.
misidentification demonstrate the difficulty of having a large number of
active politicians. The fact that someone could impersonate a praetor and
parade around the city without anybody noticing reinforces this idea.
What does this picture say about politics during the Late Roman
Republic? Does the fact that someone did not recognise one of the tribunes
of the plebs by name or by facial features mean that that citizen was
politically apathetic or not involved in politics?
There were different degrees of recognition (face, name, political career
and political opinions), as well as varying degrees of prominence within
Roman politics. Roman politicians had the means and occasions to present
themselves in public. In this context, not knowing who Pompey was would
suggest a deep political apathy. This was not the case in Rome. Sources
establish that he was generally recognised, even without garments or
companions that would pinpoint his political status, including among
the plebs. Considering the numbers of senators and magistrates, disregard-
ing the name and existence of, for instance, one of the ten tribunes of the
plebs of the year, who had not done anything special to bring attention to
his existence, was probably not the sign of disinterest in politics, even for
the elite. Taking into account the wide spectrum of types of political
participation, as well as issues of recognition and the practical workings
of Roman politics, this involvement, especially of the people, was much
wider than has previously been assumed in light of studies of voter turn-
outs. Thus, the degree of citizens’ political involvement in the Late Roman
Republic should be reconsidered.
chapter 4
Gods, Change and Civic Space in Late Republican

Oratory
Anna Clark
Recent work has shed important new light on the ways in which Cicero’s
theodicy can and should be understood as creative1 and on Cicero’s
development of vocabularies and strategies for coping with (and indeed
effecting) the elevation of individuals as examples of responses to changing
times.2 In this chapter, I complement these wider insights, for example,
into what Gildenhard has termed ‘the resurrection of Rome’s civic divi-
nities’ in the oratory of Cicero in the last years of his life and explore
similarities that can be observed between the operation of what we might
call ‘religion’ and of practices, notably oratory itself, in Rome.
In examining the place of some religious elements in surviving republican
oratory that were prominent before, during and after the century or so
under consideration, principally the prominent Roman deities Mars and
Venus, I broaden my focus beyond Ciceronian oratory where this is
possible. In addressing a range of assertions from extant public oratory,
all of which are literally theological, though of varying degrees of theolo-
gical complexity, I shall be particularly interested in the extent to which –
as prominent elements in a rapidly changing world – these deities could
also be productive for speakers in attempts to halt or slow perceived change
of various kinds.
As the rapid unbalancing and rebalancing of power and resources after
Caesar’s death morphed into yet another period of civil war, oratory
continued to be an important strand in collective decision-making.
The men of the legio Martia, a legion which had been connected perma-
nently to Mars through its title (presumably bestowed by Caesar),3 found
1
Gildenhard 2011. 2 Cole 2013.
3
Little is known of the origins of the legion, whose number is as yet unidentified but which was in
Macedonia in 44 bc and earmarked for Caesar’s Parthian expedition at the time of his death. It was
subsequently moved by Antony to Brundisium pending transfer to Cisalpine Gaul. It defected to
Octavian en route and fought at Forum Gallorum and Mutina. It seems to have fought in Africa in
46 bc if the anecdote in [Caes.] B Afr. 18–19; Plut. Caes. 52; App. B Civ. 2.95; Dio Cass. 43.2.1–2, can
88
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Gods, Change and Civic Space in Late Republican Oratory 89
themselves, like others, choosing among the fragmented and overlap-
ping power blocs in the months after Caesar’s assassination. In Appian’s
account, behind which we may well suspect in part the lost history of
Asinius Pollio,4 key factors in the legio Martia’s decision to defect to
Octavian en route to Cisalpine Gaul were pamphlets scattered by the
latter’s agents, promises of large donatives (App. B Civ. 3.44) and
(arguably, though this cannot be proven) Octavian’s actions when he
was at Apollonia with the Martian and five other legions (App. B Civ.
3.9; Nic. Dam. F130.16).5 However, most prominent, at least in Appian’s
account, was Antony’s partial decimation of the legion after its men
forced him to address them at Brundisium on the subject of his failure to
avenge Caesar’s death. In this speech, Antony is represented in Appian
as angrily berating the soldiers for their ingratitude at being returned to
Italy instead of the Parthian front and for their failure to bring him the
emissaries of Octavian (μειράκιον/puer, ‘the youth’). Antony undertakes
to find these men himself, to take the legions to Gaul anyway, and he
promises 100 denarii to each man present. The men react with laughter
at the low sum; Antony grows angrier, and the soldiers become rowdy
and break up the meeting. At this point Antony seeks to end any
dialogue and institutes partial decimation of the rebellious troops with
the (alleged) words: μαθήσεσθε ἄρχεσθαι (‘You will learn to obey orders’
[App. B. Civ. 3.43]). He could not, of course, prevent continued infor-
mal talk among the men who survived as they marched north and
decided to join Octavian.
In addition to constituting an audience to be swayed (or riled) by such
speeches, or by punishment and bribery, the men of the legio Martia also
featured as subject-matter in oratory at Rome during these years. Once
news of their defection to the young Caesar reached the city, Cicero
presented them as a group of loyal supporters of what he then perceived
to be the right cause. They, their actions and later their losses at Forum
Gallorum were emotively addressed in the Philippicae, both contiones and
addresses to the Senate. One of Cicero’s last public acts, in the Fourteenth
Philippic, was to propose a monument in their honour. In these speeches,
indeed be combined with Valerius Maximus’ information that the legion was the Martia (3.2.19). It is
often supposed that the title was granted in Africa (so e.g. Weinstock 1971: 130; Keppie 1984: 137 and
201), though on very slender evidence.
4
Pollio was himself well informed about this material: Cic. Fam. 10.33 (SB 409). See also Osgood
2006, esp. 49–55; Frisch 1946: 272; Magnino 1984 ad loc.
5
Osgood 2006: 48 rightly points out that losing the Parthian campaign has been underemphasised in
modern explorations of the episode.
90 anna clark
we see Cicero seeking to influence the course of events over a period of
months and fully committed as ever to his cause, as well as concerned for
his own reputation.6 His choice of words in such circumstances provides us
with a useful starting point for an exploration of some of the many claims
about the divine in Late Republican public oratory and in particular of the
role of such claims in attempts to oppose perceived changes on the part of
the orator.
Such claims form an integral part of the multitude of responses to
change in the late second and first centuries bc. These responses –
adequate or inadequate, successful or unsuccessful in the short or longer
term – were often formed through the adaptation of civic practices, such
as speeches, allocation of commands, festivals, games, temple-building
and triumphs, and of their constituent elements: words, powers, days,
plays, costumes, calendars and more.7 Speeches are not, of course, com-
mentaries on social change in Rome but rather key social practices that
affected and effected such change themselves. Although they must be
viewed within this wider context, public claims about the divine are
a particularly interesting component of such responses. For, if one of
the functions of religion broadly construed is to connect the immediacy
of words, objects, actions or places to a ‘higher plane’, to a significance
(mythological, historical, universal, eternal) beyond themselves, I would
contend that this description is itself not irrelevant to speech-making in
the city. There, words of many kinds, including those with divine
resonance, could be used to trigger associations and stories in the
minds of those who were listening and thereby extend the chronological
range, topographical reach or geographical scope of the speech.8
The definition may even seem to have something in common with poetic
allusion and other forms of generic ‘enrichment’, when the context of
a recognised model is triggered for (some) readers and applied to a new
situation in order to generate new meanings, ideas or associations.9
Rather than assume that the breadth of practices which are potentially
in some way pertinent to this definition must render it so vague as to be
unhelpful, I would argue that, on the contrary, its value might lie
precisely in its breadth of application.
6
Manuwald 2007; see Steel 2005: 140–6 and esp. 145 for a brief but persuasive presentation of the
Philippicae as ‘self-conscious artefacts’ in a ‘textual struggle’.
7
Other elements are too numerous to list, but one example, of mobility and debates about its moral
value, including the modelling of urbanitas in speeches, is well discussed in Dench 2005: 114.
8
Vasaly 1993; Morstein-Marx 2004, esp. chap. 3.
9
Among a vast bibliography, see e.g. Hinds 1998 and Harrison 2007.
On 20 December 44 bc, addressing the people to recount the Senate’s
decisions in its meeting earlier that day,10 Cicero referred to the recent
defection of the legio Martia in his overall and highly controversial argu-
ment that Antony was now a hostis and that everyone was rightly ranged
together against him.
legio Martia, quae mihi uidetur diuinitus ab eo deo traxisse nomen a quo
populum Romanum generatum accepimus, non ipsa suis decretis prius
quam senatus hostem iudicauit Antonium?11 (Cic. Phil. 4.5)
To claim bravery on the part of men named after a Roman god of war is
hardly to push the boundaries of theological assertion.12 But claims such as
Cicero’s statement here that the legion’s name seems to have come diuini-
tus from Mars matter.13 It is well known that Cicero often drew on divine
and other resources in his speeches, ranging from the location of a speech
that he was delivering to buildings or other topographical markers that
were visible in actuality or to the mind’s eye of those listening. One of the
best known examples is his engagement with the foundation story of the
temple of Jupiter Stator in the first Catilinarian,14 a speech with many
similarities to the Philippicae, chiefly its desire to bring all its audience on
side against an individual who is controversially portrayed as an enemy of
the state. In the Fourth Philippic, Cicero’s engagement with a foundation
tale is much less complex but no less interesting. He picks up on the epithet
of one of the newly defected legions and links it to ‘the’ foundation story of
Rome. The triggers for the story are brief and carefully selected: Mars, the
Roman people and no one else (ab eo deo traxisse nomen a quo populum
Romanum generatum accepimus).
By 44 bc, the version of the foundation story in which Mars fathered
Romulus was common currency, though rationalising versions were also
10
See note 6 for Steel’s description, the value of which I fully endorse, though space prevents proper
engagement with the thorny question of potential differences between what may have been said and
the written version.
11
‘And did not the legio Martia, which seems to me to derive its name divinely from the god whom
tradition makes the progenitor of the Roman people, itself by its own decrees pronounce Antony
a public enemy before the Senate did so?’ (trans. Manuwald, slightly adapted).
12
See Gildenhard (2011, esp. section 3) for a full and largely persuasive exploration of passages where
Cicero departs from a putative norm (including Cic. Phil. 14.32, on which see further below),
although the difficulty of gauging the ‘norm’ largely from Ciceronian evidence is itself fundamen-
tally problematic.
13
Diuinitus might, for some of those listening, bring to mind Caesar himself as well as Mars, but the
connection with Mars seems to be emphasised.
14
See Vasaly 1993: 41–9 for a stimulating discussion, with now Gildenhard 2011: 273–8, who draws
more attention to Cicero’s unorthodox formulation of an interdependence between Jupiter Stator
and Rome, ‘with each being “constitutive” of the other’ (275).
92 anna clark
available, such as Licinius Macer’s, in which Rhea’s rapist was her uncle
Amulius, though the rape occurred in luco Martis.15 Mars had three
temples in Rome, Venus several, and the Trojan connections of the
foundation story had been well explored. A Lucius Iulius Caesar, perhaps
the consul of 64 bc, had written about the origins of Rome and the
Aeneadae, connecting Aeneas to Romulus.16 People might also have
encountered Mars and Venus in circumstances that brought other ele-
ments and stories associated with Mars/Ares and Venus/Aphrodite to the
fore, whether in tragic performances or, indeed, in more comic
situations.17 As early as 68 bc, Caesar had given a speech at his aunt
Julia’s funeral in which he had emphasised the family’s connection to
gods (Iulii and Venus) and kings (Marci Reges and Ancus Martius) and
carefully subordinated the latter to the former.18 Pompey’s temple to
Venus Victrix was constructed in the 50s bc; Caesar’s to Venus Genetrix,
in the 40s. Caesar is said (though again in later sources) to have sacrificed
to Mars and Venus at Pharsalus and to have vowed a huge temple to Mars
in 46 bc,19 as well as naming the legion under consideration here Martia.
Although it is not possible to know the precise chronological context of
the famous address to Venus in the proem of Lucretius’ De rerum natura,
with proposals now ranging from c. 62 to c. 49/48 bc,20 at some point
between Cicero’s consulship and Caesar’s early years in power certain
people would have been made aware of the presentation of a particularly
complex entity: Aeneadum genetrix, lover of Mars, embodiment – on
many readings, at least – of Empedoclean Love (in contrast to Mars as
15
Licinius Macer FRHist 27 F1. Cf. Fabius Pictor FRHist 1 F4 (with discussion by Bispham and
Cornell) and Vennonius FRHist 13 F1, in which Mars fathers the twins. On the story and its
development, see generally Wiseman 1995, esp. 2.
16
See Weinstock 1971: 17, n. 6, 18, 23, 183.
17
Plaut. Amph. 41–4, includes Mars among alleged characters in tragedies whom audiences have seen
recounting their bona to them. Wiseman 1998: 72–3 sees a possible two-act play including mime
behind Ov. Fast. 3.675–96, perhaps even Laberius’ Anna Peranna (Non. p. 90.19M), which, if
correct, would place performances in Cicero’s lifetime.
18
Suet. Iul. 6: amitae meae Iuliae maternum genus ab regibus ortum, paternum cum diis inmortalibus
coniunctum est. nam ab Anco Marcio sunt Marcii Reges, quo nomine fuit mater; a Venere Iulii, cuius
gentis familia est nostra. est ergo in genere et sanctitas regum, qui plurimum inter homines pollent, et
caerimonia deorum, quorum ipsi in potestate sunt reges (‘The maternal family of my aunt Julia is
descended from the kings, and her paternal family is linked to the immortal gods. For the Marcii
Reges, which was her mother’s family name, come from Ancus Marcius, and our family, the Iulii,
from Venus. Her line therefore has the sanctity of kings, who among men are most powerful, and the
reverence due to the gods, who hold even kings in their power’).
19
App. B Civ. 2.68; Suet. Iul. 44.
20
Hutchinson 2001 proposed down-dating to 49 or 48 bc, a suggestion that has gained acceptance in
important quarters but not universal assent (see e.g. Volk 2010). On potential Lucretian touches in
Cicero’s Pro Sestio (56 bc), see Lintott 2008: 197.
Strife),21 a military ally (socia = epikouros, triggering Epicurean attitudes
to the gods which are, of course, at stake throughout the work),22 and
appeaser of, and peaceful antithesis to, Mars. Varro’s Antiquitates rerum
diuinarum (written in the 50s or early 40s bc, and in close dialogue with
civic events) engaged with Mars, as with Venus, in a number of ways,
describing the former as war god, as one of the gods constituted by
Romulus, and also (unusually in terms of other surviving strands of this
story) as resisting Jupiter by refusing, along with Terminus and Iuventas,
to give up their place to him: sic enim . . . significatum est, Martiam
gentem, id est Romanam, nemini locum quem teneret daturam (‘It was
thus signified that the people of Mars, that is the Roman people, would
never surrender to anyone a place which they held’).23 Both Mars and
Venus, then, continued to form important elements in Roman space and
society in Cicero’s lifetime, to receive new cults, to have new spaces
marked out for them in the city (and by some of the biggest players of
the time) and to be represented in a variety of locations and in a variety of
genres. They were made part of active and proactive changes and adapta-
tions, even when these involved looking to the past, as so often in Rome.
What about in oratory?
In linking the epithet Martia to one widely accepted variant of the
foundation story in his contio of December 44 bc, Cicero carves out for
emphasis a relationship between god and collective (the people, his audi-
ence) based in the city and not with gentes or individuals.24 He thereby
simultaneously achieves two goals: he glosses over the moral complexities
of the legion’s actions towards Antony and, furthermore, cuts Caesar out of
two relationships, with the legion itself and with Mars. In linking his
symbolic audience, the people, closely with the behaviour of the legion
in question through Mars’s involvement in the foundation story, Cicero is
able to skirt over the soldiers’ controversial and even illegal actions.
Glimpses of different ways in which the episode was probably recounted
21
In a reading that depends on a mid-50s bc date, Cole 1998 sees no Empedoclean strife or love but
instead Pompey and Julia as Lucretius’ Mars and Venus in these lines (Lucr. 1.31–40). On the active
engagement in politics of the poem’s dedicatee, Gaius Memmius (despite his commitment to
Epicureanism), see Chapter 7.
22
See O’Hara 1998 on these aspects and the allusion to a fragment of Simonides.
23
Varro Ant. div. F41 Cardauns (August. De civ. Dei 4.29); cf. e.g. F253 (August. De civ. Dei 7.14), F35
Cardauns (August. De civ. Dei 4.23). Other accounts include Terminus alone (Cato Orig. HRR F24;
Livy, 1.55.3; Ov. Fast. 2.669; Serv. Aen. 9.445); and Terminus and Iuventas (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom.
3.69.5; Livy, 5.54).
24
As noted by Manuwald 2007 ad loc., commenting on the establishment through this phrase of unity
between people and legion, the appeal to the people’s self-esteem and the ‘insinuation’ of the
intervention of the gods.
94 anna clark
at the time can be seen behind Appian’s presentation, discussed earlier,
which persistently emphasises the legality of Antony’s actions.25 It is vital
constantly to remember the immediate context of these orations and in
particular the complete lack of clarity or agreement about who (or what) it
was who now stood for the Roman people to whose beginnings Cicero here
alludes.26
Cicero, however, is reacting here to changes on two levels: firstly, to the
immediate and rapidly evolving situation, in which he desires to bring all of
Rome on side against Antony, in the hope of securing a state more like the
one he had once known, and in which his exegesis on the legion’s name
helps to give validity to his highly partisan version of events; secondly, to
changes in the status and treatment of individuals. For in a city in which
relationships between Caesar and Mars and the Iulii and Venus had been
clearly asserted in a number of ways (see earlier), Cicero’s selection of Mars
and people highlights elements of the story in a way that – if it does not
actively suppress Caesar from the mind of anyone listening – certainly does
not draw attention to Caesar’s connection either with the legion and its
name or with the foundation story.27 The careful placement of diuinitus,
moreover, suggests divine agency (that of Mars) both in the naming of the
legion and in the legion’s subsequent behaviour, thereby adding to the
effect: Cicero harnesses a name that was in all probability given by Caesar
but cuts Caesar out of that association, too. This strategy could operate
simultaneously with the increasing valorisation of individuals and groups
(including the legio Martia itself, e.g. at Cic. Phil. 5.28 and 12.8) through
the careful deployment of adjectives such as ‘diuinus’.28 Cicero’s proposals
to the Senate for discussion of appropriate rewards pro diuinis et immorta-
libus meritis of ‘Gaius Caesar’ are indeed reported to the people in Phil. 4.4
very shortly before the passage discussed earlier. Another effect – or
cause? – of suppressing overt mention of Caesar the dictator when speaking
of Mars is to further the impression that the immediate referent, for all, of
the name ‘Gaius Caesar’ must be the young Caesar.
25
See Gowing 1992: 107–8.
26
Octavian was clearly working hard for the role, and we might note in this regard Cicero’s own
reported recommendations to Octavian in Att. 16.8.2 (SB 418; November 44 bc) on Octavian’s likely
success with ‘the urban rabble’ and others: uidetur enim mihi et plebeculam urbanam et, si fidem
fecerit, etiam bonos uiros secum habiturus (‘it seems to me he will have the urban rabble with him, and
the better men too if he appears sincere’).
27
Caesar’s ‘direct’ connection was of course with Venus, but the story was sufficiently woven together
by this point to make avoiding Mars deliberate. Cf. Cole 2013: 120 on the (more) startling omission
of Venus from Cicero’s Pro Marcello.
28
See Cole 2013: passim.
Although the phrasing of the connection between Mars and the populus
Romanus in the Fourth Philippic was in some respects clearly geared to
a contio, a particular connotation (bravery) of the same epithet was also
seized upon by Cicero to fight against decisions in Senate meetings. Having
failed in the Eleventh Philippic to gain approval for his motion to assign
a command to Cassius, in March 43 bc Cicero tried to harness a recent
swing away from his opponents in order to denounce the proposed second
embassy to Antony at Mutina, on which he was himself supposed to serve.
One part of his attempt to ward off this unwelcome move was to ask
whether a peace initiative would not hamstring the legions. When setting
up an antithesis between the war that he considered necessary and the
attempts at peace-making that he was trying to block, Cicero again found
the legio Martia a helpful example:
ipsa illa Martia caelestis et diuina legio hoc nuntio languescet et mollietur
atque illud pulcherrimum nomen [sc. Martium] amittet; excident gladii,
fluent arma de manibus.29 (Cic. Phil. 12.8)
Here the martial prowess of the soldiers is alone at stake. From a body
whose name was allegedly given diuinitus (4.5), Cicero (as at 5.28) here
applies diuinus squarely to the men themselves and advances for considera-
tion a diuina et caelestis legio. Where divine foresight about their bravery is
alleged as the source of their name at 4.5, here the link is presented in the
opposite direction: the current move risks behaviour that will lose them
their pulcherrimum nomen (and, it is surely implied, divine support). This
must be the reason for Cicero’s imagining of the frail and flaccid bodies,
dropping their weapons, when their divine aspect is stripped away.
After their losses at Forum Gallorum in 43 bc, the legion reverted for
Cicero to being an object of superlative praise. In the speech in which he
advocates the erection in their honour of a monument that he considers an
ara uirtutis (‘altar of virtue’), gods, including Mars, feature in a number of
ways. Cicero’s delight in Antony’s defeat and his own treatment in the city
on the news that (contrary to earlier reports) Antony had indeed been
defeated could not be complete until Antony was officially named a hostis
and Decimus Brutus liberated. Cicero is still struggling to regulate and
control what is happening in this speech as well, then, as much through its
circulation as its delivery, and to write the script of events that are unfold-
ing in the vocabulary of his personal perspective. But if the difficulty of
29
‘Even that godlike, superhuman Martian legion will droop at the news and soften and lose its
splendid name; the swords will fall, the shields will drop from their hands’ (trans. Shackleton Bailey
1986).
96 anna clark
celebrating what was in reality a civil war could be resolved for Cicero by
the official application of the label hostis to Antony, he could not be
unaware that not everyone would agree. The gods are thus represented as
unfavourable to civil war but also able to distinguish the right side, and
Cicero sought to reinforce his presentation of events further in his lauda-
tion of the legio Martia and its losses.
uos uero patriae natos iudico; quorum etiam nomen a Marte est, ut idem
deus urbem hanc gentibus, uos huic urbi genuisse uideatur. in fuga foeda
mors est; in uictoria gloriosa. etenim Mars ipse ex acie fortissimum quem-
que pignerari solet. illi igitur impii quos cecidistis etiam ad inferos poenas
parricide luent; uos uero qui extremum spiritum in uictoria effudistis
piorum estis sedem et locum consecuti.30 (Cic. Phil. 14.32)
Here Mars is once again to the fore as founder, conveying the impression
that those fighting against Antony were citizens, were on the side of right
and were divinely supported, with all three categories effectively being
assumed to be identical. After explicitly underlining to the absent legion-
aries (and so his senatorial audience) their name Martia and its connection
to Mars, Cicero again associates the legion with the collective (here the urbs
rather than the populus) through Mars. Using a distancing device in
uideatur comparable to his deployment of accepimus in Phil. 4.5, allowing
for the different audience, he presents Mars here as the generator of both
legion and city, in a chain-reaction of benefits that stretches out to all
peoples. The deaths of those legionaries who fell at Forum Gallorum are
explained through the theological assertion that Mars ipse ex acie fortissi-
mum quemque pignerari solet. Together with the assumption that is set up
immediately beforehand that the fortissimi are to be equated with (or at
least found among) the Martiales, this feeds into the promise of happy
afterlife for those fighting on what Cicero deems to be the side of right,
a judgement he supposes to be shared by the gods.31
Thus, while living through and involving himself in the debates over the
treatment of Antony, Cicero strove to represent the sides in the struggle in
terms that fitted his own agenda and found ways of harnessing Mars, and
30
‘But you, I declare, were born for your patria, you whose very name is from Mars, so that the same
god may seem to have given birth to this city for the world and to you for this city. Death in flight is
shameful, in victory glorious. Mars himself customarily appropriates as his own the bravest in the
battle line. Those traitors whom you killed will pay for their crime of treason even in the world
below; whereas you who breathed your last in victory have gained the dwelling place of pious souls’
(trans. Shackleton Bailey 1986, very slightly adapted).
31
On the end of the passage, and the promises for afterlife of those Cicero (and the gods) deemed
traitors and patriots, see Gildenhard 2011: 384.
the immortal gods more generally, to his oratorical cause. Only in the
Tenth Philippic (10.20) did he deploy Mars in the manner encountered
more frequently in his other speeches (and also in letters), namely, the
semi-proverbial Mars communis. Here the god’s role is almost the opposite
of that discussed so far, suggesting a Mars who fights (or is equally likely to
fight) on both sides, and thus highlights the uncertainty of war’s – includ-
ing civil war’s – outcome.32
When Caesar was alive, he could not, of course, be sidelined. Complete
withdrawal from public speech-making was one option under dictatorship,
but when Cicero decided to break that particular silence, he needed a very
different kind of vocabulary. In setting up an acceptable framework for his
exhortations to Caesar on how best to handle public affairs, Cicero took
Caesar ‘to the verge of divinity’ but ‘insistently connected this status to his
clemency and his placing of the interests of the Republic before his own’.33
As in the Philippicae to come, aligning right and wrong within that
framework in discourse concerning civil war was no easy task. Caesar’s
unexpected clementia smoothed the orator’s path to some extent, and in
addition to emphasising his own and Caesar’s attempts to find a means of
avoiding war in the first place, Cicero chose to highlight the difference
between losses in battle and clemency afterwards by assigning citizen losses
to uis Martis, in contrast to the absence of deaths through ira uictoriae
(Marc. 17). He went so far as to attribute to Caesar a plausible desire to
recall many of the dead back ab inferis, though prefacing the statement
with si fieri posset (‘were it possible’). The latent uictoria of the other side,
which had not been realised, is painted in unpleasant terms.34 Here again
there is more at stake than ‘Mars = war’.35 Taking Caesar out of the
32
In Fam. 7.23 (SB 209), in a very different style, shortly after Caesar’s departure for Spain
in December 46 bc, Cicero again chooses Mars’s association with war when he chastises Fabius
Gallus for sending ill-chosen statuary for his house on the Palatine, noting the inappropriateness of
a statue of that god for Cicero himself: Martis uero signum quo mihi pacis auctori? (‘Really, a statue of
Mars for me, the supporter of peace?’). All the statues of gods in that letter are taken to stand for their
primary sphere of reference, and it is interesting to see Cicero’s own engagement here at a time when
Caesar’s own claims about Mars were prominent, particularly given that Cicero’s own self-reference
must be to his attempts to delay a civil war now in its last throes. Around the same time he wrote to
Aulus Torquatus (Fam. 6.4.1 [SB 244]) of Mars communis in terms that made explicit his expectation
that the outcome would be similar regardless of which side won.
33
Cole 2013: 113; see 111–26 for an excellent assessment of the speech in terms particularly relevant to
this study; see also Dyer 1990.
34
Cf. Fam. 6.4.1 (SB 244) in note 32.
35
In Cic. Arch. 27 of 62 bc, by contrast, it is perhaps harder to avoid the suspicion that when, in
addressing a classic example for his case, Cicero presents Fulvius Nobilior’s connection with a poet
and with the Muses as Ennio comite, . . . non dubitauit Martis manubias Musis consecrare (‘having
Ennius for his companion, did not hesitate to devote the spoils of Mars to the Muses’), his choice of
98 anna clark
equation here arguably has the opposite effect to that I have proposed for
Philippica 4.5: Mars, not Caesar, is portrayed as responsible for the fighting
and for the deaths (although, at a time when the senators would presum-
ably have been well aware of Caesar’s vow to Mars, subtle possibilities for
re-forging the connection were available for Cicero’s audience). On the
other side of the equation, uictoria is a divine quality,36 and one that only
a few chapters earlier (Marc. 12) Cicero had presented Caesar as vanquish-
ing; thus, Caesar is credited with active management of uictoria and
suppression of her/its anger while at the same time distanced to some
degree, if not entirely exonerated, from the events of the war itself.
Cicero was not alone in deploying gods in fighting against change,
though other ‘fragments’ of surviving Republican oratory are sufficiently
sparse to make effective comparison rather difficult. Aulus Gellius claims to
preserve verbatim an exhortation of Metellus Numidicus, censor in 102 bc,
addressing the people, but with a number of learned men listening, and
urging men to marry:
di immortales plurimum possunt; sed non plus uelle nobis debent quam
parentes. at parentes, si pergunt liberi errare, bonis exheredant. quid ergo
nos ab immortalibus dissimilius expectemus, nisi malis rationibus finem
facimus? is demum deos propitios esse aecum est, qui sibi aduersarii non
sunt, dii immortales uirtutem adprobare, non adhibere debent.37 (Gell. NA
1.6.7–8)
Unlike Metellus Macedonicus’ better-known speech on this theme, which
gained fame by being reread later by Augustus, Numidicus sought to
persuade those listening to return to ‘traditional’ practice by comparing
gods to parents. He does not, in making such a comparison, claim any limit
to gods’ powers but rather suggests that the extent to which gods might
Mars may have much to do with alliteration. Even here, however, the effect is to heighten the sense
that spoils of war were connected to a city deity even as they were associated with the temple of
Hercules Musarum. Using these divine names by metonymy as part of a rhetorical strategy is
addressed at Cic. De or. 3.167 (and a ‘fragment’ from Cato’s denunciation of L. Quinctius
Flamininus may even be suspected in Livy, 39.43.5: sin fateretur, ignominiane sua quemquam
doliturum censeret, cum ipse uino et Venere amens sanguine hominis in conuiuio lusisset? (‘but if he
confessed it, would he think that anyone would grieve at his disgrace, since he himself, mad with
drink and desire, had played with a man’s blood at a feast?’)). Such strategy, however, provoked
debate among Stoics and Epicureans alike.
36
See Clark 2007: chap. 1 for the term.
37
‘The immortal gods can do much; but they are under no obligation to us to wish for more than
parents do. But parents disinherit children who carry on making mistakes. What different treatment
should we expect from the immortals, if we do not put an end to our bad ways? It is fair that the gods
be favourable to those who are not their own enemies. The immortal gods ought to approve virtue,
they need not supply it.’
choose to favour the Romans is in proportion to proper action towards
them and might be curtailed by repeated wronging. Here, then, the gods
and their ability to withhold support are held out as warning to the people
in an attempt to end what is conceived as deviation from old ways.
Another orator, one who cannot now be identified but whose chron-
ological context is fascinating – there are few years for which more
surviving oratory would be welcome than for the last decade or so of
the second century bc – is known to have given a speech in support of
a lex Licinia, probably that de sumptu minuendo (‘on reducing expenses’)
of the last decade of the second century bc. Gellius ascribes a lengthy
passage to this orator, whom the manuscripts have him call Favorinus,
a uetus orator (‘an early orator’),38 in which the speaker decries the new
barometers of taste on the part of praefecti popinae atque luxuriae (‘lea-
ders in gluttony and luxury’), which include dishes being removed,
replaced and surpassed by new ones at the very moment of greatest
enjoyment of the first dish and only certain portions of game and poultry
being deemed acceptable. The surviving passage concludes, si propor-
tione pergit luxuria crescere, quid relinquitur . . . quando stratus lectus auro,
argento, purpura amplior aliquot hominibus quam dis inmortalibus ador-
natur? (‘if luxury is growing in proportion, what is left . . . when couches
are adorned with more gold, silver and purple for a few men than they
are for the immortal gods?’). Here another problem caused by changing
practices is identified. It too is articulated in a speech (whose audience
we cannot know, though the people or Senate are by far the most likely
contenders) in terms of proper behaviour towards the gods. Here the di
immortales are implicitly placed at the pinnacle of society; their position
is portrayed as being threatened by the future limits – of resource or
imagination – on the luxuries that are imagined by the speaker and that,
if unchecked by legal limits of the kind proposed by the law, will soon,
therefore, have to trespass on the conventional means of marking out the
gods’ superior position. Fear of displacing the gods from their proper
place in society, then, is harnessed in support of the speaker’s advocacy
for the proposed sumptuary measures, and this fear is described to the
38
The manuscripts of Gellius (NA 15.8.2) read Fauorini, but no Favorinus can be connected with a lex
Licinia. Other suggestions have been put forward, including C. Fannius Strabo (Pithou),
P. Augurinus (Gongrove) and especially Favonius (Virdungus, often accepted; see Marache ad
loc. in the Budé edition), but all are problematic, and the latter unlikely not only for reasons of style
but also in light of the withdrawal of the rogatio Licinia Pompeia of 55 bc and of Favonius’ well-
attested opposition to Caesar and supporters of the ‘triumvirs’; see Malcovati 1929. See Pignatelli
1999 for the suggestion that L. Licinius Crassus, on whom more is provided later, was the author of
the law in question.
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audience not in terms of power but visually, through the decorated couches
well known to them from the carrying of lectisternia in rituals.
One candidate who has been suggested to be the author of the lex Licinia
de sumptu minuendo, perhaps implausibly, is Lucius Licinius Crassus
‘orator’: Cicero’s mentor, acclaimed speaker, tribune in 107, consul in 95
and censor in 92 bc.39 His authorship of this law is very far from proven but
is interesting to consider in the context of his association with elegant
luxury of many kinds.40 One episode that clearly speaks to this context is
a dispute with M. Iunius Brutus (RE 50), possibly from the late 90s bc.
It focuses on criticism of Crassus for housing a different kind of luxury
resource, and one often deployed in moral discourses as an exemplum of
excessive luxury: the marble column. Pliny the Elder tells us that Brutus
insulted Crassus in this regard by calling him Venus Palatina:
L. Crassum oratorem illum, qui primus peregrini marmoris columnas
habuit in eodem Palatio . . . M. Brutus in iurgiis ob id Venerem Palatinam
appellauerat.41 (Pliny, HN 36.7)
We cannot be certain that this episode took place in the context of formal
public speech-making, but if it did, it can most plausibly be located in
a trial in which the two men are known to have spoken on opposing sides.
If not, the insult is likely to predate this trial, by which time we are told that
Crassus already hated Brutus (Cic. De or. 2.222). We know about the trial
in question principally from Cicero himself as well as from Quintilian, who
is clearly drawing on Cicero.42 From these texts we know enough to have
a sense of some of the exchanges that took place.43 The trial was held
39
See Pignatelli 1999: 259 for the suggestion that Crassus passed the law as tribune in 107, positing that
the author’s praenomen, which is recorded as Publius in Macr. Sat. 3.7–9, could, like Dives in the
same text, be an error. She anticipates another objection to such a proposal, namely, that Cicero
makes no mention of it, despite his lengthy treatment of Crassus in a number of works, by observing
that Cicero rarely, if ever, mentions sumptuary legislation (261, n. 43).
40
On Crassus, see further van der Blom 2010: esp. 177–80, 226–30 and Schultze 2011: 178–86. See also
Tchernia 1997, who links him with what she terms a Venus-balnea-uinum complex. That all of this
speaks against Crassus’ proposal of a sumptuary law is far from certain, of course, given the obvious
contrast between the legislation passed by numerous tribunes and the remainder of their careers (cf.
Marius’ law of 119 bc, to give just one example).
41
‘L. Crassus, the orator, who had been the first to have pillars of foreign marble on that same Palatine
[sc. as Scaurus] . . . had been called Venus Palatina by M. Brutus, on the occasion of a dispute about
the issue.’
42
Cic. Cluent. 140–1; Orat. 2.220–6; Quint. Inst. 6.3.44; Cic. Brut. 130 on M. Brutus.
43
Gruen 1966: esp. n. 170 suggests that the Quintilian and Pliny passages depended on Cicero. This is
clearly true for Quintilian but less so for the Pliny passage, other than Cicero’s obvious interest in
and discussion of Crassus’ cases. One point in particular makes me suspect an alternate tradition.
A number of Crassus’ words in the trial are ‘preserved’ (or rather re-presented by Cicero), but part of
Cicero’s strategy in recounting these episodes both in De oratore and especially in Pro Cluentio was to
between 106 and 91 bc, probably towards the end of that period,44 with
Crassus defending a Cn. Plancus (or Plancius) on a charge now unknown,
of which he was acquitted. In the course of the trial, which took place in the
Forum before equestrian jurors, various strategies were essayed by the two
principal advocates, of which some are preserved (or to some degree
reshaped by Cicero). A pair of these is worth recalling briefly, both to
establish a putative context for the words in which we are interested and
because they provide neat examples of the kinds of associations beyond the
trial and its words’ immediate location that I am seeking to explore here.
One is the use of other speeches and texts, which each orator ordered to be
read aloud by court readers: Brutus is said to have had sections of two of
Crassus’ own earlier speeches read out to the court to point up incon-
sistencies in attitude, while Crassus, apparently stung by this, chose to have
read out to the court three works by the prosecutor’s father, which specified
several of his properties as their settings. This technique drew attention to
his father’s legacy, including those very properties that Brutus had sold (in
more heated terms, squandered: libidines . . . dissipauerunt). This treatment
of his inheritance was a key part of Crassus’ attack on Brutus and also
formed part of the second strategy that is worth noting: Crassus seized the
opportunity (probably known to him in advance) of the passing funeral
procession of an elderly Junia during the course of the court proceedings to
suggest that she would carry to Brutus’ father and other ancestors (whose
location he does not specify in Cicero’s rendition) an account of this
squandered inheritance and of Brutus’ whole way of life, his failure to
live up to the past and to the most famous Brutus of them all.
The insult by Brutus consists of only two words: Venus Palatina
(‘Palatine Venus’), in whatever case. It is topographically tied by the
location of the house with the columns in question. Other, similar insults
attested in the Late Republic come or are likely to come from later years –
quadrantaria Clytemnestra (‘tuppeny Clytemnestra’, for Caelius), Medea
Palatina (‘Palatine Medea’, for Cicero in 56 bc) and Xerxes togatus (‘Xerxes
include hardly any of Brutus’ own words and none in direct speech. The only excerpts from the
words that were read out in the Planc(i)us case are not those originally spoken by Crassus and
selected by Brutus but those chosen by Crassus. Cicero merely describes Brutus in terms such as
homo in dicendo uehemens et callidus (sic; Cluent. 140: ‘a man forcible and skilled in speaking’) or in
terms of Crassus’ feelings about him (De or. 2.222: quem oderat et quem dignum contumelia iudicabat
[‘whom he hated and thought suitable for insult’]). Pliny’s own packaging of the insult Venus
Palatina is well addressed by Schultze (2011), but she does not consider how Pliny knew it.
44
Alexander 1990: 52, no. 98. Thus, 91 bc is a clear terminus ante quem given the discussion in De
oratore; 106 bc a clear terminus post quem given the mention of the reading out during the trial of
Crassus’ speech on the lex Servilia.
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in a toga’, so Pompey on Lucullus)45 – and use elements from the mytho-
logical canon in combination with terms from Rome. This phrase, in
contrast, pithily encapsulates suggestions of a deity rooted in Rome.
The choice of goddess and the topographical epithet together convey
doubts about Crassus’ masculinity, the possibility of sexual incontinence
on Crassus’ part (given that various Venuses with temples and cults in
Rome at the time, such as Obsequens and Verticordia, were linked with
unchastity, and Venus Erycina was associated with prostitutes),46 and the
implication that Crassus is setting himself up as a godlike figure in an aedes
Veneris Palatinae (‘temple of Palatine Venus’, by analogy), a temple-like
structure given its degree of luxury. This is a magnification of the sort of
worries raised in the speech considered earlier from Gellius, in which the
relationship between individual and god is inverted or blurred. If the insult
was indeed part of the repartee at the trial of Planc(i)us, part of what Brutus
faced, besides criticism for selling off inherited properties, was the sugges-
tion of disapproval on the part of his dead father and maiores, in some kind
of unspecified afterlife, for his whole way of life.47 Brutus could have
sought to puncture (or indeed could have provoked) Crassus’ onslaught
by labelling him Venus Palatina. The name encapsulates many forms of
transgressive behaviour in the realms of gender, sex, impiety and luxury.
Multiple forms of criticism were listed by Crassus to be passed on by the
dead Junia, namely, Brutus’ failures as a military man and as an advocate,
as well as to live up to his maiores, but just as many are conveyed within
these two powerful words, through which Brutus, if he did not seek to
restrain the sorts of changes in practice that he was criticising, certainly
played on a jury’s willingness to disapprove of them.
Cicero explicitly describes with the words illis tragoediis the set piece in
which Crassus made use of the topographical juxtaposition of trial and
funeral in the central space of the Roman Forum; Cicero himself in the Pro
Caelio of 56 bc famously enriched his own speech with a different genre,
given a temporal juxtaposition of trial and ludi Megalenses.48 In one of the
45
Clytemnestra: Quint. Inst. 8.6.53; Medea: Cic. Cael. 18; Xerxes: Vell. Pat. 2.33.4 (Pompey – on
a number of occasions).
46
On Venus in general, see Schilling 1982. Evans 2008 addresses mythological parallels and the
putative construction aedes Veneris Palatinae; Schultze 2011: 184–6 details the Plinian context and
Venus associations.
47
Further examples of dead ancestors being given voice to criticise living descendants are discussed in
van der Blom 2010: 93–6.
48
For exploration from the angle of comic connections, see Geffcken 1973: 32; Leen 2000: 152; Leigh
2004: 304–5.
many passages in which he paints her as meretrix, Cicero turns to Clodia
and the gold that forms part of the charges against Caelius, asking
tune aurum ex armario tuo promere ausa es, tune Venerem illam tuam
spoliare ornamentis, spoliatricem ceterorum, cum scires, quantum ad faci-
nus aurum hoc quaereretur, ad necem legati, ad L. Luccei, sanctissimi
hominis atque integerrimi, labem sceleris sempiternam? huic facinori
tanto tua mens liberalis conscia, tua domus popularis ministra, tua denique
hospitalis illa Venus adiutrix esse non debuit.49 (Cic. Cael. 52)
Just as when Brutus attacked Crassus, Cicero’s aim here is not to change
Clodia’s ways but to construct a picture of them that is just plausible
enough (given that he is really describing a widowed matrona high in the
social hierarchy) and certainly entertaining enough to make the jury want
to do so. Though the Venus in question here is clearly a statue (either one
invented for effect or one about which Cicero knew from Caelius), the
image of it draped in gifts from multiple lovers triggers images of adulter-
ous Aphrodite, as well as of the despoiling meretrix,50 an effect heightened
by the mock cult titles spoliatrix and adiutrix, the latter of which is
juxtaposed with the name of Venus, the former seemingly coined by
Cicero for the occasion.51 Possessing a Venus with such attributes is enough
to raise alarm bells about Clodia’s behaviour even before the suggestion of
her having stripped the statue to provide gold for Caelius is considered.
Relationships between individuals and gods, and between collectivities
and gods, were crucial to the ways in which Roman society sought to cope
with the larger changes it underwent in the years around Cicero’s lifetime,
just as they were so earlier. These coping mechanisms ranged from invok-
ing the role of divinity in devising appropriate honours for the powerful,
especially for Caesar in the last years, to dealing with other practices that
were perceived as threatening to the civic fabric, including worries about
luxury and the appropriation of new resources from an expanding empire,
or about manpower. Much valuable work has shed light on the role of
49
‘Did you dare, then, to fetch the gold from out of your chest, to strip of its adornments that Venus of
yours, despoiler of your other lovers, when you knew what a terrible crime this gold was wanted for –
to bring about the murder of an envoy, and to cast on L. Lucceius, a man with the most scrupulous
sense of honour, the everlasting taint of criminality? That liberal attitude of yours should never have
consented to so horrific a crime, that open house of yours should never have aided it, that hospitable
Venus of yours should never been its abettor’ (trans. Berry, adapted).
50
Cf. Ter. Hec. 63–5, with Leigh 2004: 303–4.
51
Contra Dyck 2013, I would argue that the mock cult title is certainly not wholly undermined by the
qualifier ceterorum, particularly when the adiutrix form occurs so soon afterwards and especially in
a Rome in which Pompey’s theatre, with its shrine of Venus Victrix, was in the process of
construction.
104 anna clark
divine vocabularies of various kinds in accelerating and coping with these
changes. Here I have largely focused rather on some of the ways in which
deities, including two whose importance in Rome certainly did not dimin-
ish over these years and whose place in the civic fabric even grew denser,
could feature in public oratory in ways that allowed the speaker to try to
take a stand against perceived changes. I am in no way suggesting that only
these gods or only gods at all allowed them to do so. It is rather the
connections between gods and other entities (whether Rome itself,
a legion, myths, temples or a statue), as well as the latent qualities within
the names of many Roman gods, which made them particularly resonant in
forensic speeches and invective and especially in oratory to the people or
Senate. Although the mode of argument in the examples I have explored is
geared towards the audience in some respects, the choices made by speakers
seem to have more to do with the demands of the moment, drawing on the
most apt from a range of possible associations with the god in question.
I suggested at the beginning of this chapter that religion and public oratory
are both able to connect immediacy with some level of ‘transcendence’,
albeit in rather different ways. It is the interconnectedness of these two, as
of so many civic practices in Rome, that goes some way to explaining the
similarity, with gods as one important resource shared by Romans and
those speaking for and to them.
part ii
Political Alliances
chapter 5
Political Alliances and Rivalries in Contiones

in the Late Roman Republic
Francisco Pina Polo
The contio was the only institutionalised venue in which a Roman orator
might address the people directly. Given that these popular assemblies were
the only legal way in which direct mass contact between Roman politicians
and the people was officially allowed, they became an imperative tool for
the self-representation of those who wished to pursue a cursus honorum, for
the contio was one of the instruments available to individuals to gain
popularity but also to discredit an adversary. The contio thus served as
a channel for communal information (for example, edicts were read to the
people, military victories and defeats were publicly announced, funerary
eulogies for the community’s most prominent men were delivered), as well
as the main locus of public debate and the contact point between the
Senate and the people through the word of magistrates.1
However, not everybody might speak freely in a meeting. As an officially
sanctioned assembly, a contio had to be convened by a magistrate (though not
by a pro-magistrate), who presided over it from the beginning until its
conclusion. He decided who took the floor, the order of speakers and even
for how long they could speak. Ancient sources define this power as potestas
contionandi and never refer to a non-existent ius contionandi, that is, the
supposed right of a citizen to speak in a contio, which as such never existed
in Rome. Moreover, the chairman of the assembly could summon individuals
chosen by him to address the audience. To describe this action, ancient sources
very frequently use the expression producere in contionem. Consequently,
a politician who was not a magistrate and wanted to deliver a speech to the
people needed the cooperation of a magistrate willing to convene a meeting
and allow him to speak. The invited orator was introduced or brought forth
(productus) to the assembly and given the floor (contionem dare).
1
See Pina Polo 2011b and 2012. On the contio, see Pina Polo 1989; Hölkeskamp 1995 = 2004; Pina Polo
1996; Millar 1998; Mouritsen 2001; Morstein-Marx 2004; Jehne 2006b; Tan 2008; Hiebel 2009;
Tiersch 2009; Yakobson 2010; Morstein-Marx 2014.
107
108 francisco pina polo
This chapter focuses on these strategies as a means of disclosing, on the
one hand, short-term or lasting political alliances and friendships within
the Roman Senate and, on the other hand, enmities and rivalries among
politicians. It will also discuss the role of communication with the people
for some politicians in the Late Republic, specifically in the period between
140 and 40 bc. I will focus exclusively on the so-called political contiones
and will leave aside legislative assemblies held during the compulsory
period of three market days (trinundinum), during which the bill promoter
invited orators to speak for the proposal (rogatio) and where it was also
customary to authorise speeches against the bill.
Producere in Contionem as a Means of Pressure

On some occasions, politicians who were summoned to the orator’s
tribunal were put in awkward positions by being confronted with embar-
rassing questions, which was sometimes the goal of those who presided
over the assembly. In 138 bc, there was a difficult social situation in Rome
because of a significant increase in the price of grain. Tribune of the plebs
Curiatius brought the consuls Scipio Nasica and Brutus to a contio.2 Before
the people, the tribune urged the consuls to make a proposal in the Senate
for the purchase of a quantity of grain. The purpose was ultimately to
regulate the price of this basic foodstuff, thus making it available for the
plebs. The audience presumably supported the initiative of the tribune, but
this did not prevent the consuls from showing their opposition. When
Nasica began to argue against the tribune’s proposition, the crowd inter-
rupted him with shouts. The consul then asked for silence and declared
that he knew better than the audience what was in the interest of the
community. According to Valerius Maximus, this stopped the people in
their protests at once, since they accorded much more weight to the
auctoritas of the orator than they did to the current grain problem.3
Some years later, Scipio Aemilianus was brought to the speaker’s platform
by the tribune of the plebs Papirius Carbo.4 Aemilianus had just returned
from Hispania as the great victor over the Celtiberian city of Numantia.5
2
Val. Max. 3.7.3. Cf. Jehne 2011: 111–12.
3
This was not the only clash that year between Curiatius and the consuls. They were even imprisoned
for refusing certain exemptions to the draft (Cic. Leg. 3.20; Livy, Per. 55).
4
Cic. De or. 2.170; Mil. 8; Val. Max. 6.2.3; Vell. Pat. 2.4.4; Plut. Ti. Gracch. 21.5; Livy, Per. 59. Cf.
Jehne 2011: 116–17.
5
According to Valerius Maximus, Aemilianus was brought to the assembly by the tribune from almost
the gates of Rome when he returned to the city from Hispania. If this was the case, Aemilianus would
still have been a proconsul and would not yet have celebrated his triumph. For this reason, he
Political Alliances & Rivalries in Contiones 109
Consequently, he was at that moment the most popular politician in
Rome. Carbo asked Aemilianus his opinion about the recent death of
Tiberius Gracchus, who was Aemilianus’ brother-in-law.6 Carbo had
been deploring the murder of Gracchus in assemblies and was clearly
hoping to impel Aemilianus to condemn it before the people.
Nonetheless, Aemilianus dared to state that Gracchus had been killed
justifiably. The audience reacted with virulent protests, to which the
orator replied: ‘You keep quiet, you to whom Italy is a stepmother.’
According to Valerius Maximus, the crowd was immediately
silenced, out of respect for the achievements of Aemilianus and his
ancestors.7
In both examples, the ancient sources emphasise the auctoritas of orators
faced with a hostile audience – in other words, their reliability and capacity
to lead given the fact that they were prominent members of the Roman
aristocracy.8 Nasica and Aemilianus were successful because they managed
to impose their opinions against popular feeling by means of their oratory.
In any case, tribunes of the plebs continued to use the same strategy when
they tried to create or to demonstrate public opinion favourable, for
instance, to a certain law project, to an electoral candidate or to the
indictment of a politician.
One of the most debated issues in the 70s bc was the restitution of full
powers to the tribunes of the plebs, after the restrictions imposed by Sulla
during his dictatorship.9 In this context, several tribunes carried out
campaigns in contiones advocating the restoration of the tribunicia potestas.
In 78 bc the matter was debated in a popular assembly. According to
Granius Licinianus, the consuls in office were presumably brought to
a contio in which some tribunes asked them to pronounce on the Sullan
law. The consul Lepidus replied that the restoration of full tribunician
power would not be useful for the community. Apparently he convinced
a large part of the audience with his arguments.10 Two years later the
tribune Sicinius brought the consuls C. Scribonius Curio and Cn.
Octavius to a contio, again with the purpose of pressing them on the same
probably delivered his speech to the people outside Rome, perhaps in the Circus Flaminius, not from
the Rostra in the Forum, as stated by Valerius Maximus. See Taylor 1966: 20, n. 13.
6
Astin 1960, 1967: 233–4.
7
Val. Max. 6.2.3. Carbo changed his attitude completely as a consul in year 120 bc. When the tribune
of the plebs P. Decius accused L. Opimius of having repressed Gaius Gracchus’ followers unjustly,
Carbo argued that the killing of Gracchus had been of benefit to Rome (Cic. De or. 2.106, 132; Part.
or. 104; Livy, Per. 61).
8 9
Pina Polo 2011b: 288. Millar 1998: 55–67.
10
Gran. Licin. 33.14 Flemisch. Millar 1998: 58.
subject.11 Whereas Curio spoke frankly against the restoration, Octavius
remained seated in silence throughout the assembly. Neither the tribunes
of 78 bc nor Sicinius achieved their aims, but they opened the way for
subsequent successes, such as those of L. Quinctius and C. Licinius Macer
in 74/73 bc,12 which eventually resulted in victory in 70 bc when Pompey,
during his first consulship, promoted a law to return their traditional
powers to the tribunes of the plebs.
The question raised in 67 bc was of a different kind. M. Lollius Palicanus
was running for the consulship of 66 bc, and the consul Piso was to preside
over the elections. Some tribunes of the plebs who supported Palicanus
demanded the presence of the consul in a contio.13 They asked him whether
he would agree to make the official proclamation (renuntiatio) of Palicanus
as consul should he be elected by the people. Piso answered that he did not
think the citizens would vote for someone like Palicanus, whom Valerius
Maximus describes as ‘a most seditious man’ (seditiosissimus). However, as
the tribunes insisted, Piso responded sharply that he would not proclaim
Palicanus as a consul in any case. According to Valerius Maximus, by this
statement Piso avoided the election of Palicanus. As usual, Valerius
Maximus once more praised the firm attitude of Piso before the people.
Taking into account the fact that consuls were the highest magistrates of
the Republic, as well as their role of being persons of trust for the Senate, it
is easy to understand why they were asked to give their opinions about
major political questions in assemblies summoned by tribunes of the plebs.
But other magistrates could also be brought to the speaker’s tribunal if
necessary, as happened to Cicero when he was a praetor in 66 bc. At the
end of the year, C. Manilius, who had been a tribune of the plebs until
10 December as usual, was indicted.14 As praetor, Cicero had to preside
over the court. Arguing that the trial should be held before the year finished
and his office came to an end, Cicero gave Manilius only one day to prepare
his defence instead of the customary ten days. Since Manilius was very
popular, Cicero’s decision caused great discontent. Some tribunes of the
plebs summoned Cicero to a contio, in which he was interrogated about the
Manilius affair.15 Far from remaining firm in his position, Cicero changed
11
Cic. Brut. 217; Sall. Hist. 3 F48.8M. Pina Polo 1989: 286.
12
Cic. Clu. 110–11; Sall. Hist. 3 F48.10M.
13
Val. Max. 3.8.3. Vanderbroeck 1987: 226 suggests that the tribunes of the plebs may have been
C. Cornelius and A. Gabinius, who, like Palicanus, were very close to Pompey.
14
On this prosecution, see Lintott 2013: 146–7.
15
Dio Cass. 36.44.2; Plut. Cic. 9.6. Vanderbroeck 1987: 229 points to Memmius as one of the tribunes
presiding over the assembly.
his mind altogether before the people. He criticised the Senate and pro-
mised to speak in favour of Manilius. His statement was welcomed by the
audience, leading Cicero to take the opportunity to deliver a speech
denouncing those who opposed Pompey.16 However, according to
Cassius Dio, he gained a bad reputation in general because of his rapid
change of opinion under popular pressure so that he was called a ‘turncoat’.
Pompey was one of the most influential politicians of the period. This
explains why he was brought to the speaker’s platform on several occasions.
In January 61 bc, shortly after his return to Rome from the East, Pompey
was called to a contio by the tribune Fufius Calenus.17 Since Pompey was
a proconsul, the assembly was held outside the pomerium in the Circus
Flaminius. It was market day, so the assembly was very full. The great
topical issue at the time was the scandal of the Bona Dea and the defendant
Clodius. Fufius, who was supporting Clodius actively, asked Pompey for
his opinion about the court. The tribune presumably expected a statement
favourable to Clodius’ interests, but Pompey preferred to give a vague
answer to the Senate to avoid having to commit himself.18
In all the examples provided so far, tribunes of the plebs presided over
the assemblies in which magistrates were summoned to address the people.
More rarely, other magistrates in office used the same strategy as well.
According to Suetonius, on the first day of his praetorship in 62 bc, Caesar
called Q. Lutatius Catulus to an assembly to report to the people on how
the restoration of the Capitolium was coming along.19 Catulus was respon-
sible for the restoration, but Caesar wanted to grant this task to Pompey.
It was customary in Rome that the orator in a contio always stood above his
audience, delivering his speech ‘from a higher place’ (ex superiore loco),
whether this was the Rostra or the podium of a temple. This up-down
physical arrangement symbolised the political authority of the aristocracy
and helped to reaffirm hierarchically the validity of the oration.20 This is
the reason why Caesar did not allow Catulus to deliver his speech from the
speaker’s platform. On the contrary, he forced him to speak ex inferiore
loco, that is, from the space where the general audience of the assembly was
placed.21 It was clearly an intelligent way to deprive Catulus of authority as
well as to subject him to humiliation.
Another praetor, Ap. Claudius, summoned Bibulus to a contio in 57 bc.
His purpose was to aid his brother Clodius. The assembly must be
16
Plut. Cic. 9.7. 17 Cic. Att. 1.14.1–2 (SB 14).
18
See Seager 2002: 77–8: ‘It is unlikely that Pompeius had wanted to speak at all.’
19
Suet. Iul. 15. 20 Pina Polo 2011b: 291. 21 Cic. Att. 2.24.3 (SB 44).
understood in the context of the discussion on the legality of official acts
performed during the first consulship of Caesar in 59 bc. Bibulus asserted
before the people that Clodius’ adoption by Fonteius had been made
against auspices and was therefore illegal. Consequently, Clodius’ tribu-
nate in 58 bc would be illegal too, for he would not be a plebeian.22 Appius
Claudius probably wanted Bibulus to withdraw when he felt pressed by the
crowd, but this tactic failed. Both Catulus in 62 bc and Bibulus in 57 bc
were prominent senators of consular rank, but they did not hold office in
these years: they were priuati (Catulus was a pontiff). This shows that not
only magistrates in office but also private persons could be summoned to
a contio.
As far as we know, only Roman citizens were usually summoned to
contiones, the intervention of foreigners being exceptional. In 111 bc, the
tribune Memmius brought to an assembly King Jugurtha himself and
tried unsuccessfully to make him speak to the people.23 The audience
was openly hostile to the Numidian king from the moment he was
introduced to the speaker’s platform. Memmius delivered a speech
recalling Jugurtha’s actions in Rome and in Numidia and his crimes
against his father and brothers. When Memmius finished, he gave the
floor to the king, but another tribune of the plebs, C. Baebius, who had
apparently been bribed previously by Jugurtha, imposed his veto and
forbade him to speak. The crowd reacted with aggressive protests, but
nothing changed. Memmius failed, and the king was able to leave the
Rostra unharmed. But this was not the only time during this period that
a foreigner was brought to a contio. In a very different context,
a Phrygian priest of the Mater Magna called Battakes came to Rome
in 102 bc. Arguing that the temple in Pessinus had been profaned, he
asked for a public expiation to be made in the name of the Romans.24
He was invited by a tribune to speak to the people from the Rostra,
explaining how the expiatory sacrifices had to be made. On this occa-
sion, no one prevented the intervention of a foreigner, because his words
were to clarify the way in which the peace with the gods (pax deorum)
could be preserved.
Still more exceptional was the intervention of women in assemblies.
Valerius Maximus states: ‘What do women have to do with an assembly?
22
Cic. Dom. 40. In this same passage Cicero mentions a related contio held in 58 bc, in which the
tribune Clodius interrogated Bibulus and the augurs in order to demonstrate that Caesar had not
respected the obnuntiatio of his colleague Bibulus, who claimed to have witnessed unfavourable
omens throughout the year 59 bc. Cf. Cic. Har. resp. 48.
23
Sall. Iug. 33–4. 24 Diod. Sic. 36.13.2.
Nothing, if ancestral custom is to be preserved.’25 He then relates the
singular presence in a contio of Sempronia, sister of the Gracchi. She was
brought forward in 101 bc by a tribune of the plebs in the context of the
public appearance of L. Equitius, an individual of obscure origin who was
gaining increasing popularity.26 He claimed to be a son of Tiberius
Gracchus, and this assertion alone was enough to give him visibility.
In a very agitated Rome, Sempronia was introduced to corroborate or
deny Equitius’ version in front of an audience favourable to the newcomer.
Once more Valerius Maximus praises the way in which Sempronia was
able to resist the pressure of the ‘ignorant crowd’ (imperita multitudo).
However, it is not at all clear that she actually spoke. According to Valerius
Maximus, the probably abundant crowd pressed her to kiss Equitius as
a sign of acknowledgement, but she rebuffed him. Nothing is said about
a speech or even a few words delivered by Sempronia to the audience.
In fact, the idea of a woman giving a speech to the people was alien to the
Roman mentality.27 This is probably the reason why Sempronia was asked
to kiss Equitius, a visual gesture that could be easily understood without
words even by those placed further away from the Rostra.
Taking the Floor: Cicero and Octavian as Orators before the People
In contrast to the forced introduction of an individual shown by the
preceding examples, other cases suggest that a previous agreement was
made between the chairman of an assembly and an orator for the chance to
address the people. Consequently, the orator voluntarily attended the
assembly because he wished to make a statement, to defend himself from
criticisms formulated by his rivals or attack them, to take part in
a campaign to achieve a political objective or to fulfil another such agenda.
Let us take Cicero as an example. As a senator, he could intervene in
a senatorial session whenever he wished, especially when he reached the
rank of consular and acquired priority in the debates. But he had potestas
contionandi, that is, he was entitled to summon and preside over a contio,
25
Val. Max. 3.8.6: quid feminae cum contione? si patrius mos seruetur, nihil.
26
Val. Max. 9.7.1–2; Cic. Sest. 101; App. B Civ. 1.32; De uir.ill. 73.3; Flor. 2.4. See Beness and Hillard
1990; Grunewald 2004: 159–60.
27
The only woman who supposedly spoke in a contio was Hortensia in 43 bc (App. B Civ. 4.32–4).
The triumvirs issued an edict requiring the richest women to donate a portion of their wealth for the
war. Some of the women gained an exceptional presence on the orator’s tribunal by force, and
Hortensia delivered a speech of protest until she was removed. Her speech was therefore irregular
according to Roman customs, since nobody authorised her to speak. Actually, the triumvirs ordered
her and the other women to be driven away from the tribunal.
only as a magistrate. He was quaestor in Sicily in 75 bc, aedile in 69, praetor
in 66 and finally consul in 63. This means that whenever Cicero as a private
person wanted to attend a contio to deliver a speech to the people, he
needed the cooperation of somebody with potestas contionandi, and he
certainly used it at key moments of his political career.
Once Cicero’s consulship came to an end in December 63 bc, the
tribune Metellus Nepos began a campaign against him for having put to
death Roman citizens without a trial. He prevented Cicero from deliver-
ing the usual speech a magistrate made when leaving his office and
criticised him in contiones.28 Cicero could not tolerate the fact that public
opinion was being turned against him. The best way to counteract Nepos’
speeches was to respond to him in the same venue. According to Plutarch,
the tribune Cato opposed Nepos in contiones and supported Cicero’s
behaviour during his consulship with determination.29 It is therefore
very likely that he invited Cicero to talk in one of these assemblies.
The Ciceronian speech is the so-called Contra contionem Q. Metelli,
from which we have some fragments.30 A year later, in February 61 bc,
someone, perhaps Cicero’s political ally the tribune Caecilius Cornutus,
probably gave the floor to him again to defend himself from Clodius’
attacks in contiones. The Bona Dea affair had reached its climax. Cicero
told Atticus how enthusiastically he assailed not only Clodius but also his
adherents Piso and the elder Curio.31 The Ciceronian text does not state
for certain that the speech was held in a popular assembly, but it is feasible
if we take into account the political context and the habitual use of
contiones by Clodius, a fact that compelled his rivals to employ the same
strategy when possible.
Cicero’s return from exile aroused a fierce debate in Rome. When
Cicero eventually returned in September 57 bc, he made a speech in the
Senate to express his gratitude (Post reditum in senatu), and he took the first
opportunity to address the people. According to his own narration, he
attended the assembly in which the senatorial decree granting Pompey the
command of the grain supply for five years was read. When Cicero’s name
was mentioned, the crowd burst into shouts and applause. Cicero saw his
chance to deliver a speech that would introduce him triumphantly to the
28
Cic. Fam. 5.2.7–8 (SB 2); Pis. 6–7; Sull. 34; Rep. 1.7; Plut. Cic. 23.2–3; Dio Cass. 37.38.2; Gell. NA
18.7; Plut. Cat. Min. 26.2.
29
Plut. Cic. 23.6.
30
Cic. Att. 1.13.5 (SB 13); Gell. NA 18.7.7–9; Quint. Inst. 9.3.50. Crawford 1984: 96 suggests that Cicero
delivered this oration on 7 or 8 January 62 bc.
31
Cic. Att. 1.16.1 (SB 16).
Roman people. This is his preserved Post reditum ad Quirites.32 Cicero says,
rather rhetorically, that all magistrates who were attending the contio gave
him the floor, with the exception of a praetor and two tribunes of the plebs.
Actually, given the reason why the contio had been originally summoned,
that is, the reading before the people of a senatorial decree, both consuls
should have presided over the assembly. They were in all probability the
magistrates who authorised Cicero to speak, as Cassius Dio specifically
states.33
In any case, although Cicero clearly preferred oratory in courts and in
the Senate throughout his political career, he also acknowledged the
significance of oratory before the people.34 During his consulship in
63 bc, he spoke on several occasions in contiones convoked by himself as
a consul. As a matter of fact, two of his four Catilinariae were delivered in
contiones. This demonstrates his acknowledgement of the importance of
speaking to the people and disseminating his own version of the events
surrounding the conspiracy.
Similar actions followed the assassination of Caesar in the last period of
Cicero’s life, when he regained a leading role in the Senate and fought
very actively against Marcus Antonius. Some days after Caesar’s murder,
Cicero spoke in an assembly supporting the senatorial decree that pre-
scribed an amnesty for the conspirators. The contio was summoned by the
consuls Antonius and Dolabella.35 Cicero’s self-imposed retirement dur-
ing the dictatorship of Caesar came to an end. In the last weeks of 44 bc
and the first months of 43, Cicero acquired prominence in the Senate, but
he also made an effort to communicate his ideas to the people. As a result,
he delivered his fourteen Philippicae, in which the main target was
Antonius. Two of them were delivered in contiones. For this purpose,
Cicero needed the cooperation of two tribunes of the plebs.
On 20 December 44 bc, M. Servilius convoked an assembly and gave
the floor to Cicero, who delivered the fourth Philippica.36
On 4 January 43 bc, it was P. Apuleius who gave the floor to Cicero for
his sixth Philippica.37 Cicero states that Apuleius had been close to him
and to his thoughts since his consulship, and he emphasises their alliance
32
Cic. Att. 4.1.6 (SB 73). It is unclear, however, whether the surviving version of this speech was
actually delivered: Lintott 2008: 8–9. Fifty-one years earlier Metellus Numidicus had also delivered
a speech to the people after his return from exile. Either the consul Metellus Nepos or more likely the
tribune of the plebs Q. Calidius summoned the contio for him. Calidius had proposed the law that
recalled Numidicus from exile. Cf. Gell. NA 13.29.1.
33
Dio Cass. 39.9.1. 34 On Cicero and his relationship to the contio see Pina Polo 1996: 119–26.
35
App. B Civ. 2.142–3. Cicero mentions a speech on the same question in the Senate: Cic. Phil. 1.1.
36
Cic. Phil. 4.16, 7.22; Fam. 11.6.3 (SB 343). 37 Cic. Phil. 7.22, 14.16.
(coniunctio) and intimacy (familiaritas). Once more Servilius summoned
a contio for Cicero at the beginning of March.38 The orator strained to the
maximum to defend his proposal of giving Cassius Longinus the com-
mand against Dolabella. This was, as far as we are aware, the last known
oration to the people given by Cicero.39
Octavian also provides a good example of using the speaker’s platform
for his own benefit.40 When Caesar died, Octavian was an outsider,
unknown to the Roman people. Caesar’s testament changed that forever,
for he became the adoptive son and heir of the dictator and adopted the
same name as his father. The young Caesar had no public office and was
not a senator. The best method of becoming known and quickly gaining
a presence within Roman society was to appear in a popular assembly.
To this end, he needed an ally. The tribune of the plebs L. Antonius
convoked a contio and gave the floor to Octavian.41 It was the beginning
of May 44 bc, just a few weeks after Caesar’s murder. In his speech,
Octavian introduced himself as the only legitimate heir of Caesar. He
stated that he would respect the will of his late father, which included the
granting of benefactions to the urban plebs. Thus he managed to turn his
adoption, a private matter, into a political act. His first objective was
fulfilled: Octavian was no longer an unknown teenager but the son of
the soon-to-be deified Caesar. All of a sudden Octavian had become
a political leader.
In November of that same year, the young Caesar repeated this opera-
tion. The tribune of the plebs Ti. Cannutius – according to Appian an
enemy of Antonius as well as an ally of Octavian – convened for him at
least one contio.42 The tribune attacked Antonius and gave the floor to
Octavian. On this occasion he made a speech with much more political
content. He openly condemned Antonius’ behaviour and proclaimed
himself the real political successor of Caesar. To emphasise this, he raised
his right hand dramatically towards the nearby statue of the dictator as he
38
Cic. Fam. 12.7.1 (SB 367).
39
Plutarch (Cic. 25.2) mentions two interventions of Cicero in contiones speaking about Crassus, one
praising him and the other criticising him. The Greek author does not give any hint about the dates
of either speech, both of which could have taken place in the 50s bc. Anyway, Cicero should have
been a private person at the time.
40
See Pina Polo 2011b: 293–4.
41
Cic. Att. 14.20.5 (SB 374): exspecto, si, ut putas, L. Antonius produxit Octavium, qualis contio fuerit
(‘I am waiting to hear, if as you think, L. Antonius has brought forth Octavian, what sort of speech
he has made’), 14.21.4 (SB 375), 15.3.1–2 (SB 380).
42
Dio Cass. 45.6.3 and 45.12.4 mentions two different assemblies convoked by Cannutius for Octavian
(cf. 48.14.4).
spoke, thus leading the gaze of the audience towards Caesar, so that
Caesar’s adoptive son was implicitly identified with his figure.43 Octavian
had without hesitation become another of the candidates for power.
During the thirteen years between Caesar’s assassination and the battle
of Actium, the question of who would take power in Rome was contested.
Without doubt the matter was largely in the hands of the army and was
essentially resolved on the battlefield, where legions loyal to one general or
another fought in a nearly continuous succession of civil wars.
Nevertheless, in the city of Rome, a parallel struggle to win the support
of public opinion was going on, a propaganda battle in which the young
Octavian acted with cunning and intelligence.
In years before, the Roman people had endured civil wars, insecurity and
violence, causing weariness and fear in the face of predictable new con-
frontations. For this reason, it was essential to seek legitimacy before the
people, not through an ideological debate but by casting aspersions on the
adversary. It was not a question of defending a political programme but of
discrediting the enemy in moral and personal terms. A factor that would
ultimately be of great significance in this struggle of personalities was the
presence in Rome of Octavian. While his enemies dealt with duties in
various parts of the Mediterranean, Octavian remained in the capital of the
Empire. This allowed him to operate both in the Senate and before the
people to drum up public opinion against Sextus Pompeius, who was
presented as a friend of the pirates and ultimately as responsible for the
city’s shortages,44 and against Antonius, who was denigrated as a traitor to
Rome because of his union with Cleopatra, as his will clearly showed.45
Neither Sextus Pompeius nor Antonius could appear in person before the
people to defend themselves.46 Octavian’s strategy was eventually success-
ful: Pompeius was defeated at Naulochos and Antonius at Actium along
with Cleopatra. Octavian remained the only candidate for power in
Rome.47
43
App. B Civ. 3.41; Cic. Fam. 12.3.2 (SB 345). Cf. Cic. Phil. 3.23. Cicero says that he received a written
copy of the speech when he was in Arpinum: Cic. Att. 16.15.3 (SB 426).
44
App. B Civ. 5.77; Livy, Per. 128.
45
Dio Cass. 50.3.5, 4.1; Plut. Ant. 54–5, 58–9. See Eder 1990: 98–9.
46
These years also saw the circulation of pamphlets at Rome by both sides, as a complement to
political propaganda deployed in contiones or as a replacement for speeches in popular assemblies,
for instance Marcus Antonius’ De ebrietate sua, which sought to respond to attacks made by
Octavian and his supporters (Plin. NH 14.148; Sen. Ep. 83.25). On the propaganda developed by
Octavian and Antonius see Borgies 2016. On political pamphlets, see Rosillo-López 2017a: 132–8;
229 (on Octavian and Antonius in particular).
47
Pina Polo 1996: 165–9.
Producere in Contionem in the Decade of the Fifties
Between the first consulship of Caesar in 59 bc and the outbreak of the
Civil War in 49 bc, Rome experienced a period of social and political
conflicts, with street riots that included the activity of violent gangs and
suspension of elections. Contiones played a significant role in this atmo-
sphere, especially because Clodius, one of the most active politicians in
these years, attached great importance to his presence in popular assem-
blies. All sorts of matters were discussed in contiones, so having access to
them could be crucial. Let us take three different confrontations during
this decade as examples: the consul Bibulus against the political alliance of
Caesar, Pompey and Crassus in 59 bc; the exile and return of Cicero in
58–57 bc; and the killing of Clodius and subsequent indictment of Milo in
52 bc.
Once Caesar had revealed his agreement with Crassus and Pompey, the
magistrates of that year and senators in general were impelled to adopt
a position for or against Caesar’s bills, for or against the ‘triumvirs’. This
was reflected in assemblies, which were somewhat dominated by the allies
of the ‘triumvirs’. Cicero told Atticus that the younger Curio was the only
man who publicly opposed the powerful imperatores, and for this reason,
he received acclamations from many honest men in the Forum.48 Curio
was at the time a private person, so somebody must have summoned
a contio for him, perhaps one of the tribunes hostile to the ‘triumvirs’.
One incident later in the same year of 59 shows that courage was indeed
required to attend an assembly with the purpose of criticising Caesar and
his allies.49 One of these hostile tribunes must have convened a contio for
Cato, who wanted Gabinius, one of the consuls designate, to be indicted
for bribery in the elections. In his speech, Cato dared to call Pompey
a dictator. According to Cicero, he was barely able to descend from the
Rostra alive, owing to the violent reaction of the crowd.50 This example
demonstrates that the affinity between the president of the assembly and
the orator did not necessarily extend to the audience. A tribune of the plebs
had given the floor to Cato in order that his ideas would circulate outside
the Senate but could not guarantee a supporting audience.
48
Cic. Att. 2.18.1 (SB 38). 49 Cic. Q Fr. 1.2.15 (SB 2).
50
It was not the last time Cato attacked Pompey in a contio. During Pompey’s second consulship with
Crassus, Cato as a private person opposed the consuls tirelessly. He tried to be elected praetor, but
Pompey managed to prevent this. The Pompeian Vatinius was elected instead. A tribune of the
plebs who opposed the consuls, presumably either P. Aquilius Gallus or C. Ateius Capito, convoked
an assembly and gave the floor to Cato, who criticised the consuls (Plut. Cat. Min. 42.4).
This incident also reveals that the audience in contiones was rather
favourable to the ‘triumvirs’. As consul, Caesar could convoke an assembly
whenever he wanted. By contrast, his enemy, Bibulus, the other consul,
decided to remain in his house for most of the year as a protest against
Caesar’s laws. He issued written speeches and some edicts, for instance
trying to delay the elections. The edicts were read out in a contio as usual,
and they were copied out and distributed,51 but Bibulus gave up defending
his viewpoints directly in speeches before the people.52 His rivals, however,
used this venue to disseminate their ideas. Caesar spoke in a contio against
Bibulus’ edicts and urged the audience to go to his home as a way of
intimidating him.53 Pompey also criticised these edicts in an assembly
probably summoned by one of the tribunes supporting the ‘triumvirs’,
perhaps Vatinius, the most active tribune throughout the year.54
At the beginning of autumn in 59 bc, an obscure affair emerged. An alleged
conspiracy to kill Pompey was denounced by Lucius Vettius, a private person
who was close to Caesar.55 Some of the most conspicuous rivals of the
‘triumvirs’ were supposedly involved. Although the plot was apparently just
smoke, the matter was discussed in the Senate and afterwards before the
people. The consul Caesar and the tribune Vatinius invited Vettius to explain
from the Rostra in two different contiones who was responsible for the
conspiracy.56 There is no evidence of assemblies counteracting Vettius’ state-
ments. Eventually, Vettius supposedly committed suicide in prison. There
are, however, reasonable suspicions that the promoters of the hoax, and
especially Caesar, could have been behind his death. The affair had no
penal consequences, but it did contribute towards the discrediting before
the people of some of the enemies of the ‘triumvirs’, as well as probably the
creation of a closer union among the three-headed coalition.
The two great protagonists in 58 bc were tribune of the plebs Clodius,
and the consular Cicero. At the end of 59 bc, Cicero had already told
Atticus that Clodius had become his enemy.57 He therefore expected
51
Cic. Att. 2.20.4 (SB 40).
52
Nonetheless, Cicero states that Bibulus became very popular because of his edicts and speeches
(contiones) issued from his house. According to him, there was such great expectation that it was
difficult to pass across the place where the edicts were posted because of the crowd that was reading
them (Cic. Att. 2.21.4 [SB 41]). Cf. Jehne 2011: 118.
53
Cic. Att. 2.21.5 (SB 41). According to Cicero, Caesar failed.
54
Cic. Att. 2.21.3 (SB 41). The contio took place on 25 July.
55
See Allen 1950; Taylor 1950; Lintott 2008: 173–5.
56
A detailed account of the events occurs in Cic. Att. 2.24 (SB 44). Cf. Cic. Sest. 132; Vatin. 24; Suet.
Iul. 20.8; Dio Cass. 38.9.4.
57
Cic. Att. 2.21.6 (SB 41): Clodius inimicus est nobis (‘Clodius is inimical to me’).
attacks from the very moment Clodius entered his office as a tribune, but
he was not prepared to face the banishment that followed. Clodius
promoted a law threatening exile to anyone who put a Roman citizen
to death without trial. The law was clearly aimed at Cicero because of his
execution of the Catilinarians. He tried in vain to gain the support of the
consuls as well as that of Pompey and prominent senators. Feeling
betrayed, Cicero went into exile. In order to isolate the ex-consul,
Clodius used his oratory in contiones and mobilised the part of the
populace that was favourable to him. For instance, he called Hortensius
and the elder Curio to an assembly.58 They were, respectively, an augur
and a pontifex, but neither held political office at that moment. Both
consulars had taken an active part in a recent public demonstration of
equites in favour of Cicero. Clodius wanted to discredit any sign of
support for Cicero. To bring Hortensius and Curio to a contio was to
expose them to the popular unrest of the campaign against Cicero. It is
therefore not surprising at all that they were abused by the assembly.
According to Cassius Dio, a part of the audience was formed of people
hired by Clodius to generate hostility towards the orators, provided that
they actually got to speak.
The big question of the following year was whether Cicero should be
authorised to return to Rome. Cicero was to wait with great impatience
until August for the law to be passed that allowed him to go back, as a result
of acrimonious discussion both in the Senate and in contiones.59 Once in
Rome, his quarrel with Clodius did not by any means subside.
Immediately after Cicero’s return, the recovery of his demolished house
on the Palatine became the burning issue. A battle to win public opinion
was also fought on this question, and again, the contio was the venue for the
fight. Clodius was well aware that his political strength lay there. His
brother, the praetor Appius Claudius, convoked an assembly for him.
According to Cicero, Clodius told the crowd that the pontiffs were in
agreement with him and not with Cicero and encouraged them to follow
him, and his brother, in defending libertas.60 One must not forget that
Clodius had erected a shrine dedicated to the goddess Libertas on the site of
Cicero’s house. Eventually, Cicero got his house back, along with an
58
Dio Cass. 38.16.5.
59
The approval of the law was preceded by the mandatory legislative contiones (Cic. Sest. 107–8; Pis. 34,
80; Red. sen. 26; Red. pop. 16–17), but there were no doubt other speeches on the subject, thus the
Ciceronian reference to addresses in his favour delivered by L. Gellius Publicola and P. Servilius
Vatia Isauricus (Cic. Red. pop. 17).
60
Cic. Att. 4.2.3 (SB 74).
indemnity, thanks to a senatorial decision, but this does not necessarily
prove that he also won the battle for public opinion.
Throughout the 50s bc, the personal and political enmity between
Clodius and Milo was increasing, even to the point of public death threats.
According to Cicero – and one must not forget his own enmity with those
who had banished him – Clodius insinuated that Milo could be elected
consul but also could die, while he threatened him openly in contiones.61
Both Clodius and Milo had armed gangs that had terrorised Rome in the
preceding few years. The two politicians and their gangs met on the Appian
Way in January 52 bc. As a result of the clash that followed, Clodius was
assassinated, and his corpse was brought to Rome. After a simulacrum of
pompa funebris (‘funeral procession’) and funerary eulogy from the Rostra
(pro contione) by the tribunes Munatius Plancus and Pompeius Rufus, the
corpse was transferred to the nearby Curia, which was turned into an
improvised funeral pyre.62 Not only was the Curia burnt along with the
body of Clodius but also part of the neighbouring Basilica Porcia.63
The following months saw unprecedented popular mobilisation calling
for the prosecution of Milo. Once again, contiones played a very important
role. Three of the tribunes of the plebs, Sallustius, Munatius Plancus and
Pompeius Rufus, began a campaign against Milo, convoking assemblies
almost daily.64 They were, of course, the main orators in most of these
assemblies, but they also introduced some alleged witnesses to Clodius’
assassination. According to Asconius, Munatius Plancus brought Marcus
Aemilius Philemon, a freedman of M. Lepidus, to a contio.65 He declared
that he was travelling with four free men when they arrived at the place
where Clodius was killed. As they tried to raise an outcry, they were taken
away and confined for two months in a rural house of Milo’s. Asconius
asserts that this story, whether true or false, caused great animosity against
Milo. A triumuir capitalis was brought to another assembly by Munatius
Plancus and Pompeius Rufus. The tribunes asked him whether he had
arrested a slave of Milo’s as one of the murderers of Clodius. The slave had
indeed been kept at the home of the triumuir, but the tribunes of the plebs
Caelius Rufus and Manilius Cumanus, who supported Milo, kidnapped
him and gave him back to Milo, wanting to avoid his testimony as
a witness.66 Asconius states that Cicero certainly did not say anything
61
Cic. Mil. 26. Clodius was at the time a private person. Cicero gives no hint of who the convoker of
the assembly could have been.
62 63
Asc. 33C. Sumi 1997; Pina Polo 2009: 97–9. 64 Cic. Mil. 12; Asc. Mil. 51C.
65 66
Asc. Mil. 37C. Asc. Mil. 37C.
about this but that he himself had discovered the story and thought he
should tell it.
Milo also counted on supporters among the tribunes of the plebs.
Caelius Rufus summoned an assembly for him a few days after the Curia
had been burnt. Milo not only defended his innocence but also accused
Clodius of having set an ambush to kill him on the Appian Way.67 Perhaps
Caelius also allowed Cato, a private person, to speak in another contio in
favour of Milo. Cato proclaimed that slaves who protected their masters, as
Milo’s slaves had done when confronting the gang of Clodius, did not
deserve any punishment but rather freedom and praise.68 As a matter of
fact, Milo had manumitted his slaves the day after the clash with Clodius’
gang.
Despite these areas of support, Milo clearly lost the battle in the street.
Through very frequent contiones in which the same message was continu-
ously repeated, the Clodian tribunes were able to maintain a permanent
mass mobilisation and to rouse public opinion against Milo. Eventually,
Pompey, who had been appointed sole consul to put an end to the riots and
calm the situation in Rome, had no option but to promote the indictment
of Milo, as had been demanded from the beginning by the Clodians.
Conclusions
In the fundamentally oral society of Republican Rome, the contio played an
essential role in transmitting information and ideas to the people.
A politician who wanted to have a real presence within society and who
wanted to influence the people was expected to intervene in contiones as an
orator. Most politicians would probably speak in assemblies, if they ever
did so, only when they had potestas contionandi as magistrates. But leaders
such as Caesar and Pompey (when they were in Rome) and very active
tribunes of the plebs such as Clodius needed to show up now and then, or
even regularly, before the people. Oratory in contiones was a tool to
persuade the audience and to cause ideas and opinions to circulate, an
instrument to shape or at least initiate a certain public opinion. Ultimately,
it was a powerful means of demonstrating leadership and ratifying
auctoritas.
Given that access to the speaker’s platform was not open to everybody,
politicians searching for popular support needed the cooperation of magis-
trates willing to summon an assembly for them. On other occasions, some
67 68
Asc. Mil. 33C. Cic. Mil. 58.
of the most prominent politicians were brought to a contio for the purpose
of finding out their opinion on a current topic, sometimes with the
intention of embarrassing or pressing them. In both cases, the custom of
producere in contionem, that is, of bringing somebody to speak in an
assembly, was an essential strategy and vital to an understanding of how
Roman politics really worked. Even politicians such as Cicero, who fre-
quently despised the audience of assemblies as an ignorant crowd, felt
obliged to appear before the people as a magistrate – praetor and consul –
and as a private person. Others, such as Clodius, made the contiones their
main political instrument. Some politicians used assemblies as a way to
launch their political careers, such as the young Octavian.
The strategy of bringing someone to the speaker’s platform was almost
exclusively used by tribunes of the plebs. In around 90 per cent of the cases
in which we know the name of the man who summoned the assembly, it
was a tribune. And that was also probably the case in most of the instances
where we can only speculate. The practice seems to have been completely
accepted. When Cicero disqualified Vatinius for having brought the
despicable Vettius to the Rostra, he stated that Vatinius had dishonoured
that sacred place to which ‘tribunes of the plebs were accustomed to bring
leaders of the city’ (ceteri tribuni plebis principes ciuitatis producere
consuerunt).69 Obviously, this does not mean that it was forbidden for
other magistrates to bring or to summon individuals to a contio under their
presidency, but it was considered quite exceptional behaviour. As a matter
of fact, we only know of a few examples of consuls and praetors who did
this, for instance Caesar, who used that strategy as praetor and as consul.
An assembly convened expressly for someone who desired to speak to
the people implied a friendship or political alliance between the chairman
of the contio and the invited orator, or at least an ad hoc agreement.
The speaker presumably sought a friendly introduction and a well-
disposed public, though this could not always be the case, given the
unpredictable size and mood of the audience. At any rate, the guest orator
was obviously willing to attend the contio, from which he hoped to obtain
some kind of political benefit.
But what about persons who were summoned to attend a contio to be
interrogated before the people? Rather surprisingly, there is no evidence of
anybody, either magistrates or private persons, refusing to attend an
assembly to which he had been called, even if the president of the contio
was a political enemy and a hostile audience was expected. As far as we
69
Cic. Vat. 24.
know, the convoked persons went to the assembly and faced the situation
using their powers of oratory, either firmly keeping their position or
allowing themselves to be intimidated by the interrogation of the chairman
or the uproar of the multitude. It seems as though this was regulated not by
a law but by an unwritten rule which compelled anyone to respect the call
of a tribune of the plebs or any other magistrate or did not allow anybody
to refuse to speak before the people when required to do so.
The summons should have been made in advance to allow the individual
to prepare, but also in order to generate a certain expectation that would
bring a wide audience to the assembly. The more popular the man
summoned and the more topical the issue, the greater the anticipation
would be. The call was probably announced when the contio was officially
convoked. People would therefore have known in advance who the chair-
man of the assembly and the orator or orators would be. It is easy to
understand the expectation aroused by a contio in which Scipio
Aemilianus, Pompey or Cicero was going to speak for the first time after
their return from Hispania, the East or Greece, respectively; or when the
expected topic was the death of Tiberius Gracchus, the restitution of the
tribunician powers or the circumstances surrounding the murder of
Clodius; or when the unknown young adopted son of Caesar was going
to make his first public appearance in Rome. One must not forget that, for
the Roman people, a contio was a kind of performance that generated
rumours and gossip that could circulate through the city, probably for days
afterwards.70
Beyond the show, however, the contio was the main means by which the
plebs could gather knowledge of the political positions of prominent
senators on a particular question. The doors of the Curia usually remained
open while a session was in motion, but the plebs had no proper access to
the senatorial debates within the building. So how else could they find out
what the leaders thought? From this viewpoint, the act of bringing forth
a princeps ciuitatis to the speaker’s platform or of giving him the floor
makes complete sense. The orator could either be obliged to give his
opinion about the subjects on which he was interrogated, or he could
choose to explain his ideas openly on his own initiative. In this way the
plebs learnt, for instance, that Scipio Aemilianus condoned the murder of
Tiberius Gracchus at the very moment he arrived from Hispania, some-
thing that they could not otherwise have known; that some consuls were
against the restitution of all tribunician powers following the majority
70
Rosillo-López 2007, 2017a; Pina Polo 2010.
opinion in the Senate; that Pompey was mildly in agreement with the
Senate on the question of the court that should judge Clodius for the Bona
Dea affair; that Cato and others defended the innocence of Milo in 52 bc,
whereas some individuals testified against him; and that Cicero was carry-
ing out in the Senate a fierce campaign against Antonius that he wanted to
move to the assembly. Bringing someone to speak to a contio promoted
a dialectical dynamism that allowed the plebs to obtain firsthand informa-
tion on significant political debates as well as on alliances and rivalries
within the Senate that would otherwise have remained hidden or nebulous
to them.
Table 5.1 Evidence of Producere in Contionem in the Late Republic (140–40 bc)
Year Convener Subject
138 C. Curiatius, tr. pl. Both consuls are summoned (producti in

contionem) to explain the corn price.
Scipio Nasica speaks.
131 C. Papirius Carbo, tr. pl. Scipio Aemilianus is questioned about
Tiberius Gracchus’ death.
123 C. Gracchus, tr. pl. Gracchus orders Piso Frugi to be summoned.
Discussion of the rogatio frumentaria.
111 C. Memmius, tr. pl. Memmius brings Iugurtha to a contio. Tr. pl.
Baebius imposes his veto.
107 ? Procos. Metellus Numidicus speaks against
tr. pl. Manlius Mancinus.
102 A tribune of the plebs Battakes, a Phrygian priest of Mater Magna,
asks for a public expiation.
101 ? Sempronia is brought to the orator’s tribunal
and asked about Equitius.
98 Q. Calidius, tr. pl.? Metellus Numidicus speaks to the people
after his return from exile.
78 Q. Catulus, cos.? Sulla’s funus publicum. Q. Hortensius
probably delivers the funeral oration.
78 Tribunes of the plebs Cos. Lepidus rejects the restoration of the
tribunician powers.
76 Cn. Sicinius, tr. pl. Both consuls are summoned to speak about
the tribunician powers. Only cos.
Scribonius Curio speaks.
67 Tribunes of the plebs Cos. Piso is asked about the candidacy of
Palicanus for the consulship.
66 Tribunes of the plebs of 65 Pr. Cicero is asked to explain his intervention
in the indictment against C. Manilius.
62 M. Porcius Cato, tr. pl.? Cicero is invited to defend himself against
the accusations made by tr. pl. Metellus
Nepos.
Table 5.1 (cont.)
62 C. Iulius Caesar, pr. Caesar summons Q. Lutatius Catulus

to explain the restoration of the
Capitolium.
61 Q. Fufius Calenus, tr. pl. Pompey is invited to give his opinion on
which jurors should judge Clodius in the
Bona Dea case.
61 ? Cicero speaks against Piso, Curio and
Clodius.
59 A tribune of the plebs? The young Curio opposes the ‘triumvirs’
openly.
59 ? Pompey rejects Bibulus’ edicts delaying the
elections until October.
59 Tribunes of the plebs? Cato calls Pompey dictator and is almost
killed by the assembly.
59 Caesar, cos., Vatinius, L. Vettius is brought forward to denounce
tr. pl. the presumed plot to kill Caesar and
Pompey.
58 P. Clodius, tr. pl. Hortensius and Curio are summoned to
explain their support of Cicero. They are
shouted down.
58 P. Clodius, tr. pl. Bibulus and the augurs declare that Caesar
did not respect obnuntatio during his
consulship in 59.
57 Ap. Claudius, pr. Bibulus is summoned to speak about the
legality of Clodius’ adoption.
57 ? L. Gellius Publicola and P. Servilius Vatia
speak in favour of Cicero.
57 Both consuls Cicero delivers his Post reditum ad Quirites.
57 Ap. Claudius, pr. Clodius speaks about Cicero’s house and the
sentence of the pontiffs as a response to
Cicero’s arguments.
55 A tribune of the plebs Cato attacks Pompey and Crassus for the
election of Vatinius as a praetor.
54 ? Proconsul Pompey addresses the people
outside the pomerium on behalf of
Gabinius.
Before 53 ? Cicero praises and criticises Crassus in two
speeches.
53/52 ? Clodius threatens death to Milo.
52 M. Caelius Rufus, tr. pl. Milo defends himself from the accusations of
Clodius’ followers after the latter’s
assassination.
52 ? Cato supports Milo for having freed the
slaves involved in Clodius’ murder.
Table 5.1 (cont.)
52 Munatius Plancus, tr. pl. A freedman of M. Lepidus is brought to the

assembly as a witness of Clodius’
assassination.
52 Munatius and Pompeius, A triumvir capitalis is brought to a contio as
tr. pl. a witness of Clodius’ murder.
49 ? Proconsul Caesar speaks outside the
pomerium promising a distribution of
grain.
45 A tribune of the plebs M. Antonius is summoned to clarify why he
has returned from Gaul.
44 Antonius/Dolabella coss. Cicero argues in favour of the amnesty for
Caesar’s assassins.
44 L. Antonius, tr. pl. Octavian is introduced to the people.
44 Ti Cannutius, tr. pl. M. Antonius is called to an assembly. He
alludes to Cicero as intellectual author of
Caesar’s killing.
44 Ti. Cannutius, tr. pl. Octavian proclaims himself the political
successor of Caesar.
44 M. Servilius, tr. pl. 43 Cicero delivers his fourth Philippic.
43 P. Apuleius, tr. pl. Cicero delivers his sixth Philippic.
43 M. Servilius, tr. pl. Cicero vindicates Cassius Longinus as the
leader of the military operations against
Dolabella.
chapter 6
Theophanes of Mytilene, Cicero and Pompey’s

Inner Circle
Federico Santangelo
Most of the chapters in this volume deal with the wider structural factors
that underlie the dynamics of Republican politics, shape the contexts and
the strategies through which political debate and competition unfolded,
inform the mechanics of persuasion and dissent, and bring about political
success or failure. Conversely, the focus of this chapter is on an individual,
albeit one through whom the significance of some major historical devel-
opments may be observed and understood in an especially fruitful light.
Theophanes of Mytilene – or, to use his Roman name, Cn. Pompeius
Theophanes – is a familiar figure to students of the relations between Rome
and the Greek East and of the development of Roman citizenship. This
chapter offers a reconsideration of his role in the political developments of
the last decades of the Republic – an aspect of his life that tends to be
understudied and the importance of which is usually underestimated.1
Emphasis will be placed on some issues that make Theophanes’ historical
trajectory so remarkable and are of some significance to the wider remit of
this volume: the unique or, at any rate, highly exceptional nature of the
citizenship grant he received, the scope of the political work he carried out
both at Rome and at Mytilene and the implications of his personal
relationship with Pompey, considered in light of what it may reveal
about the dealings between Greek and Roman elites in the Late
Republic, on the one hand, and about the workings of the inner circles
of major political figures in that period, on the other.
Theophanes was a major figure in his time. He also wrote a literary work
in which he gave an account of important aspects of that period and in
which he conceivably had something to say about his own involvement in
I am very grateful to Andrea Raggi, Giovanni Salmeri, the editors of this volume and the anonymous
readers at Cambridge University Press for invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
1
Cf. the important pointers in Laqueur RE s.v. Theophanes no. 1: 2092 and Welch and Mitchell
2013: 88.
128
Theophanes of Mytilene, Cicero and Pompey’s Inner Circle 129
affairs of great historical significance. Unfortunately, none of the surviving
evidence for his life reflects his own viewpoint or shows a positive bias: we
hear about Theophanes from some of his contemporaries, and much of the
information at our disposal betrays a hostile view – most strikingly in
Plutarch’s discussion of his credibility as a historian.2 This discussion is
based on the working hypothesis that such limitations may be overcome
and that a more precise assessment of Theophanes’ historical and political
significance may be offered.
The starting point must be a brief summary of Theophanes’ biography,
which objectively was an extraordinary one. He was a prominent citizen of
Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos; his date of birth is unknown. By 67 or
66 bc, at any rate, he was certainly involved in local politics and had
a sufficiently high standing to enable him to form a personal and political
connection with Pompey, who was then leading his Eastern campaign.
The circumstances that made this acquaintance possible are elusive.
The Abbé Sevin, who wrote the first systematic study of Theophanes’ life
and work, even made the suggestion that Theophanes belonged to a pro-
Roman family that had to flee the motherland during the Mithridatic War
and returned to the Greek East only during Pompey’s campaign.3 This
view is unnecessarily speculative and is in fact almost conclusively dispro-
ven by an inscription from Mytilene in which Theophanes is honoured just
with his patronymic, therefore presumably before he received Roman
citizenship.4 The implications of the encounter between Pompey and
Theophanes are twofold and, at least in one respect, especially remarkable.
A passage of Plutarch shows that they met before Pompey’s arrival at
Lesbos, which took place in the final part of the campaign: on that
occasion, the city hosted a poetry competition which elected as subject-
matter the victory of Pompey.5 As Strabo makes clear, Theophanes had
already spent time on campaign with him (it is unclear whether in an
individual capacity or at the helm of a contingent of Mytileneans: that
experience later proved of use in his literary pursuits).
M. H. Crawford takes a disparaging view of the nature of the relation-
ship between the two men: in his view, Plutarch’s account of the celebra-
tion at Mytilene shows ‘that what Theophanes provided for Pompeius in
return for the freedom of Mytilene was a cultural ego-trip’.6 Maybe – the
nature of the evidence prevents us from exploring in any detail the
2
Plut. Pomp. 37.3, 49.7. Theophanes’ testimonia and fragments are collected in FGrHist and BNJ (A.
Kaldellis); see also the edition in Santangelo 2015, with an Italian translation and a commentary.
3
Sevin 1743: 143–4. 4 SEG XLII: 755. 5 Plut. Pomp. 42.4. 6
Crawford 1978: 204.
130 federico santangelo
concerns and ambitions that drove their respective choices. In taking such
a dismissive view of Pompey’s intellectual standing, Crawford follows an
interpretative line that goes at least as far back as Mommsen.7 However,
the delicate nature of the tasks that were assigned to Theophanes in the
following years suggests that Pompey also came to rate his political ability
quite highly, and there is no compelling reason to believe that he started to
do so only sometime after the celebration in Mytilene.8 The possibility that
the citizenship grant was a consequence of the remarkably close political
ties between the two men, rather than Theophanes’ literary service to
Pompey, is worth entertaining.9
Whatever the exact circumstances may have been, Theophanes persuaded
Pompey to grant Mytilene immunity, hence undoing the arrangements that
had been made in 80, when the city was captured by M. Minucius Thermus,
6,000 citizens were sold into slavery and punishment was inflicted upon it
because of the support it had given to Mithridates.10 This development was
within the framework in which other Greek cities had operated in the
previous two generations. The commitment of some local notables played
a crucial role in securing a more favourable status for cities such as Colophon
in the late second century bc, through the embassies of Menippos and
Polemaios after the Mithridatic War, and Pergamon, through the tireless
work of Diodoros Pasparos.11 Theophanes, in fact, appears to have had a less
burdensome task in this respect: there is no record of his presence in Rome
before Pompey’s Eastern campaign, nor of any diplomatic mission of his.
Theophanes was clearly regarded as a local benefactor by the Mytileneans12:
when, two generations later, Strabo wrote about the notable men of
Mytilene, he closely identified Theophanes with the freedom of the city,
which, in his view, derived exclusively from the personal connection with
Pompey.
The second implication of their connection, however, is incommensur-
ably more noteworthy for the purposes of this volume than the freedom
grant to Mytilene. Pompey bestowed an individual citizenship grant upon
Theophanes: on the surviving evidence, that act stands out as a major shift
from established Roman practice. From the end of the second century bc,
7
Mommsen 1857: 416, ‘[e]in guter Offizier, übrigens aber von mittelmässigen Gaben des Geistes und
des Herzens’. On this reading, cf. Morrell 2017: 87–8.
8
Bowie 2011: 183.
9
See Gold 1985: 320–1, 1987: 96; Labarre 1996: 46–50; Muntz 2017: 7; contra Laqueur RE s.v.
Theophanes no. 1: 2094.
10
Evidence in Magie 1950: 245–6, 1124, n. 41.
11
Claros (Colophon): Robert and Robert 1989; Ferrary 1991 = 2017. Pergamon: Jones 2000.
12
On the evidence for the honours that Theophanes received at Mytilene, see Magie 1950: 1230, n. 28.
viritane citizenship grants were bestowed by magistrates upon individuals
(usually of Italian or Iberian descent) who had served under Rome, for
example, by Marius during the Cimbrian War or by Cn. Pompeius Strabo
during the Social War13; as Martin Stone reminds us in Chapter 16, the
Verrines mention several individuals from Sicily who received citizenship
from Pompey in the late 80s bc.14 In the Greek East, however, the picture
is different. The three men from Clazomenae in Asia Minor who fought
alongside Rome during the ‘Italian war’ were granted an impressive set of
legal privileges under a senatus consultum, passed in 78 BC, but those fell
short of the citizenship.15 This is not the place to discuss whether there
was a genuine drive on the part of men of Greek descent to receive the
Roman citizenship, not least because it would have probably prevented
one from playing a political role in one’s community of origin. Again, we
are in no position to establish how Theophanes responded to Pompey’s
grant and what conversations occurred before that concession was made.
We hear about Pompey’s decision from Cicero’s Pro Archia, which
enables us to date it before the early summer of 62 bc, and is also the
earliest evidence for the circulation of a work in which Theophanes set
out the res of Pompey.16 The grant to Theophanes was no backroom deal:
quite the contrary, it was announced at a public gathering of Pompey’s
soldiers, no doubt during the campaign. Cicero notes that it was saluted
with assent by them, many of whom will have no doubt known about
Theophanes because of his personal involvement in the war. Valerius
Maximus, who – unlike Cicero – does not have to persuade his audience
of the desirability of bestowing the Roman citizenship upon Greeks of
some consequence, also records that Pompey gave a speech summarising
Theophanes’ manifold merits and conveying the impression that the
deeds that he had performed for Pompey were as considerable as the
reward he received.17 The existence of this speech is noteworthy, even
though we can only have a faint idea of its contents. The decision to
bestow the citizenship on Theophanes may well have fallen within
13
Marius: Cic. Balb. 46; Val. Max. 5.3.8; Plut. Mar. 28.2; Pompeius Strabo: ILS 8888.
14
Cic. Verr. 2.2.23, 102, 4.25, 28.
15
RDGE 22, with Raggi 2001. Sherwin-White 1973: 294–5, 306–9 remains essential reading on this
process.
16
Pompey ORF4 111 F15 (= Cic. Arch. 24); Laqueur RE s.v. Theophanes no. 1: 2125, 2127 argues that
Theophanes’ work was not finished by 62 bc. It is worth considering the likelihood that the narrative
on Pompey may have touched upon contentious aspects of Roman politics, as the evidence for an
attack on P. Rutilius Rufus suggests: see Plut. Pomp. 37 (= FGrHist F 1), with Anastasiadis 1999,
Santangelo 2015: 99–103 and Thornton 2017: 40–1.
17
Val. Max. 8.14.3.
Pompey’s remit, but he felt that there was a need to make the case for it
publicly.18
The citizenship grant was a sign of Pompey’s utmost favour towards
Theophanes, of course, and also enabled him to stand out among the many
foreigners who inhabited Rome at the time, as well as among the many
members of the local elites throughout the empire who had close personal
ties with members of the Roman elite and some political capital to be spent
with the Senate.19 On the surviving evidence, the legal position of
Theophanes has no equivalent in his generation.20 While absence
of evidence is no evidence for absence, the exceptional standing of
Theophanes is a fact of considerable historical significance. The contrast
with the case of Pythodoros of Tralles, a personal friend of Pompey who
belonged to a family of impeccable pro-Roman credentials and was not
awarded citizenship, is worth pointing out.21 Some crucial aspects of
Theophanes’ story are unknown: the reasons adduced by Pompey in
support of his decision, the exact timing of the grant, its chronological
and causal relationship with the decision to bestow privileges upon
Mytilene and, most importantly, how this citizenship grant could be
reconciled with the principle, famously set out by Cicero in the Pro
Caecina (100) and in the Pro Balbo (28–30), whereby Roman citizenship
could not be cumulated with that of another community.
Cicero lamented that the Roman citizens, who accepted magistracies in
the cities where they resided, unwittingly forfeited their status as Roman
citizens but also pointed out that the principle of mutual exclusion could
be (and indeed was) overlooked or disregarded with increasing frequency.
The historical validity of the principle set out by Cicero is often main-
tained as central in some modern discussions, but should be qualified in
two important respects. As D. Nörr and J.-L. Ferrary pointed out, it is
based on an assumption that has little bearing on historical reality: the
postulate that the citizenships of two different communities are of equal
importance.22 In practice, the relationship between the two legal statuses is
imbalanced, and from the Late Republican period onwards the cumula-
tion of Roman and local citizenships becomes a marker of individual
18
Van der Blom 2011a: 562 suggests that the speech was also an opportunity for Pompey to advertise his
military achievements.
19
Bowersock 1965: 1–13 remains the classic treatment of the personal ties between members of the
Roman Republican elite and provincial notables in the Greek East. Eilers 2002: 1–37 is invaluable on
matters of definition regarding the ties of patronage and clientela against the wider backdrop of the
Roman conquest; see esp. 29 on Pompey.
20 21
See Raggi 2010: 85, with further bibliography. Ferrary 2005: 55–6 = 2017: 270–1.
22
Nörr 1963: 556–98; Ferrary 2005: 68–9 = 2017: 280–1.
status, which has very strong repercussions in shaping a notable’s involve-
ment in local politics precisely because it clearly asserts his connection with
Rome. Moreover, in the Italian context, the ciuitas per magistratum (‘citi-
zenship through holding a magistracy’) system in the Latin colonies
explicitly afforded the possibility of acquiring Roman citizenship without
ruling out the possibility of further political involvement in one’s home
community. Finally, it is difficult to see how respect for the principle set
out by Cicero could be enforced, especially in the hometown of the
beneficiary, nor is there evidence for an effort to secure its respect on the
part of the Roman authorities.23 Had Theophanes sought to be involved in
the running of public business at Mytilene after his change of status, it is
unclear who could have prevented him from doing so (let alone what
interest the community would have had in pursuing the matter), nor
whether anyone in Rome or any Roman magistrate would have taken
action against him.
At any rate, the problem did not arise in practice. After the end of
Pompey’s campaign, the focus of Theophanes’ interests and efforts appears
to have been in Italy and indeed in Rome. This does not preclude, of
course, the existence of lasting ties with his motherland, which are strik-
ingly confirmed by some epigraphical documents and are entirely unsur-
prising in light of the significance of the concessions earned by Theophanes
on behalf of the city. Theophanes’ political involvement in Rome and in
Roman affairs is reasonably well attested in evidence ranging across nearly
two decades. It is equally important not to understand it in terms that,
while stressing its exceptional nature, fail to do justice to its historical
relevance. Sir Ronald Syme, for instance, almost seemed to apply to
Theophanes the stereotype of the meddlesome Levantine: to Pompey, he
was a ‘friend, domestic historian and political agent’, notable for his
‘influence and his intrigues’.24 In what follows I argue that Theophanes’
‘intrigues’ were merely capable, if only partly successful, political work
which set out to respond to the challenges of a complex historical context.
As pointed out earlier, we learn about Theophanes’ political work
chiefly from Cicero’s correspondence. The instances in which
Theophanes is mentioned in Cicero’s letters to Atticus are barely more
than a handful, but are concentrated in clusters that draw attention to
moments of special historical significance for the men involved and for the
23
Nörr 1963: 563; Talamanca 1991: 720–1.
24
Syme 1939: 76, n. 2. Cf. Welch and Mitchell 2013: 88, who speak of Theophanes as the leading figure
among Pompey’s ‘literary agents’.
res publica as a whole. The first few references take us to the spring of 59 bc,
a period in which Clodius’ initiative to send Cicero into exile was looming
large on the horizon. Indeed, the first appearance of Theophanes is in
a letter in which Cicero discusses the possibility of him taking up
a diplomatic mission to Alexandria in the following weeks (Att. 2.5 [SB
25]); that prospect, which was warmly encouraged by Caesar and Pompey,
would have enabled a diffusion of the tension with Clodius for the months
to come (shortly before Clodius had refused a similar offer to go on
a mission to Armenia). The offer was not made formally, but was appar-
ently mentioned in conversations, or was rumoured; interestingly, Cicero
instructs Atticus not to dismiss the option out of hand should he happen to
be approached by Theophanes about it. This brief reference is a striking
illustration of one of the forms that Theophanes’ political role could take:
he, as a friend and associate of Pompey, may conceivably approach Atticus,
a close of friend of Cicero, in order to have a preliminary conversation on
a proposal that might involve Cicero and the outcome of which would then
feed into the process leading to a final decision on the possible assignment
of the Egyptian mission. As a competent political operator, Cicero has to
be aware of the possibility that this sort of collateral moral suasion may take
place, and the brevity with which he can afford to impart instructions to his
trusted friend leaves in no doubt Atticus’ ability to act in that context. As it
happened, Cicero chose not to pursue that prospect, which would have left
him in too heavy a debt to Caesar and Pompey, but Theophanes’ involve-
ment in this conversation shows the importance of his political role, and
other letters show the significance of his conversation with Cicero.
A letter from a couple of weeks later includes a reference to another
conversation between Atticus and Theophanes (2.12.2 [SB 30]), on which
Atticus had reported in a letter to Cicero that, of course, does not survive.
At this point in time, Cicero does not seem to have a close relationship with
Theophanes; in a letter sent to Atticus in May (2.17 [SB 37]), he laments
that Pompey is now openly seeking regal power, calls him Sampsiceramus
and Arabarches and then urges his friend to approach Theophanes and
gauge what Pompey’s attitude towards Cicero may actually be.25 Atticus, in
his view, can afford to speak to Theophanes in the name of a close personal
connection with Cicero, which is intriguingly conveyed in Greek, κατὰ τὸ
κηδεμονικὸν (‘as a relative’), and is probably a reference to the fact that
Atticus’ sister was the sister-in-law of Cicero: Atticus could purport to be
25
Laqueur RE s.v. Theophanes no. 1: 2096 argues that this is an ironic allusion to Theophanes’ own
work, where Pompey’s campaign against the Arabs was no doubt discussed.
enquiring because of his quasi-family connection with Cicero.
The implication of this explicit request is that Theophanes is well informed
about Pompey’s views, and at the same time, he can be relied upon to
divulge information that Pompey may not be equally keen to share.
Whether that expectation on Cicero’s part was correct or not is impossible
to establish. The resort to the mediation of Atticus and Theophanes is also
made necessary by the fact that a frank conversation between Cicero and
Pompey is apparently unrealistic. The two men therefore act as interme-
diaries and interpreters of the aspirations and concerns of their more
distinguished friends. A different line of explanation may also be pursued.
Perhaps Pompey’s attitude towards Cicero was a matter on which
Theophanes may have liked to be asked for an opinion, and seeking his
views might lead him to a have a more favourable attitude towards Cicero
in the longer term, quite apart from the information that he might be able
or willing to offer on that occasion.
We do not know what the outcome of the exchange was, or whether Cicero
and Theophanes had further political contact in this period, be it directly or
not. It is a fairly safe guess that some conversations did occur. Nearly a decade
later, in February 49 bc, Cicero expressed regret to Atticus for having mis-
handled the very difficult situation immediately preceding his exile (Att. 8.12.5
[SB 162]): he was always driven by a strong sense of duty, which led him to
overlook valuable advice from Atticus. He should have heeded the calls that
Atticus conveyed to him through Theophanes and Q. Terentius Culleo (trib.
58 bc). In this account, Theophanes was not just Pompey’s friend; he was also
someone who enjoyed Atticus’ trust to the extent that Atticus could rely upon
him to convey a message to Cicero. The impression, which is, of course,
impossible to prove, is that these letters offer merely a few snapshots from
a series of political and personal conversations between the three men, the
evidence for which is mostly lost. However, after Cicero’s exile Theophanes
disappears from his correspondence for several years. This is certainly not
a symptom of his diminished political relevance. In 56 BC, he played a role of
some significance in the legal controversy concerning the entitlement to the
Roman citizenship of the rich Gaditane notable L. Cornelius Balbus.26
Theophanes had formed a close personal connection with Balbus by agreeing
to adopt him, sometime after his citizenship grant (Balbus had been enfran-
chised several years before him, in 72 bc).27 Cicero briefly points out in his
26
Brunt 1982. For a recent discussion of Balbus and his place in the history of foreign clientelae, see
Beltrán Lloris 2015.
27
Under the lex Gellia Cornelia, see Rotondi 1912: 367.
speech on behalf of Balbus that the adoption had met with strong criticism
but stresses that his client had merely gained the right to inherit the property
of his own relatives.28 The meaning of this remark is far from clear. It might
imply that the adoption followed intermarriage between the families of the
two men and entailed no immediate financial advantage for Balbus or that
there would have been some gain for Balbus only if Theophanes had died.29
Whatever the correct reading may be, Cicero’s publicly stated view certainly
does not coincide with the comment that he made in a private letter he wrote
in December 50 bc, in which he included the adoption of a Gaditane by
a Mytilenean among the symptoms of the political and moral crisis that
contemporary Rome was going through, along with the disproportionate
wealth that some men had gathered, the adoption of the patrician Clodius
into a plebeian family and Cicero’s own exile. This reference is an argument in
support of those who view Balbus’ adoption as a political operation that
would not have been possible without the involvement and support of the
powerful patrons of the two men.30 This is likely to have been the case,
although it is misguided to regard it as a mere by-product of the so-called First
Triumvirate, an arrangement that was intended to bring Caesar and Pompey
even closer by establishing a family link between their protégés. We do not
know what consequences this connection entailed for either Theophanes or
Balbus. It is also impossible to tell whether his association with Balbus was of
any help to Theophanes at the end of the Civil War.
At no point in what survives of his correspondence does Cicero express
appreciation for Theophanes. On various occasions, however, he refers to
him as a political presence to be reckoned with. His proximity to Pompey
remains the decisive factor, but Theophanes gradually emerges as an
increasingly forceful and distinctive political presence. In July 51 bc,
Cicero discussed with Atticus his doubts surrounding Pompey’s plans:
Varro had written to him that Pompey intended to leave Rome for
Spain, and Cicero shared that impression.31 He also found that prospect,
however, very undesirable and shared his reservations with Theophanes,
with a view to him conveying them to his patron. Theophanes was in
agreement with him, and Cicero hoped that he would be willing and able
to persuade Pompey. In the same sentence, he refers to him as a Graecus
(‘Greek’) in a way that seems at best condescending and then adds that
Theophanes had the utmost level of auctoritas with Pompey.32 By this
28
Cic. Balb. 57. 29 Lindsay 2009: 172–3.
30
See e.g. Laqueur RE s.v. Theophanes no. 1: 2095–6.
31
Cic. Att. 5.11.3 (SB 104). See Seager 2002: 141, 234, n. 61.
32
Bowie 2011: 182: ‘Cicero thought he could score points’.
point Theophanes is no mere agent of Pompey; he is an advisor whose
views are taken very seriously. During the Civil War, some of the views
held by Theophanes are regarded as very substantial threats to the safety of
the res publica and Italy. In two letters written from Formiae in March 49,
Cicero polemically singles out Theophanes and Lucceius as dangerous
advisors to Pompey, who are urging him to leave Italy to concentrate his
energies in the East and launch a re-conquest of Italy from there in due
course.33 Cicero is clearly incensed at that prospect, which would create
a dangerous power vacuum in Italy and would bring about a situation of
unprecedented instability, from which any outcome could potentially
emerge. Yet, he cannot afford to choose a different course of action:
‘I had best show myself a good citizen by carrying war into Italy by land
and sea . . . and execute the counsels of Lucceius and Theophanes.’34
Despite Cicero’s protestations, which were no doubt shared by others,
Pompey chose that very option.
The difference in social standing between the two advisors is note-
worthy. L. Lucceius’ friendship with Pompey dates back to the days of
the so-called First Triumvirate; he supported Caesar’s candidacy to the
consulship of 59 bc.35 By then, Lucceius was a praetorius, having held that
magistracy in 67, but his wealth was arguably the main factor that made
him politically relevant; his bid for the consulship was unsuccessful. There
is no evidence that Theophanes ever undertook the cursus honorum, but his
level of influence on Pompey was comparable to that of a former praetor of
considerable financial means such as Lucceius. From Cicero’s standpoint,
the influence of those two men was objectionable for another reason:
instead of resorting to the advice of a distinguished consularis, Pompey
was following the suggestions of men of far lesser distinction, one of whom
was even a naturalised Roman citizen who did not belong to the senatorial
order. Two weeks later, Cicero conveys to Atticus reports that he has
received of the arguments used by Pompey in some conversations held at
Brundisium, where he was waiting to cross over to Greece. Pompey had
apparently used threatening language, alluding to the prospect of proscrip-
tions and an attack on the Optimates.36 He was imitated by those who were
around him: Lucceius, as well as a host of Greek gentlemen, among whom
Cicero singles out Theophanes. Cicero immediately rushes to point out
that he has nothing in common with individuals of that sort but has to join
33
Seager 2002: 161.
34
Cic. Att. 9.1.3 (SB 167): ut boni ciues simus, bellum Italiae terra marique inferamus . . . et Luccei consilia
ac Theophani persequamur.
35
Suet. Iul. 19.1. 36 Cic. Att. 9.11.3–4 (SB 178).
forces with them in order to escape the horrors (has pestis) that surround
him: ‘any hope of salvation rests with these men’.37
Cicero’s reservations about Theophanes were also tinged with thinly
disguised anti-Greek feelings. They are implicit in the dismissive reference
to the tota Grecia, the group of Greek advisors and clients that surround
Pompey at Brundisium, and they are already apparent in the brief reference
to the influence that Theophanes has on Pompey in the letter of July 51 bc.
They are even more brutally explicit in an anecdote related by Plutarch:
during the war, Theophanes consoled the Rhodians, who had sided with
Pompey and lost their fleet. Cicero heard about the praise that Theophanes
had received for his behaviour towards the allies and exclaimed dispara-
gingly, ‘what a wonderful thing, to have a Greek as prefect!’38 This state-
ment is not at odds with what we find in the correspondence and was not
unparalleled. As Plutarch points out, Cicero did himself no favours in
openly stating his reservations about, or indeed contempt of, the advisors
that Pompey had chosen.
Plutarch’s passage is further confirmation of the central role that
Theophanes had gained in the group of people that surrounded Pompey
during the war. Far from being just an informal advisor, bound to the
commander by a personal association, he had an official role: Plutarch’s
literal translation of a Latin title leads to the conclusion that Theophanes
was praefectus fabrum in Pompey’s army. Theophanes’ familiarity with
military life was not a novelty: he was made a Roman citizen at a military
contio and followed Pompey for a long phase of his Eastern campaign.39
Plutarch’s literal rendition of the Latin title, however, entails a serious
shortcoming: the role of praefectus fabrum is not confined to directing the
work of engineers on the camp. To use R. Syme’s modernising definition,
the praefectus fabrum in the Late Republic was ‘the chief of staff to a holder
of imperium’.40 The task involved some expertise in the handling of
logistical problems but had much wider significance. It was normally
entrusted to a man of equestrian standing. Among others, Balbus held
that very task in Spain under Caesar.41
37
Cic. Att. 9.11.4 (SB 178): omnis spes salutis in illis est.
38
Plut. Cic. 38.4: ἡλίκον’ εἶπεν ‘ἀγαθόν ἐστι Γραικὸν ἔχειν ἔπαρχον. Lintott 2013: 192 points out that
the term Γραικός is derogatory; cf. also Plut. Cic. 5.2.
39
Cf. Strabo 11.5.1: συστρατεύσας τῷ Πομπηίῳ; Welch 1995: 140 overrates Theophanes’ military
experience, while Badian 1997: 7 downplays it unduly. Faoro 2011: 20 sees Theophanes’ praefectura
as a military advisory role.
40
Syme 1964: 28 = 1979: 524.
41
Syme 1939: 355; Badian 1997: 5 notes that the date of his appointment is uncertain.
The most emphatic confirmation of the political significance of
Theophanes, however, does not come from an unsympathetic acquain-
tance such as Cicero but from a shrewd enemy such as Caesar. In the third
book of the De bello ciuili, Caesar records the attempts he made to avoid
a full-scale military confrontation as late as the weeks preceding Pharsalus,
when both armies were deployed in Greece (3.18.3–5). He sent his prisoner
L. Vibullius Rufus to bring a personal message to Pompey, which was
conveyed in the presence of the men ‘with whom Pompey was used to
confer most regularly’:42 L. Scribonius Libo (by that point a praetorius),
L. Lucceius and Theophanes. Their presence in the room is surely an
indication that Pompey was considering discussing the contents of the
message that Vibullius was about to convey. The terms of the message,
however, made Pompey’s decision very simple. He gave a firm reply,
interrupting his interlocutor without consulting his friends: he was not
prepared to accept the terms set by Caesar.43
Caesar’s passage is the most explicit attestation in the ancient evidence of
the existence of what may be termed – resorting to a modern concept that
carries some explanatory power in the study of Roman politics – an ‘inner
circle’ of Pompey. The suggestion is not new: R. Laqueur already spoke of
an ‘engstes Gremium’ of Pompey.44 The inner circles of major political
figures, whether in antiquity or in modern times, are structures of varying
degrees of formalisation, which bypass institutional frameworks and often
deal with confidential and problematic issues, but are usually not secret
per se. Their shape depends on the leadership style and priorities of the
individual around whom they rally. Different leaders will have different
ways of recruiting, dealing with and dismissing their advisors. Some of
them will tend to rely on the same core of confidants from the same
political and social background for a considerable stretch of time, whereas
others choose them from a range of different quarters and tend to replace
them frequently.45 In Republican Rome (a world where nothing even
remotely comparable to modern political parties existed) there was
a consolidated tradition of informal political conversation and activity
surrounding both serving magistrates and figures of some distinction – in
42
Caes. B Civ. 3.18.2: quibuscum communicare de maximis rebus Pompeius consueuerat.
43
Seager 2002: 165. 44 Laqueur RE s.v. Theophanes no. 1: 2098.
45
Ramsey 2004 uses the notion of ‘inner circle’ unproblematically in a discussion of Caesar’s politics in
46–45 bc; the case of L. Calpurnius Piso, discussed by Cas Valachova in Chapter 7, is noteworthy.
See also Kit Morrell’s discussion in Chapter 8 of the short-lived but significant collaboration
between Pompey and Cato’s ‘circle’ in 52 and Cato’s apparent involvement as an informal advisor
to Pompey at the time (Plut. Cat. Min. 48.1–2); cf. Morrell 2017: 204–207. For a close study of a late-
twentieth-century inner circle, cf. Preston 2001.
peacetime and on campaign – and individual members of the elite, whether
within one’s family or in one’s circle of friends. There is no reason to think
that Pompey was atypical in his decision to surround himself with advisors
whom he trusted and resort to their advice frequently. We just happen to
know about his dealings with his advisors slightly better than is the case
with other figures of comparable prominence.
Not over-interpreting whatever precious little evidence we have is
crucial. Speaking of a ‘foretaste of secret rule’, as Syme did, is somewhat
misleading46; as we have seen, there is no evidence for secret or covert
operations conducted by Theophanes. His political work at times
revolves around delicate and confidential issues, but that is not remark-
able in itself. Moreover, it was common for a serving magistrate, espe-
cially in a province, to have a group of advisors supporting him in his
duties.47 What is noteworthy, in this case, is that Pompey surrounded
himself with a circle of trusted advisers at various points during his
political career, even when he was not holding a magistracy. It is impos-
sible to establish how unusual that arrangement was: none of the sources
that discuss the work of Pompey’s advisers points out that there is any-
thing exceptional about their involvement. If one were to draw an
analogy with the previous generation, there are some surviving traces of
the close association between Sulla and several individuals, whether of
senatorial status (such as Lucullus, L. Valerius Flaccus or Pompey him-
self), or – in the hostile tradition – of far less distinguished ancestry, such
as Chrysogonus, Epicadus or Tarula – the satellites of Sulla chastised by
Sallust in the Oratio Lepidi.48 As Cicero’s Pro Roscio Amerino strongly
suggests, Chrysogonus is likely to have been a shrewd and ruthless
political operator, especially in the season of the proscriptions, but the
evidence gives no elements to establish what the nature and quality of his
political work were. Pompey also established a close personal association
with a Greek freedman, Demetrius of Gadara, whose wealth and influ-
ence on him irritated Cato,49 but we do not find Demetrius at work as
a close political advisor anywhere in Cicero’s letters or elsewhere in the
ancient evidence.50 This would suggest that Theophanes had something
to offer to Pompey’s cause that not all of his Greek friends could, and
which proved especially valuable in the complex context of the 50s bc,
when Pompey was one of the most influential men in Rome, played
46
Syme 1939: 407. 47 Marquardt 1881: 531–3. 48 Sall. Hist. 1 F55.2M. See Syme 2016.
49
Plut. Pomp. 40; Cat. Min. 13.2–3.
50
In Cic. Att. 4.11.1 (SB 86), from June 55 bc, he is cursorily mentioned as a potential source on
Pompey’s current plans.
a central role in the political arena but did not have an official status for
the best part of the decade.
What commands the attention of contemporary sources, in Theophanes’
case, is the social and ethnic background of the individual advisor – not his
involvement with complex political matters. As we have seen, after the
outbreak of the Civil War, Pompey made an effort to recognise the role of
at least some of his advisors in an official capacity. By contrast, there is
nothing quite comparable in the Pompeian camp to what one can see at
work around Caesar between 46 and 44 bc: a complex network of advisers
and specialists that J. Malitz aptly called the ‘Kanzlei’ of Caesar.51 The list of
the attested praefecti fabrum (drawn up by K. Welch) shows that they were
typically individuals of equestrian rank who enjoyed a close personal rela-
tionship with the magistrate who appointed them.52 None of them appears
to have become a member of the senatorial order, with the notable exception
of Cornelius Balbus, who was appointed praefectus fabrum by Caesar twice,
first during his praetorship and later during his consulship, long before he
embarked on the cursus honorum.53 When Pompey appointed Theophanes
to the office of praefectus fabrum in 49 bc, he was building on a precedent in
which a recently enfranchised citizen had been assigned the post. Moreover,
Pompey is known to have appointed two more people to that role in 49:
L. Vibullius Rufus, who was involved with recruitment operations in central
Italy until he was captured at Corfinium by Caesar and had also acted as
a conveyor of messages from Pompey to Cicero in the aftermath of the
conference of Luca (Q Fr. 3.1.18 [SB 21], September 54 BC and Fam. 1.9.10
[SB 20], October 54) and, as we saw earlier, from Caesar to Pompey during
the Civil War, and Numerius Magius, who, interestingly, was, like
Theophanes, a new citizen – albeit of northern Italian background, since
he hailed from Cremona.54 While it is excessive to argue that Pompey tried
to confer an official status on these men because he saw that there was
a problem, whether real or perceived, with the status of the members of his
inner circle, the position of these praefecti fabrum is remarkable and brings us
back to the problem of the status of the individuals who surrounded Pompey
before and during the Civil War.
51
Malitz 1987; cf. also the reference to φίλοι of Caesar in Plut. Brut. 7.3, discussed by Cas Valachova in
Chapter 7.
52
Welch 1995; however, there is no firm evidence that equestrian status was a prerequisite (Badian
1997: 3).
53
It is doubtful whether Caesar expected him to remain priuatus; contra Welch 1995: 136.
54
He may have been the maternal grandfather of the historian Velleius Paterculus: Vell. 2.76.1, with
Woodman 1983: 185.
Whatever the exact implications of his official title may have been,
Theophanes was among those who surrounded Pompey in the immediate
aftermath of Pharsalus and in an advisory capacity that is fully in keeping
with what is known about his involvement with Pompey in the previous
years. Shortly after the battle, Pompey docked at Mytilene, where he was
joined by his wife Cornelia: her presence in this town in August 48 bc is
further confirmation of the strength of the ties it had with Pompey. Plutarch
singles out Theophanes’ contribution to the debate that took place among
the members of Pompey’s entourage on the safest destination for his escape.
Pompey’s preference was for Parthia, other unnamed advisors suggested
Libya, while Theophanes made the case for Egypt in an argument that was
based on ostensibly sound political reasoning.55 Ptolemy had a debt towards
Pompey, whereas the Parthian King Arsaces had no ties with Rome, and
there was no way of predicting what sort of host he would have turned out to
be. Plutarch had access to traditions that looked at the role of Theophanes
with ill-disguised hostility, and these may conceivably be reflected in this
passage.56 There were different accounts of that fateful debate: Lucan
attributes the suggestion to P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther (a distinguished
member of the Pompeian camp but no close associate of Pompey himself),
Appian states that the decision in favour of Egypt was made unanimously by
the whole circle of Pompey’s advisors after they had discarded the option of
an escape to Parthia, while Velleius argues that the choice to go to Egypt was
made by Pompey himself.57
It is unclear what destiny befell Theophanes after the tragic demise of
his patron – what his movements were and what impact his connection
with the defeated camp had on his fortune and his political and social
standing. He certainly survived, though, and was pardoned by Caesar
sometime later. He makes his final appearance in the literary record in
a letter that Cicero wrote to Atticus in mid-June 44 bc.58 Cicero cursorily
mentions a letter that Theophanes sent him a few days earlier, asking for
a meeting in which he intended to discuss both his own affairs and issues
of concern to Cicero. It is unclear how Cicero intended to respond to that
invitation; the following sentence suggests that he would have welcomed
Atticus’ advice on the terms of a possible reply. It is a reasonably safe
assumption that Theophanes’ letter was written in Italy and that the
meeting was due to take place in Rome or in one of Cicero’s country
55
Plut. Pomp. 76.6–9.
56
Cf. Pomp. 37.2–3. Canfora 1999: 212–13 also draws attention to the literary strategy of Plutarch, who
appears keen to depict a downfall that Pompey could have avoided at various junctions.
57
Seager 2002: 167, 242, n. 136. 58 Cic. Att. 15.19.1 (SB 396).
residences.59 We do not know whether this was intended to be the first
encounter between the two men since the end of the war, nor can we say
anything informed about the object of the conversation that Theophanes
hoped to have. The suggestion that he intended to approach Cicero on
behalf of Sextus Pompeius is intriguing but unfounded,60 nor is there is
a cogent reason to see in the brief reappearance of Theophanes an
indication that ‘the genuine Pompeiani were attempting to regroup’ in
the late spring of 44 bc.61 A connection with Sextus Pompeius, in fact, is
not entirely certain even in the following years, although a monument at
Mytilene included three inscriptions that honoured, respectively, Cn.
Pompey, Theophanes and Potamon.62 Theophanes is mentioned with
the name of Zeus Eleutherios, and his divine status is a clear indication
that the dedication was a posthumous one. If that were the case, the
monument would therefore pay tribute to a former patron of the city and
an illustrious citizen who even deserved the title of ‘second founder’ while
at the same time acknowledging the role of a new individual as the new
figurehead of the community. Potamon readily emerged as a figure of
great significance in the months following Pharsalus, along with his
younger fellow-citizen Crinagoras.63 When he briefly docked at Lesbos
in mid-August 48 bc, about ten days after Pharsalus, it was Pompey
himself who invited the Mytileneans to switch their allegiance and to seek
a formal contact with Caesar, who could be expected to be humane and
merciful.64 Potamon, a relatively young local notable on whose relation-
ship with Theophanes no information survives, took a leading role in that
process and established a personal relationship with Caesar and subse-
quently with Octavian.65 In that context, it is at first sight surprising to
find a celebration of Pompey: the connection of the city with the man
that had restored its freedom, however, could not be denied even after his
downfall and could easily be justified before those who had fought him in
the Civil War. There is no need to link the monument to the short phase
in which Sextus Pompeius was present at Lesbos, as he unsuccessfully
tried to rally his forces in the aftermath of the battle of Naulochus.66
59
Ferrary 2005: 56, n. 14 = 2017: 271, n. 14. 60 Welch 1995: 141, n. 68. 61 Welch 2012: 154.
62
Syll.3 752–4. 63 Bowie 2011: 183–95.
64
Plut. Pomp. 75.2; cf. Caes. B Civ. 3.102.4. Canfora 1999: 422, n. 8 argues that Theophanes was the
source used by Plutarch in this passage and in the account of the conversation between Pompey and
the philosopher Cratippos; there is no evidence that his work covered these events.
65
Parker 1991. Syme 1939: 262 unnecessarily posits a rivalry between Theophanes and Potamon.
66
Robert 1969: 49 = 1989: 568, against Laqueur RE s.v. Theophanes no. 1: 2094; Arrayás Morales 2010:
135 argues that there is no evidence that Sextus stopped at Mytilene, but just that he docked at
Lesbos: that is an unnecessary subtlety.
The latest pieces of evidence, therefore, link Theophanes back to his
hometown, albeit in the role of the ‘second founder’, the local glory who is
part of the historical memory of the community. As J.-L. Ferrary pointed
out, Theophanes is, along with Mithridates from Pergamum, a figure that
marks a fundamental moment of discontinuity in the relationship between
Roman and Greek elites and the beginning of a new phase in the history of
euergetism: their communities are no longer the main focus of their interests
and efforts, and their rise is secured by a direct personal connection with
a Roman grandee.67 Their different trajectories show that there was not
a single set blueprint: Mithridates made a signal military contribution to the
victory of Caesar in the Alexandrian War and, while retaining a connection
with Pergamum, went on to take charge of a client kingdom of Rome.
Theophanes’ connection with Pompey enabled him to develop a distinctive
profile in Roman politics, which was also matched by his involvement in the
Civil War campaign. Far from being a mere honorific token, his Roman
citizenship crucially puts him on the political map of the Urbs: when he
approaches Cicero and Atticus, Theophanes acts with the clout and the
credentials of a Roman citizen who also has a unique connection with
Pompey. One can only speculate on what plans Pompey may have had for
his Mytilenean advisor, had he won in the Civil War; it is not farfetched to
imagine that he would have undertaken a similar itinerary to that followed
by the Caesarian Balbus, who held the praetorship in 44 or 43 bc and rose to
the consulship in 40.68 Had that been the case, he would, of course, have
been the first member of the senatorial order to hail from the Greek-speaking
part of the Empire, and the history of the integration of the Hellenic elites at
Rome would have begun two generations earlier than it eventually did. Had
Pompey won, of course, the place of the Greek East in the Empire would
have been quite different, albeit along lines that are hard to divine. The first
attested senator from Asia Minor, as is well known, is Theophanes’ grand-
son, Q. Pompeius Macer, who reached the praetorship in ad 15.69 His ability
to reach such prominence has persuasively been explained by Theophanes’
decision to return to Italy after the Civil War, although it should be stressed
that his father (i.e. Theophanes’ son) was a procurator in Asia in the Augustan
period.70 At any rate, this, like any form of counterfactual history, is an
interesting but not rewarding pursuit.
67
Ferrary 1997b: 204 = 2017: 202. 68 Badian 1997: 7.
69
Tac. Ann. 1.72, 6.18, with Bowersock 1965: 41.
70
Ferrary 2005: 56 = 2017: 271. Bowie 2011: 182–3 points out that Strabo’s emphasis on Theophanes’
prestige must be understood against the backdrop of the standing of his descendants.
As pointed out earlier, the enfranchisement of Theophanes is, on the
basis of the surviving evidence, an unparalleled development in the inter-
action between Roman and Greek elites in the mid–first century bc.71
Things changed considerably after Caesar’s victory, when the policy of
awarding Roman citizenship to local notables, who had a distinguished
record of cooperation and loyalty with the princeps, becomes the rule, and
the evidence yields the names of a considerable number of C. Julii, enfran-
chised either by Caesar or by Augustus. None of them, however, joined the
senatorial order. Many notables from Asia Minor, who had a distinguished
record of loyalty to Rome, such as the Mytilenean Potamon, did not take
up Roman citizenship. A. Momigliano memorably pointed out that one of
the distinctive features of the Augustan settlement is that the princeps’ ‘men
were Agrippa and Livy – and Vergil’, instead of Cornelius Balbus and
Theophanes.72 That Italy and its elites took centre stage in Augustus’
strategy is indisputable, and the decision not to enrol individuals from
the provincial elites into the senatorial order was a clear political choice,
which also conveyed a forceful message to the Italian elites.73 To be sure,
Augustus resorted to the counsel of Greek advisors, such as Areius of
Alexandria or Athenodorus and Nestor of Tarsus, whom he also entrusted
with political and administrative matters in their home communities.74
However, quite apart from the different political regime under which they
operated, these individuals arguably relate to a different ideal type. Their
connections with the princeps were formed in an educational setting rather
than in a political or military one. More importantly, there is no evidence
that they played a role in Roman politics or government business of
comparable significance to that of Theophanes.75
One is left wondering what message the promotions of Theophanes and
Balbus had conveyed to the provincial elites a generation earlier – precisely
because they were such exceptional cases – and whether they could have
possibly seemed realistically attainable models to people of comparable
standing in provincial communities. The complexity of the matters that
were entrusted to Theophanes is considerable, as we have seen from the
little evidence that survives, and was matched by the influence that he had
71
On balance, the case of [L.? Corne]lius Alexidis Menodorus from Ephesus of AE 1997: 1436, who
held the praefectura fabrum and the military tribunate primus ex is qui in Asia habitant (‘first among
those who live in Asia’), should probably be dated to the age of Caesar or Augustus: Eck 1997: 111–12.
72
Momigliano 1940: 79 = 1960: 413.
73
Crawford 2008: 638 speaks of an ‘Augustan counter-revolution’ in this respect.
74
Evidence and discussion in Bowersock 1965: 33–4 and Salmeri 1982: 7.
75
This does not rule out the tenure of administrative posts: cf. Areius’ involvement as dioiketes in Sicily
(Plut. Mor. 207B) and the elusive notice about him in Suid. s.v. Θέων.
on Pompey. It is worth bringing into the equation two more levels of
explanation, one pertaining to structural factors and one rooted in
Theophanes’ own biography. In the new monarchic context, there was
hardly any need, or any place, for a shrewd, indeed sophisticated political
operator such as Theophanes, dispensing the sort of informal advice and
using the sort of informal level of persuasion that he deployed in the
instances discussed by Cicero. Moreover, the very scale of the achievements
of Theophanes, the complexity of the briefs he was given and his political
longevity, cut short only by Pompey’s defeat in the Civil War, suggest
a more specific explanation, which is at least worth entertaining: he was
a man of remarkable talent, and it is quite possible that no one in the
generation that came of age after Pharsalus proved to have comparable
abilities or to warrant the special treatment he received. Arguably, and
quite straightforwardly, Theophanes happened to be an exceptional man at
an exceptional historical time.
chapter 7
The Garden and the Forum

Epicurean Adherence and Political Affiliation
in the Late Republic
Cas Valachova
Among the Epicureans identified with some confidence in the Late Republic
are two (or perhaps even three) consuls, a brace of praetors, two provincial
governors of uncertain rank and an eminent jurist.1 Why these self-professed
followers of pleasure and shunners of peril chose to enter the political arena
has rightly been the subject of much scholarly attention, as has the question
on what doctrinal grounds they may have justified this course.2 Yet, there is
another related concern that has thus far merited rather less discussion:
namely, how it was that these political Epicureans rose to the highest ranks
of the cursus honorum and whether their philosophical presentation was
a help, a hindrance or even relevant at all.
It is tempting to dismiss out of hand the idea that their philosophical
leanings had any bearing on political actions and posit what Miriam
Griffin calls a ‘gap in thought and action’ attributable to either
a dichotomy in thinking or just a frivolous approach to philosophy.3 Yet,
when the careers of those Epicureans who flourished enough to be suffi-
ciently attested are examined, it is apparent that they have two main factors
in common, both of which are reconcilable with genuine belief in (or, at
least, self-representation as a follower of) the Epicurean school.
The first of these is a reliance on what Yakobson defines in this
volume as the ‘non-popular aspects of electioneering’ and, in particular,
I would like to thank Andrew Erskine and Gabriel Evangelou for reading drafts of this chapter at
various stages.
1
Consuls: L. Calpurnius Piso, C. Vibius Pansa, (possibly) Aulus Hirtius; praetors: C. Memmius,
C. Cassius Longinus; governors: L. Manlius Torquatus, M. Fadius or Fabius Gallus; jurist:
C. Trebatius Testa. Source: the indispensible prosopography of Castner 1988.
2
E.g. Fish 2011; Roskam 2007; Sedley 1989.
3
Griffin 1989: 11–12. ‘Dichotomy theory’ is represented by Earl 1962 and ‘frivolity theory’ by
Shackleton Bailey, esp. 1965–70 I: 8. Castner 1988: 31: ‘Clearly philosophical adherence was for . . .
Roman Epicureans of the upper classes[,] an aspect of culture and not of politics.’
147
148 cas valachova
bonds of amicitia with a more powerful and established individual.4
The second is a distinct focus on both personal and public security.
These commonalities are no coincidence: we shall see that they are
linked with philosophical adherence both by Cicero (as so often in the
Late Republic, our main source on this matter) and, where such
records exist, by the Epicurean politicians themselves. Nor is another
recurring feature of these careers coincidental: that all but one of the
successful Epicureans fell into the Caesarian faction and exploited
their bonds to its leader to such an extent that upon first glance
Julius Caesar appears to be the unlikely nexus of the Epicurean
political circle at Rome.
Before we proceed to examine in detail the careers of this Epicurean
network, a note on the potential philosophical underpinnings of a quietistic,
amicitia-based strategy is required. The exhortation μήπολιτεύεσθαι (‘do
not politicise’) was clearly not obeyed by those who took this path,
perhaps evaded by exploiting an apparent loophole in the kuriai doxai
that those in a position to enhance their security through political
advancement should be allowed to do so.5 To claim that a political career
was not detrimental to ataraxia (‘tranquillity’), however, adherents not
only would have to avoid putting themselves in a position to incur
physical peril (which would also preclude military prowess as a means
of impressing the electorate) but also would have to ascend to their
aspired rank without ever doubting that they were able to do so, thus
preserving their mental tranquillity.6
The Epicurean political hopeful would also have doctrinal grounds for
avoiding the making of public addresses unless necessary, with recourse to
the exhortation of the master preserved in Diogenes Laertius that ‘the wise
man will not attract a crowd’.7 Though strictly a prohibition of demago-
guery, it could certainly be cited alongside the need to preserve ataraxia as
4
See Chapter 1. Amicitia in this context is so closely tied up with the concepts of political affiliation,
cooperation and loyalty that it cannot be translated merely as ‘friendship’, yet nor can that meaning
be entirely dismissed. See Brunt 1965; Yakobson 1999.
5
Cic. Att. 14.20.5 (SB 374). Or, as Armstrong 2011: 110 argues, perhaps this maxim, attested only by
Cicero (also: Fam 7.12 [SB 35]; Leg. 1.39), was not genuinely Epicurean but an exaggeration of what
Seneca records in Dial. 8.3.2 as non accedet ad rem publicam sapiens nisi si quid interuenerit (‘the wise
one will not approach public matters if there is not some imposition’). See also Cic. Rep. 10; F555
Usener. There is some Hellenistic precedent for Epicureans engaging in politics by acting as advisors
to kings: Plut. Pyrrh. 14; 20. See also Warren 2002: 156–7; Aalders 1975: 45.
6
Thus they could avoid becoming the frustrated politician in Lucretius’ portrait, whose currying of
favour has become a literally Sisyphean task. Lucr. 3.978.
7
Diog. Laert. 10.132.
The Garden and the Forum 149
a reason for lack of engagement with the more unruly forms of public
meeting, especially the contio.8
The positive strategy of shoring up friendships with the politically
powerful has rather less shaky philosophical foundations.9 Indeed,
Epicurus reportedly wrote that ‘of all the means which are procured by
wisdom to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most
important is the acquisition of friends’ and that ‘nothing enhances our
security so much as friendship’.10 He also employed this technique in his
own lifetime, courting the powerful Mithres and Idomeneus in the pre-
carious fledgling days of his school.11
Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus

What, then, did these strategies look like when deployed in the political
arena of the Late Republic? They are perhaps best illustrated in the case of
Piso, the consul of 58 bc. His adherence is a certainty, evidenced by his
patronage of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara and
Cicero’s very specific insults in his In Pisonem.12 While this invective speech
necessitates a measured approach due to its vituperative nature, the volume
and diversity of Cicero’s insults make it an invaluable source on Piso’s
philosophy and his career.
Through In Pisonem we learn that if anyone could say that he was so
assured of his success that his candidacy never caused him mental distress,
it was Piso. Even Cicero was forced to concede that he attained every office
he sought sine repulsa or on the first attempt.13 This he attributed not to any
particular political skill on the part of his target but to the natural advan-
tages he had over his peers. In particular, Cicero, a nouus homo, resented
the fame and good reputation of Piso’s family and ancestors, among whom
were several consuls:
8
Likewise ‘live unknown’, which Roskam 2007 has demonstrated to have been a rather flexible
exhortation.
9
Friendship was also valued for its own sake: Sent. Vat. 52: ‘Friendship dances all about the world,
calling us to awaken and recognise that we are blessed.’ For more on both the utility and the intrinsic
good of Epicurean friendship, see Konstan 1997: 108–12.
10
Diog. Laert. 10.148.27.
11
Mithres was a Syrian steward of Lampsacus, whom Epicurus was accused of ‘basely flattering’ (Diog.
Laert. 10.4). Idomeneus was a courtier of the same place, connected to the school by his marriage to
Batis, sister of Metrodorus (F55–56 Usener). On their patronage of Epicurus, see De Witt 1954: 78–9,
88; Fowler 1989: 123–4.
12
Also the Epicurean name ‘Ikadion’ of one of his daughter’s household slaves (CIL VI: 14211).
13
Cic. Pis. 1.2: ‘Will he even boast to me that he gained every magistracy on the first attempt?’
150 cas valachova
nam tu cum quaestor es factus, etiam qui te numquam uiderant, tamen
illum honorem nomini mandabant tuo. aedilis es factus; Piso est a populo
Romano factus, non iste Piso. praetura item maioribus delata est tuis. noti
erant illi mortui, te uiuum nondum nouerat quisquam.14 (Cic. Pis. 1.2)
Although there is some obvious hyperbole here, it is certainly the case that
Piso’s ancestry was a boon in the Roman political arena. The more impor-
tant implication of this statement is that Piso was an obscure figure to the
populus Romanus.15 Although it is unlikely that the electorate would have
been unable to pick him out of a line-up, it does seem to be true that Piso
did not engage in public oratory to the extent expected of a man of his
ambition, and indeed his first (and only) attested contional speech in 58 bc
was produced under pressure from tribune Clodius.16 Piso was apparently
wary in general of appearing in public, something Cicero attributes to
a fear of crowds.17
If Piso’s success cannot be attributed to his oratory, it can certainly (at
least in part) be attributed to savvy interpersonal dealings, the most pivotal
being the marriage of his daughter Calpurnia to Julius Caesar. Such was the
political significance of this union that Cato reportedly exclaimed in horror
(and with characteristic showmanship) that political primacy was now
apparently gained through the arrangement of marriages.18 And indeed,
the marriage was almost contemporaneous with Piso’s accession to the
consulate, a significant rise in status even without considering the fact that
he had not been viewed as a viable candidate earlier that year.19
If Piso’s career was a success story, so too was his relationship with
Caesar. This bond was not untested: the marriage that anchored it was
a troubled one, which produced no issue and was marked by inconspicuous
infidelity on the part of Caesar. Nor was the political side of the union
unproblematic: Piso’s reaction to his son-in-law’s crossing of the Rubicon
was to leave town quietly, demonstrating a greater concern for security
than for political ambition or factional loyalty.20 Yet Caesar remained
married to Calpurnia despite the ease with which he had dissolved earlier
14
‘But when you were made a quaestor, even those who had never laid eyes on you still entrusted that
honour to your name. When you were made aedile, a “Piso” was elected by the Roman people, not
you specifically. Your praetorship, likewise, was won by your ancestors. They were famous even in
death, while no one knew a thing about you in life.’
15
On public recognition of politicians, see Chapter 3. 16 See Chapter 5.
17
Cic. Pis. 65. Cicero even suggests that Piso is afraid of being attacked.
18
App. B Civ. 2.2.14. Also, Suet. Iul. 21; Plut. Caes. 14.4. See van der Blom 2012.
19
Cic. Att. 2.5.2 (SB 25) lists the candidates as Pompey, Crassus, Ser. Sulpicius and Gabinius
in April 59 bc.
20
Cic. Att. 7.13.1 (SB 136); Fam. 14.14.2 (SB 145).
conjugal unions, and Piso preserved the link with Caesar even beyond his
death, acting as executor of his will.21 This suggests an element of genuine
affection to the bond.
The philosophical basis for Piso’s oratorical quietism and reliance on
friendship as a political strategy is not explicitly attested, though there is
evidence that he publicly justified at least one career event in philoso-
phical terms: that being his failure to reap a triumph from his
province.22 In In Pisonem, Cicero mocks: at audistis, patres conscripti,
philosophi uocem. negauit se triumphi cupidum umquam fuisse (‘But listen,
conscript fathers, to the voice of a philosopher! He denies he was ever
desirous of triumphs!’).23 The setting of this reported remark is unclear,
though it was probably made in response to some remark in De prouin-
ciis consularibus, in which Cicero made some outlandish claims about
the ineptitude of Piso as a governor.24 Whether publicly or privately,
though, Piso evidently defended himself at least in philosophical lan-
guage or perhaps even with explicit reference to his Epicureanism, in
either case obviously enough to furnish Cicero with ammunition for this
jibe.
Piso is far from the image of the Epicurean painted by Cicero in De
finibus, whose brave actions and public honours (unlike Piso, Torquatus,
the interlocutor of this piece, did receive a triumph upon returning from
his province) were reportedly kept publicly and psychologically at a remove
from Epicureanism’s fundamentally self-interested guiding principle.25
If Piso incorporated his self-presentation as an Epicurean into justification
for his actions, it does not seem so unlikely that his political style as a whole
was informed by his chosen philosophy.26
21
On Caesar’s divorce from Pompeia, see Cic. Att. 1.13 (SB 13); Plut. Caes. 9–10; Suet. Iul. 6.2. On his
separation from Cossutia, to whom he may or may not have been married, see Suet. Iul. 1. On Piso’s
actions in 49, see Cic. Att. 7.13.1 (SB 136); Fam. 14.14.2 (SB 145).
22
See Griffin 2001: 91.
23
Cic. Pis. 56.1. As Griffin 1989: 13 points out, Cicero would have been dismissive of a philosophical
stance in the contio, even were it not Epicurean, as this kind of concern is ‘beneath the dignitas of
a princeps ciuitatis’.
24
Possibly Cic. Prov. 14, where Cicero accuses Gabinius of submitting spurious justifications for
a supplicatio, while from Piso he writes, nullae litterae proferuntur. This is probably a more or less
accurate representation of what was said by both Piso and Cicero; see Morstein-Marx 2004: 29. For
more on this aspect of In Pisonem specifically, see Nisbet 1961: 199–202, arguing that it is
significantly expanded, and Booth 2007: 6 refuting this.
25
Cic. Fin. 2.74.
26
Piso’s career as a whole reflects a desire for peace. Syme 1939: 118 speculates that in the wake of the
Ides of March, he attempted to thwart Antony’s ambition by declassifying Cisalpine Gaul as
a province, thus neutralising a strategic military post. Nic. Dam. F130.28 describes him as dis-
honestly and suspiciously neutral during this time.
152 cas valachova
C. Vibius Pansa
Another securely attested political Epicurean whose career followed
a similar trajectory was Vibius Pansa, one of the ill-fated consuls of
43 bc. His adherence is confirmed in the letters of Cicero, which would
be a rather more shaky foundation were it not for the fact that Cicero’s
respondents consistently affirm this identification.27 The strength of this
association is apparent in the fact that Pansa is used almost as a byword for
Epicureanism in Cicero’s correspondence with Cassius (discussed later).28
Pansa’s political ascent would have been unlikely even if had he not been
a known Epicurean. As a nouus homo, he could not, like Piso, rely on his
familial reputation to help him rise through the ranks.29 Nor was he
a gifted public speaker. Suetonius writes that he and his colleague
Hirtius were tutored in public speaking as consuls-elect, suggesting that
their deficiency in this area was conspicuous enough to necessitate
a hurried intervention. Cicero, their instructor, condescendingly called
them grandis praetextatos, or ‘big boys’, a reference to the elementary
material being covered in his lessons.30 It was certainly not ruthless ambi-
tion or political daring that propelled Pansa through the ranks.31 His focus
on security, in particular, his own, is most evident in his actions after the
assassination of Caesar. Rather than capitalising on the fact that he held the
highest office in the land, he repeatedly attempted to broker peace between
the assassins and the heirs.32 Even before this, Cassius wrote to Cicero of
Pansa’s clemency and the affection it earned him.33
Pansa’s most valuable asset as a politician was a knack for exploiting
personal relationships. In Cicero’s generally lukewarm recommendations
of him, one of the few positives he musters is that Pansa has Caesar’s ear:34
27
Cic. Fam 15.19 (SB 216); 7.12 (SB 35). There is some tenuous suggestion in Cic. Fam. (9.16.7 [SB
190], 18.3 [SB 191], 20.2 [SB 193]) that Pansa’s colleague Aulus Hirtius was also an Epicurean, mainly
in the form of jibes about his propensity for fine dining.
28
There is good evidence for a large corpus of letters between Pansa and Cicero, unfortunately now
lost. See White 2010: 171–3.
29
Pansa’s family may even have been proscribed (Dio Cass. 45.17.1).
30
Suet. Rhet. 1. Pansa was also the dedicatee of at least book 4 of Philodemus’ De rhetorica. Dorandi
1996: 41.
31
Though he did serve on Caesar’s campaign in Gaul. Cicero, writing on this (Fam. 7.12 [SB 35]), does
not mention his conduct in combat but does remark on his Epicureanism and prominence within
the Caesarian camp.
32
For Pansa’s desire for peace and his lack of animosity towards Antony, despite being an early
encourager of Octavian, see Cic. Att. 14.20 (SB 366). Piso, too, made a great effort towards securing
peace, serving as part of a consular embassy to Antony (Cic. Fam. 12.4.1 [SB 363]).
33
Cic. Fam. 15.19 (SB 216).
34
In more private letters, Cicero displays outright contempt towards this consular pair: Att. 16.1.4 (SB
409); Fam 16.27.1 (SB 352).
principem tamen habuimus Pansam, tui studiosissimum, mei cupidum, qui
ualeret apud illum non minus auctoritate quam gratia.35 (Cic. Fam. 6.12.2
[SB 226])
That the bond was built on equal parts auctoritas and gratia suggests that it
was simultaneously affectionate and the product of a functioning and
hierarchical political relationship. That it led to Pansa’s accession to the
highest rank in the Republic is testament to its strength. Caesar’s hand is
even more obvious in the election of Pansa than that of Piso simply because
at this stage of his career the then-dictator could make unilateral decisions
about the election of magistrates, as with his assignment of the urban
praetorship of the same year (see below).36
So in Pansa we have an individual who was a known Epicurean and
relatively obscure political figure (to the extent that Syme dismisses him as
a ‘nonentity’) who nevertheless attained the highest office with the greatest
of ease.37 This he achieved by exploiting a personal relationship, the one
career path open to a follower of the Garden.
Gaius Memmius
If Pansa and Piso represent the success stories of the strategy of cosying up
to Caesar, there were also the failures. The most notorious of those who ran
on the Caesarian ticket, as it were, was Gaius Memmius, tribune of the
plebs in 66 bc and the dedicatee of Lucretius’ De rerum natura, whose
reputation was so tarnished by his foray into politics that it has made
generations of scholars doubt that Lucretius was even trying to impart
moral philosophy to such a man, despite the frequent direct addresses in
the poem.38 Fewer still believe he was actually an Epicurean.39 The two
events, though, that have made so many see Memmius as an unlikely
follower of Epicurus – his prosecution for ambitus in 52 bc and his quarrel
with the Epicurean scholarch (head of school) Patro – in fact support his
(brief) adherence.
35
‘But most importantly we have had Pansa, who is most fond of you and solicitous of me, who holds
sway with [Caesar], no less through friendship than authority.’
36
As Gruen 1969: 315 points out, as part of the ‘triumvirate’, Caesar could not entirely guarantee electoral
results, hence the need for the electoral fraud of the 53 bc consular elections (discussed below).
37
Syme 1939: 133: ‘Even a nonentity is a power when a consul at Rome.’
38
E.g. Allen and De Lacey 1939.
39
Balsdon 1979: 51 is characteristic: ‘The dedication [of Lucretius’ De rerum natura], however, is belied by
the facts of his career: corruption, intrigue, exile.’ Fowler 1989: 122 argues that the didactic nature of De
rerum natura proves that Memmius was not already an Epicurean at the time of composition, yet
nothing mandates that an individual must become educated in the philosophy before identifying with it.
154 cas valachova
The squabble with Patro over Memmius’ plans for the house of
Epicurus in the Athenian deme of Melite is particularly well attested, as
Cicero attempted to mediate at the request of his Epicurean friend
Atticus.40 The uncharitable interpretation of this incident is that
Memmius intended to raze the ruin and build an unassociated structure,
thus proving his hostility to the Epicurean school. He would have to be
very hostile indeed, though, and spiteful, to acquire this site as a non-
Epicurean simply to destroy it.41 And this would not necessarily have been
easy, for although this house was willed to Epicurus’ executors rather than
to the school in perpetuity (as the Garden itself was), it is clear from the
letters of Cicero and Atticus that the existing school took a keen interest in
the site and believed that they had some legal claim to defending it, going
so far as to involve the Areopagus in the dispute.42
It is highly unlikely, then, that a non-Epicurean would have wanted to,
let alone been able to, purchase such a site. As Stearns argued as early as 1931
(to rather less acknowledgement than he deserves), it is far more plausible
that Memmius was indeed a follower of the school when he purchased the
ruin, and rather than wishing to destroy it, he simply hoped to redevelop
it.43 Even if, by the time Patro had resorted to asking Cicero and Atticus to
intercede, Memmius was indeed threatening destruction (a possibility that
cannot be ruled out), it is not necessarily the case that he never had more
noble and philosophical intentions with regards to the property.44
The corrupt consular campaign becomes less of an issue for identifying
Memmius as an Epicurean when its resolution is considered, in particular,
the bizarre way in which the plot came to light.45 According to Cicero,
Memmius himself declared publicly that he and his intended colleague,
Domitius Calvinus, had bribed the incumbents with a faked decree that
would allow them to reap extra rewards from their proconsular
40
The banker Titus Pomponius Atticus. Cic. Fam. 13.1 (SB 63). There is some debate over Atticus’
identification as an Epicurean because Cicero never explicitly called him one, and the school was not
mentioned in Cornelius Nepos’ biography of Atticus. The most comprehensive treatment remains
Leslie 1950, despite its simplistic conclusion that Atticus was a ‘Roman Epicurean’ (precisely what
this means is not explored).
41
Not all find this implausible, though. Sedley 2009: 45 says that the correspondence between Cicero
and Memmius ‘gives clear signals of the latter’s contempt, not only for the reverence felt by so many
Romans towards hallowed philosophical relics, but Epicureanism itself’.
42
Cic. Att. 5.11.6 (SB 104).
43
Stearns 1931: 161–2 (though Griffin 1995: 333, n. 36, does acknowledge the possibility).
44
See also Griffin 1989: 17. Cicero’s constant reassurances that he speaks on behalf of Atticus rather
than Patro in this correspondence (Fam. 13.1.5 [SB 63]) may reflect simply that Memmius has fallen
out with the latter rather than suggesting he is hostile towards Epicureanism in general.
45
For a full account of this incident, see Gruen 1969.
provinces.46 This seems odd, especially when Memmius was the clear
frontrunner in the preceding weeks, and unlike Pansa, he had a fairly
illustrious family to strengthen his claim.47 Why, then, would he sabotage
his own campaign at the last minute?
The answer may be that that was not what he thought he was doing.
That he thought he could still be elected after revealing his corruption
seems to be an even more unlikely proposition, yet a recent development in
his strategic alliances may have convinced Memmius that it was possible.
Cicero wrote to Atticus that a burgeoning relationship with Caesar had
drastically expanded Memmius’ client base, and what is more, his new
amicus could apparently be counted on personally to help seal the result if
Memmius could not exploit this advantage himself:48
Memmius Caesaris commendetur militibus, Pompei gratia nitatur. quibus
si non ualuerit, putant fore aliquem qui comitia in aduentum Caesaris
detrudat.49 (Cic. Att. 4.16.6 [SB 89])
If this explains his overconfidence, though, it still does not account for the
revelation itself.50 Perhaps he was tipped off that the plot was about to
come to light and naively thought that by coming clean he would escape
repercussions. Or maybe he was troubled by pangs of conscience and
wanted to free his mind of the resultant turmoil (unlikely, given what we
know of his character). Or, more plausibly, he may have believed that he
was acting in the interests of another, in particular, one who had already
demonstrated the ability to give his career a boost. This is suggested by
Cicero’s depiction of Caesar’s reaction. He writes
Memmius autem dirempta coitione inuito Calvino plane refrixerat et eo
magis nunc quod iam intellegebamus enuntiationem illam Memmi ualde
Caesari displicere.51 (Cic. Att. 4.17.3 [SB 91])
46
Cic. Att. 4.17 (SB 91).
47
Though none had, as yet, reached the consulate. Lucr. 1.42 references the fame of the Memmii.
48
For Caesar’s influence over previous elections, see Plut. Caes. 21; cf. Storch 1995: 46.
49
‘Memmius is commended to Caesar’s soldiers, and supported by Pompey’s influence. If he cannot
pull it off by these means, people think that there will be someone along to suppress the elections
until Caesar’s return.’
50
Cicero (Att. 14.17.2 [SB 371]; Q Fr. 3.1.16 [SB 21]) seems to think that Pompey encouraged Memmius
to make the revelation, which seems odd considering that he had only recently switched his
patronage from another candidate, M. Aemilius Scaurus (Cic. Q Fr. 3.2.3 [SB 22], 3.6.3 [SB 26])
to Calvinus, who stood to suffer most. (Cic. Q Fr. 3.4.1 [SB 24] relates Calvinus making a public
gesture of goodwill to Pompey by publicly voting to acquit Gabinius.)
51
‘Memmius, however, having broken the alliance against the will of Domitius, is in the cold, and all
the more because now we have found out that that speech of Memmius has greatly displeased
Caesar.’
156 cas valachova
From an outsider’s perspective, this would appear to be trivially true;
Caesar, of course, would have been irritated by his chosen candidate
implicating himself in a corrupt scheme. But why would Cicero even
bother to mention it? And why nunc . . . intellegebamus, if his respondent
could have gathered this a priori? No, there must have been some chance,
however remote, that Caesar would have approved of Memmius’ plan, or
the latter would not here be lamenting his patron’s reaction.
How could this self-destruction possibly have been welcomed by Caesar?
For one thing, the running mate so dramatically ditched through this
revelation was an ardent anti-Caesarian.52 Maybe Memmius thought that
by publicly abandoning Calvinus and his corrupt machinations towards
power, he could demonstrate faith in the support of his new ally.53 Perhaps
he hoped that by drawing a line under his previous dangerous behaviour, he
could present himself as the sort of person who would rather rely on his
loyalty than get involved with the kind of schemes by which he could
damage himself and others. Perhaps he even justified this in Epicurean
terms, and claimed that the plotting had been causing him intolerable
mental anguish. What is certain, though, is that he no longer wanted to be
a part of the corruption that he had initiated earlier in his campaign, and
instead desired to pursue a safer course, based on a personal bond.
Although the ignominious end of Memmius’ political career certainly
had much to do with his abrupt swing into the Caesarian faction, there is
no direct evidence to confirm that his philosophical beliefs played a role in
his choices. His situation, though, was later closely mirrored by that of
another individual, who himself linked his newfound allegiance with
Caesar to a burgeoning interest in Epicureanism.
Caius Cassius Longinus

Cassius, Caesar’s eventual assassin, is a rare self-attested political
Epicurean.54 Though his early career was forged through actions about as
far as possible from the recommendations of the Garden – his salvaging of
Crassus’ Parthian campaign after the rout at Carrhae, his subsequent
52
Cic. Sest. 113; In Vat. 16, 38; Dio Cass. 38.6.1.
53
This possibility is bolstered by the fact that in the aftermath of the plot coming to light, Memmius
declared his intention to act as prosecutor against Calvinus in his trial for the electoral fraud they
engaged in together. See Gruen 1969: 319.
54
Cic. Fam. 15.17 (SB 214), 15.18 (SB 213), 15.19 (SB 216). References to Cassius’ Epicureanism and his
abandonment of that philosophy in Plutarch’s Brutus (36–7, 39) and Caesar (66) are most likely the
fabrications of a hostile witness. Even Sedley 1997: 41, who takes these passages as good evidence for
Cassius’ continuing adherence after the Ides, admits that the events depicted are likely fictional.
governance of Syria and his prominent role in the Pompeian faction during
the Civil War – Cassius later adopted a more quietist approach and wrote
to Cicero of his new identification as an Epicurean.55
The drastic change in political modus operandi occurred after Pompey’s
defeat at Pharsalus and Cassius’ subsequent pardon by Caesar. After
serving as legate in 47 bc, he uncharacteristically declined to take any
role in the conflict with Cato and Scipio and held no office for two years.56
To fill the void left by political and military activities, Cassius appears to
have engaged in social and philosophical pursuits.57 These are the subjects
of a letter from Cicero in 45 bc, who begins by teasing Cassius for his
adoption of a philosophy with such a bizarre physical system.58 He goes on
to refer directly to Cassius’ conversion, providing us with a strong terminus
post quem of 48 bc, which reaffirms its contemporaneity with the pardon
and Cassius’ apparent retreat from public life:59
sed haec posterius; tempto enim te quo animo accipias. si enim stomacha-
bere et moleste feres, plura dicemus postulabimusque, ex qua αἱρέσει ‘ui
hominibus armatis’ deiectus sis, in eam restituare. in hoc interdicto non
solet addi ‘in hoc anno.’ qua re, si iam biennium aut triennium est cum
uirtuti nuntium remisisti delenitus inlecebris uoluptatis, in integro res nobis
erit. quamquam quicum loquor? cum uno fortissimo uiro, qui, postea quam
forum attigisti, nihil fecisti nisi plenissimum amplissimae dignitatis. in ista
ipsa αἱρέσει metuo ne plus neruorum sit quam ego putaram, si modo eam tu
probas.60 (Cic. Fam. 15.16.3 [SB 215])
Cicero emphasises that this behaviour was wildly out of character for
Cassius, not only his jocular assertion that he has been led to his new
philosophy by the ‘force of armed men’ but also his labelling of his
55
Dio Cass. 40.28; Caes. B Civ. 3.5.
56
MRR II: 290, 300. Perhaps Cassius hoped, by hiding in Brundisium, to avoid testifying against his
friends from the Pompeian camp. See Meyer 1922: 431.
57
Cic. Fam. 15.17.4 (SB 214).
58
Cic. Fam. 15.16 (SB 215). The Epicurean doctrine of sight is a favourite Ciceronian hobby-horse (Att.
2.3.2 [SB 23]; Nat. D. 1.107–8). As Gilbert 2015: 194–215 argues, Cicero may well be invoking this in
his correspondence in order to hone the polemics for his dialogues.
59
Dettenhoffer 1990 and Canfora 1999: 327 identify the discussion of Cassius’ conversion as a coded
reference to his passing into the Caesarian faction. While the deeper meaning is certainly Cassius’
standing among his new faction, the connection between text and subtext is not as arbitrary as the
term implies, as demonstrated later.
60
‘But that’s for later. For I am merely testing in what spirit you take it. For if you grumble and take it
with vexation, I shall have more to say later, that you must be restored to that school from which you
have defected “by the force of armed men”. To this kind of interdiction is not usually added the
condition “within the year”, so even if it is two or three years since you divorced virtue and were
charmed by the allurements of pleasure, it is still valid. But with whom am I speaking? With a very
brave man who, having obtained office, has done nothing that has not enhanced his dignity. There
must be more vigour in that school of yours than I had thought, if you now esteem it.’
158 cas valachova
correspondent as a uir fortissimus, certainly not usually the sort to engage in
effeminate philhellenism and cowardly avoidance of peril.61
Cassius rises not to these jibes against himself but to the insinuation that
all Epicureans have been seduced by pleasure. In his response, he not only
confirms his adherence but also professes his loyalty to his new associates.
He playfully concedes that the contemporary popularising philosopher
Catius may not be the most erudite but suggests that there are as many
boors among the Stoic camp.62 He takes a more firm approach to the
allegations of immorality:
itaque et Pansa, qui ἡδονὴν sequitur, uirtutem retinet et ii qui a uobis
φιλήδονοι uocantur sunt φιλόκαλοι καὶ φιλοδίκαιοι omnisque uirtutes et
colunt et retinent.63 (Cic. Fam. 15.19.3 [SB 216])
Here Cassius affirms and cements his connection to one of his amici noui:
the conspicuously Epicurean and definitively Caesarian Pansa (the semi-
public nature of any correspondence with Cicero would have meant that
praise for another would eventually get back to them, thus strengthening
the relationship).64 His choice is significant: not only is Pansa a well-
known adherent of the philosophy, but he is also one whose political
career is flourishing in spite of his identification with the school.65 This
is a statement of intent: Cassius is publicly aligning himself both politically
and philosophically with Pansa and hopes to enjoy the same success.
By insisting that Pansa’s path is a morally commendable one, Cassius
justifies his own intended actions.66
The newly Epicurean Cassius did successfully regain political momentum
under Caesar. Despite his period of inactivity, the dictator made him the
praetor peregrinus for 44 bc. This sure and steady path to power, which had
61
See Edwards 1993: 95.
62
Cic. Fam. 15.19.1 (SB 216), pro quo tibi proxima epistula tot rusticos Stoicos regeram, ut Catium Athenis
natum esse dicas (‘for him I will set you right in my next letter with so many boorish Stoics that you
will swear Catius was born at Athens’). Catius Insuber, apparently the author of at least one Latin
text on Epicureanism, is also mentioned in Quint. Inst. 10.1.124.
63
‘So therefore Pansa, who follows pleasure, retains his virtue, and those who are called pleasure-
seekers by you are also good-seekers and justice-seekers, and they all retain and cherish their virtue.’
64
Cic. Q Fr. 3.1.10 (SB 21). Cicero laments that everything he writes to his brother is reported to
Caesar. See Nicholson 1994: 39.
65
At this time, marching to support Caesar in Hispania, Pansa would be rewarded with governorship
of Cisalpine Gaul. Though Epicurus would not have supported the seeking of military glory for its
own sake, Sent. Vat. 56–7 provides some doctrinal justification for risking physical security on behalf
of a loved one. It states that the torture of a friend is as painful as experiencing torture oneself, and it
is acceptable to die to save a friend in such a situation.
66
He also demonstrates a clear understanding of Pansa’s Epicurean justification for his military
actions. See McConnell 2014: 25.
worked so well for Pansa and Piso, did not, though, satisfy Cassius’ innate
ambition. According to Plutarch, Cassius was not so much grateful for his
elevation as incensed that he had not been given the more prestigious role of
praetor urbanus, which had been allotted to the less qualified Brutus.67
Though Plutarch’s assertion that this slight was the motivating factor for
the assassination plot is implausible, it does mark the end of Cassius’
Epicurean behaviour. None of his subsequent actions – the murder, the
public proclamations that the dictator had been slain, the assassins’ military
campaign – is even remotely compatible with a commitment to quietism.
Epicureanism, then, did not come naturally to Cassius, and he identified
as such for only a few years. His adherence corresponds chronologically with
his incorporation into Caesar’s camp from that of Pompey, and the precar-
iousness of that situation implies that he surely would not have publicly
dabbled in the philosophy had it been in any way unwelcome to his new
master. Cassius must have thought that adhering to this philosophy was at
the very least not a hindrance under Caesar and possibly even a boon.
Gaius Iulius Caesar

The Epicureans who managed to reconcile their philosophical beliefs with
a successful political career in the Late Republic did so by exploiting their
closeness with Caesar. The one notable exception was L. Manlius
Torquatus, praetor in 49 bc and the Epicurean interlocutor of Cicero’s
De finibus. He was a staunch Pompeian, and he also differed from his
Epicurean peers in that he seemed conspicuously unconcerned with his
own physical and mental security, as evidenced by his prosecution of Sulla
in 62 bc and his heroic death a year before the composition of De finibus.68
But those who maintained any pretence of quietism we find among the
Caesarian faction.
An obvious (but unlikely) explanation that presents itself is that Caesar
was himself an adherent of Epicureanism. A sufficient number of scholars
have accepted this idea for Caesar to be included among the Epicurei Incerti
in Castner’s Prosopography of Roman Epicureans.69 This is one level of
67
Plut. Brut. 7.3.
68
Cic. Fin. 22.73. See Berry 1996: 17–20 and Alexander 1999 for Torquatus’ role and that of his father
in the prosecution of Sulla.
69
Castner 1988: 83–4. The scholars used to support this are Syme 1964; Gruen 1984; André 1966;
Paratore 1960 and, most importantly, Fussl 1980. Though the latter’s conclusion that Caesar was not
an Epicurean but incorporated aspects of the philosophy into his political justifications bears some
weight, the apparently Epicurean values cited (his lack of fear of death, freedom from superstition
160 cas valachova
certainty higher than that attributed to Gaius Memmius, dedicatee of the
greatest work of Roman Epicureanism and one-time owner of Epicurus’
own house. And this is no outdated school of thought: Fish, writing as
recently as 2011, allows for the possibility by adding ‘perhaps even Julius
Caesar himself’ to a list of Roman political Epicureans.70
The obvious counterargument to this proposition is the complete
dearth of any contemporary identification of Caesar as an Epicurean
despite his extensive autobiographical writings and his obvious relevance
to the writings of so many others.71 Rather, those who seek to make this
argument rely on the cumulative effect of several circumstantial pieces of
evidence. Among these, the most credible are a passage of Sallust in which
Caesar apparently evinces a prototypically Epicurean attitude towards
death (an event also recounted by Cicero) and some minor similarities
between his self-presentation in the commentaries and Philodemus’
On the Good King According to Homer.72 Bourne also argues for some
Epicurean ideals being evident in Caesar’s lifestyle choices.73 None of
these alone would constitute adequate evidence even if their veracity were
beyond doubt, and that is certainly not the case. In fact, each can be
countered with relative ease, leaving the proposition that Caesar was an
Epicurean untenable.74
Yet, it is undeniable that, at the very least, he was amenable to social and
professional advances by followers of the school despite the public con-
tempt for their values portrayed in the writings of Cicero and Lucretius.75
With such a high proportion of identified Republican Epicureans being
closely allied with Caesar, it is even plausible that he actively solicited their
acquaintance (there is, of course, no proof of this). There must have been
and aptitude and respect for friendship) are perhaps explicable as being merely innate characteristics
that happened to be compatible with the beliefs of his more philosophical friends. Fussl 1980: 80.
70
Fish 2011: 91.
71
Also, as Rawson 1989: 242 points out, Plutarch certainly would have mentioned it if Caesar had
studied under any Epicureans.
72
Sall. Cat. 51.20; Cic. In Cat. 5. On Epicureanism in the Commentaries, see Rambaud 1969; Fussl
1980. Cf. Castner 1988: 85; Bourne 1977.
73
Bourne 1977: 417–32.
74
On Sallust and Caesar’s attitude towards death, see Mulgan 1979, who argues that the idea that
death was not an evil in itself had been sufficiently absorbed by popular sentiment that it was more
a commonplace than an expression of Epicurean orthodoxy. Murray 1965 makes the case for On the
Good King not being a prototypically Epicurean text. As for Bourne’s arguments from Caesar’s
lifestyle, it should be evident that, for example, sobriety and temperance were not necessarily
Epicurean traits. Cassius, whom we know not to have been an Epicurean before 49 bc, never
drank alcohol his entire life.
75
Lucr. 1.945, ‘the common mass is repulsed at this’; Cic. Fin. 2.21, 2.74 (though he attributes popular
appeal to the Epicurean writings of Amafinius: Tusc. 6.6–7).
something about the values of the political Epicureans that made them
suited for a role in Caesar’s inner circle.
We may return to the failed relationship between Cassius and Caesar for
an insight into the workings of this group of close associates, seen here in
Plutarch’s portrayal of the incident that caused their rift:
Καῖσαρ δ᾽ ἀκούσας καὶ βουλευόμενος ἐν τοῖς φίλοις εἶπε: ‘δικαιότερα μὲν
λέγει Κάσσιος, Βρούτῳ δὲ τὴν πρώτην δοτέον.’ ἀπεδείχθη δὲ Κάσσιος ἐφ᾽
ἑτέρᾳ στρατηγός, οὐ τοσοῦτον εὐνοίας ἔχων δι᾽ ἣν ἔλαβεν ὅσον ὀργῆς ὧν
ἀπέτυχε.76 (Plut. Brut. 7.4)
Plutarch depicts Caesar mulling over the decision with his intimates, called
here philoi, which could imply a certain level of affection, as typical
between the leaders of this period and their advisers.77 He takes the time
to discuss this midlevel decision (it is not on the scale of crossing the
Rubicon, nor is it trivial) between his interviews with the candidates and
his decision, suggesting that he values the opinions of those closest to him.
Yet, his acknowledgement that Cassius is the better candidate for the
position of praetor urbanus before his emphatic statement that it is
Brutus who must be elected communicates clearly that all decisions are
ultimately his.78
So who would be among these friends? Very likely Pansa and Hirtius,
who were made consuls-elect in the same round of political decisions, and
equally probably Piso, whose role in the aftermath of the assassination
demonstrates that he was still a trusted and close ally of Caesar in the
preceding days – and certainly, too, a number of non-Epicureans, among
them Antony and Octavian. One of these who definitely enjoyed this level
of intimacy at the end of Caesar’s life was Gaius Matius, whose poignant
letter to Cicero after the Ides demonstrates the primacy of affection among
the confidants of Caesar:79
nota enim mihi sunt quae in me post Caesaris mortem contulerint. uitio
mihi dant quod mortem hominis necessari grauiter fero atque eum quem
76
‘Caesar, having heard [their respective claims] said, in deliberation with his intimates: “Though
Cassius speaks with greater justification, Brutus is to be given the more prestigious post.” Cassius
was redirected into another praetorship, but he bore greater anger over what he had lost than
gratitude for what he had.’
77
Though philoi could also be simply the language of Hellenistic kingship. See Santangelo’s
Chapter 6 on Pompey and his relationship with Theophanes of Mytilene, whom he valued and
admired so much that he made him a Roman citizen.
78
Brutus was probably favoured owing to Caesar’s close relationship with his mother, Servilia. See
Chapter 13.
79
Matius is also named as one of the intimates of Caesar in the previously discussed letter (Cic. Fam.
6.12 [SB 226]), alongside Pansa and Hirtius, as well as Balbus, Oppius and Postumius.
162 cas valachova
dilexi perisse indignor; aiunt enim patriam amicitiae praeponendam esse,
proinde ac si iam uicerint obitum eius rei publicae fuisse utilem. sed non
agam astute; fateor me ad istum gradum sapientiae non peruenisse; neque
enim Caesarem in dissensione ciuili sum secutus sed amicum; quamquam re
offendebar, tamen non deserui, neque bellum umquam ciuile aut etiam
causam dissensionis probaui.80 (Cic. Fam. 11.28.2 [SB 349])
Matius’ transparent and unabashed grief (or at least pretence thereof –
Lintott calls this letter a ‘masterpiece of rhetoric’) highlights the primacy of
affection between Caesar and his closest allies, which surpassed in impor-
tance ideological compatibility.81 Matius claims that he disagreed in prin-
ciple with the actions by which Caesar elevated himself to power but
nevertheless supported him because of the obligations of friendship. His
defiance of those who would prefer that he speak out against the murdered
Caesar and his passionate and emotive language speak to the depth and
genuineness of his feelings.82
Caesar placed great demands on his allies; his actions were controversial
and had an impact on everyone around him. Yet, throughout his career, at
least after his first consulship, he was remarkably successful in cultivating
the sort of loyalty that enabled him to do what he felt necessary, on scales
both small and grand.83 From convincing his armies to cross the Rubicon
to maintaining the relationship with his conscientiously objecting
father-in-law, Caesar displayed a knack for pushing others to put their
sentiments towards him above their own political ideals.84
This may have something to do with his acceptance of Epicureans as
members of his political circle. Bourne took Suetonius’ report that Caesar
was ‘notable for the cultivation of friendship to shore up his security at
a later time’ as evidence of Caesar’s Epicureanism.85 This is clearly too
80
‘For I know what charges have been gathered against me since the death of Caesar. People attribute
fault to me because I bear with grief the death of a friend and because I am outraged that someone
I loved has perished; for they say the fatherland is to be placed ahead of friendship, the same as if they
have already proved that his downfall was beneficial to the Republic. But I shall not counter that
craftily; I confess that I have not reached that level of sagacity; for I did not follow Caesar into civil
strife but a friend; although I disapproved, I yet did not desert him, though I approved of neither the
Civil War or the cause of the strife.’
81
Lintott 2008: 360–2. See also Konstan 1997: 131.
82
On other professions of love towards their master by Caesar’s followers, especially in correspondence
with Cicero, see Citroni Marchetti 2004: 288. See Griffin 1997 on the correspondence.
83
See Steel 2009: 115.
84
In Caesar’s own writings, it is clear that he considers political allegiance to be one of the conditions
of amicitia and even uses the latter to signify the former (e.g. B Civ. 1.1.3, 3.60.3). Unlike Cicero, he
thinks that friendship should be prioritised over political ideals (Cic. Att. 10.8B [SB 199B]). For
more on this, see Grillo 2012: 144–9.
85
Bourne 1977: 423; Suet. Iul. 23.2, 27.
strong a conclusion, but Caesar’s tactical use of friendship is compatible
with Epicurean ideals, far more so than the rigid academic view of the
nature of amicitia, which states that it must be based primarily on virtue.86
In the circle of Roman Epicureans, he would have found individuals with
a refreshingly practical view of friendship and no need to practice the
Ciceronian doublethink of denying its utility while frantically cultivating
bonds in the name of security. Furthermore, as they were permitted by
their chosen philosophy to admit to a concern for their personal safety,
adherents of Epicureanism would be particularly receptive to what
Dettenhoffer calls Caesar’s ‘clementia-Politik’.87
The focus on the tranquillity of the Epicurean school would also suggest
that its adherents would not be the sort to enact or incite violence, some-
thing that would surely be at the forefront of Caesar’s mind as he rose to
power. The idea that the Epicurean hedonic calculus and focus on security
would preclude participation in the kind of activity that would be of
concern to a dictator was certainly around after the assassination.
In Plutarch we find a (probably invented) episode in which one Statilius
is considered by the conspirators as an accomplice but ruled out on the
basis that his Epicureanism would make him unamenable to the task.88
This is not to say that Caesar necessarily sought out Epicureans because
of their philosophy. The incorporation of these individuals into his inner
circle could have happened far more organically; perhaps one of Caesar’s
close Epicurean friends happened to be the gatekeeper of his social circle.
Pansa is a good candidate for this, as the individual chosen by Cicero and
Cassius to symbolise the amici noui of the Caesarian faction and one
named explicitly by Cicero as being among Caesar’s confidants – likewise
Piso if only for the length and success of his relationship with his son-in-
law.89
It is worth noting, too, that while a powerful and tolerant patron such as
Caesar was a major boon for Roman Epicureans who aspired to politics,
86
Cic. Amic. 6.
87
Dettenhoffer 1990: 249. Cassius’ words to Cicero in Fam. 15.19.4 (SB 216) that he prefers an ‘old and
clement master’ to a ‘new and cruel one’ (Sextus Pompeius) is a perfect illustration of this policy in
action with an Epicurean. See also Bálazs 1986.
88
Plut. Brut. 12.3. Statilius’ comment on an apparently hypothetical discussion of civil war – that the
sage ought not to incur trouble and peril for the sake of the foolish – rules out his involvement.
There is no mention of this episode in the most contemporary account of the assassination, that of
Nicolaus of Damascus (see Lintott 2009: 78).
89
Also a possibility is Lucius Cornelius Balbus, not discussed here. Although he was certainly a close
friend of Caesar, the evidence for his Epicureanism is confined to Cic. Att. 12.2.2 (SB 238), in which
he is referred to as having pleasure as a guiding principle. See Castner 1988: 82.
164 cas valachova
they had another great advantage: each other. While Cicero’s view of Pansa
is that he is useful primarily as an intimate of Caesar, others may not
necessarily have seen him that way.90 Like the other Epicureans profiled
here, he held influential offices in his own right and had the potential to
smooth the path for his fellow adherents. Piso enacted various laws
throughout his career and appeared in court as a witness for the defence.
Even the Epicureans who did not run for offices themselves, such as
Atticus, had some potential to exert influence behind the scenes. It is no
wonder that Cassius, robbed of his original plan by the failure of his chosen
master, tried his hand at integrating himself into this circle not just as a way
of reconciling with Caesar but also as a valid career move in its own right.
90
In fact, Cicero accuses Trebatius of feigning Epicureanism upon his entry into the Caesarian camp
to appease not Caesar but Pansa: Cic. Fam. 7.12 (SB 35). See Gilbert 2015: 103–6.
chapter 8
Cato, Pompey’s Third Consulship and the Politics

of Milo’s Trial
Kit Morrell
In memory of my friend and teacher Martin Stone

Even those most sceptical of the concept of parties or factions at Rome
accept the existence of a meaningful grouping centred around the
younger M. Porcius Cato.1 ‘Cato’s circle’, as I term it,2 included his son-
in-law M. Calpurnius Bibulus, his brother-in-law L. Domitius
Ahenobarbus, his friend and collaborator M. Favonius, and various others
at different times.3 Older scholarship emphasised kinship ties,4 but it is the
consistent cooperation between these individuals in public affairs that
justifies their identification as a political alliance.
The group is best known for opposition to another acknowledged
alliance, that of Pompey, Caesar and Crassus. In 60–59 bc, for instance,
Cato supported Bibulus in opposition to Caesar;5 in 56 bc, Bibulus and
Favonius joined C. Curio and P. Servilius Isauricus in haranguing
Pompey;6 later that year, Cato urged Domitius to stand against Pompey
and Crassus for the consulship;7 and in 55 bc Cato and Favonius combined
with C. Ateius Capito to oppose the lex Trebonia.8 It therefore came as
a surprise (albeit a staged one)9 when, in early 52 bc, in the aftermath of
1
Note especially Meier 1980: 183–7 and Brunt 1988: 495. For Meier, Cato’s circle is the exception that
proves the rule; Brunt emphasises Cato’s exceptional personality. On the ‘factional’ approach to
Roman politics and its decline, see e.g. Hölkeskamp 2001, with further references.
2
For this and similar labels, see e.g. Mommsen 1857; Syme 1939; Taylor 1949; Gelzer 1963; Brunt 1988;
Gruen 1995.
3
Including L. Licinius Lucullus, the orator Q. Hortensius Hortalus and the younger P. Servilius
Isauricus.
4
E.g. Münzer 1920: 328–47; Syme 1939: 23–4. 5 E.g. Suet. Iul. 19.1; Plut. Cat. Min. 31.5, 32.2.
6
I.e. the younger Curio and the younger Servilius: Cic. Q Fr. 2.3.2 (SB 7). Cato was in Cyprus at the
time.
7
Plut. Cat. Min. 41–2; Pomp. 52.1–2. Cf. Cic. Att. 1.16.12 (SB 16) for cooperation in 61 bc.
8
Dio Cass. 39.34. Favonius and Ateius are found cooperating again in 54 bc (Cic. Att. 4.17.4 (SB 91));
Cato was ill at the time. Cf. Plut. Cat. Min. 46 for Cato’s involvement with Favonius’ aedileship.
9
Plutarch (Pomp. 54.4; Cat. Min. 47.3) emphasises the unexpectedness of Bibulus’ proposal and, in
particular, of Cato’s support for it, but Asc. 35–6C implies that ‘the optimates’ (‘the best men’,
165
166 kit morrell
Clodius’ death, Bibulus and Cato proposed in the Senate that Pompey
should be made ‘consul without a colleague’.10 It was the beginning,
I argue, of real and enduring cooperation, if not an alliance as such.
What follows draws on the detailed evidence surrounding Milo’s trial to
illuminate this new relationship and its broader historical significance.
Tracking the complex and often conflicting alignments at work in 52 bc
also affords insights into the nature of political alliance in Republican
Rome.
Politics as Usual?
Many commentators, ancient and modern, interpret the sole consulship as
the beginning of something like an alliance between Pompey and the
optimates. That was Velleius’ view (2.47.3); Dio Cassius (40.50.5) says
that in 52 bc the Senate was able to detach Pompey from the populace
and make him their own, and Cicero indicates something similar when he
refers to Pompey’s ‘divine third consulship’, when he took up the role of
‘defender of the Republic’.11 For scholars such as Mommsen, Meyer and
Taylor, it was a step in the side-taking leading up to the Civil War,
although Pompey had not yet broken with Caesar.12 Others, such as
Gruen, Seager and Fehrle, emphasise the emergency character of the
arrangement and deny that it signalled any lasting relationship.13
The Senate acted amid ongoing violence, with no hope of elections; the
sole consulship was simply ‘the least bad option’,14 a means of restoring
order while avoiding a dictatorship or a joint consulship of Pompey and
Caesar. This interpretation is essentially Plutarch’s, derived from
a biographical tradition that insisted on Cato’s independence, sometimes
in the teeth of the evidence.
meaning a group of leading senators including Cato and friends) had come to a decision beforehand,
and Pompey surely had been involved as well. Moreover, this was not the first time that Cato had
called on Pompey to restore order. Plut. Pomp. 54.2–3 and Dio Cass. 40.46.1, read together, suggest
that it was on Cato’s motion that the Senate called on Pompey to restore order in 53 bc (cf. Gelzer
1984: 156; Meyer 1922: 210–11).
10
Consul sine collega: Asc. 35–6C. While the formal motion came from the consular Bibulus, Cato
played the decisive role. App. B Civ. 2.23 and Plut. Caes. 28.7 do not mention Bibulus at all, and it
was Cato to whom Pompey expressed his gratitude (Plut. Cat. Min. 48.1–3; Pomp. 54.5).
11
Cic. Att. 7.1.4 (SB 124): illo diuino tertio consulatu; 8.3.3 (SB 153): defensor rei publicae.
12
Mommsen 1857: 340; Meyer 1922: 221–2; Taylor 1949: 149; cf. e.g. Gelzer 1968: 151–2; Shackleton
Bailey 1971: 97.
13
Gruen 1995: 153–4, 339–43; Seager 2002: 135; Fehrle 1983: 210.
14
Wiseman 2009: 121. Cf. Fehrle 1983: 210; Gruen 1995: 340.
Cato, Pompey’s Third Consulship and the Politics of Milo’s Trial 167
For Gruen,15 Milo’s trial is key. The sole consulship was ‘a necessary
but temporary evil’; the trial signalled the resumption of ‘politics as
usual’. Thus, while Pompey pressed for conviction, Cato and friends
were among Milo’s most prominent supporters: Cato’s disciple
Favonius gave evidence for the defence, his nephew Brutus published
a pamphlet praising Milo’s act, and it was taken for granted that Cato
himself, who was one of the jurors, would vote to acquit. But this
analysis disregards crucial evidence of cooperation between Pompey
and Cato’s circle precisely in the context of Milo’s trial. Most signifi-
cantly, the quaesitor elected to hear cases under the lex Pompeia de ui was
L. Domitius Ahenobarbus.16 His election, Cicero tells us (Mil. 22), was
tantamount to personal appointment by Pompey, evidently arranged in
advance,17 and the more significant in view of past enmity between
Pompey and the Domitii Ahenobarbi.18 In addition, M. Favonius pre-
sided over trials de sodaliciis (Asc. 54C); it is likely he too was specially
selected.19 These appointments not only presuppose cooperation
between Pompey and his erstwhile opponents, but publicly proclaimed
it.20
Cato, meanwhile, was among the 360 jurors personally chosen by
Pompey to hear cases under his laws de ui and de ambitu.21 He sat on the
jury at Milo’s trial and was retained among the final fifty-one after sortition
and challenges.22 By common consent, Pompey’s album was of unprece-
dented reputation and integrity,23 and Cato in particular could be regarded
as a ‘star juror’.24 Cicero (Mil. 44) remarks on the ‘kind of divine lot’
(diuina quadam sors) that had selected him. In later trials, simply to
challenge Cato was regarded as a sign of guilt.25 His very presence on the
15
Gruen 1995: 340–1.
16
Cf. Meyer 1922: 232; Gelzer 1968: 152; Dragstedt 1969: 82; Lewis 2006: 244.
17
Domitius was elected immediately (statim) after the lex Pompeia was passed: Asc. 38C.
18
In 82 bc, Pompey had executed Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, perhaps an older brother of Lucius
(Carlsen 2006: 53).
19
Perhaps because regular magistrates were yet to be elected for 52 bc; cf. Lewis 2006: 244. Linderski
1972: 196–7 = 1995: 246–7 takes a different view.
20
Conceivably, being seen to resolve the sort of discordia optimatium (‘discord among the best men’)
the haruspices had warned against a few years earlier (Cic. Har. resp. 40; cf. Lenaghan 1969: 157–8)
was part of Pompey’s programme to heal the state.
21
Asc. 38C; Cic. Mil. 21, 105; Att. 8.16.2 (SB 166); Dio Cass. 40.52.1; Vell. Pat. 2.76.1. See below for
a refutation of the notion that Cato also gave evidence at the trial.
22
Cic. Mil. 44; Asc. 53C; cf. 39C for the procedure.
23
Asc. 38C; Cic. Mil. 21, 105; Vell. Pat. 2.76.1. 24 Cic. Mil. 44; cf. 16, 26, 58.
25
Plut. Cat. Min. 48.5. Vell. Pat. 2.47.5 suggests that it would have been in Cato’s power to bring about
Milo’s acquittal, but see below.
168 kit morrell
jury – without, for instance, blocking his ears26 – tended to validate the
trial process and Pompey’s actions.27
Finally, the lex Pompeia de ui, under which Milo was tried, was passed in
pursuance of a decree of the Senate (Asc. 36C) and took up the terms of
a proposal framed by Milo’s supporters. Both referred to the murder on the
Via Appia, the burning of the Senate House and the attack on the home of
the interrex M. Lepidus.28 The Senate would have preferred a trial under
existing laws, but the part of its decree pronouncing the three incidents
contra rem publicam (‘against the state’) was proposed before tribunician
interference forced the creation of a special court.29 The motion came from
Hortensius, with Cicero’s support30 and probably Cato’s as well.
Hortensius and Cato were closely allied at this time by way of their
notorious wife-transfer arrangement.31 Earlier, they had appeared together
in the matter of Milo’s slaves.32 Moreover, the policy behind the contra rem
publicam decree was the same as prompted Cato’s support for the sole
consulship – the repudiation of private violence in favour of magisterial
authority and the rule of law.33 At any rate, the only recorded opposition to
26
See below on Plancus’ trial. Plutarch, who highlights Cato’s objections to the lex Pompeia de ambitu
and the conduct of other trials (Cat. Min. 48.3–4), has nothing to say about the lex de ui or the trial
of Milo; this suggests that Cato did not use it as an occasion for challenging Pompey.
27
Cic. Mil. 21, referring to the jury as a whole.
28
Asc. 36C: deinde post diem tertium de legibus nouis ferendis rettulit: duas ex S. C. promulgauit, alteram
de ui qua nominatim caedem in Appia uia factam et incendium curiae et domum M. Lepidi interregis
oppugnatam comprehendit (‘next, after three days, [Pompey] consulted [the Senate] regarding the
passage of new laws. He promulgated two by senatorial decree, one concerning violence which
referred expressly to the murder carried out on the Appian Way, the burning of the Curia, and the
assault on the house of the interrex M. Lepidus’). Asc. 44C: pridie Kal. Mart. S. C. esse factum,
P. Clodi caedem et incendium curiae et oppugnationem aedium M. Lepidi contra rem p. factam (‘on
the day before 1 March, a senatus consultum was passed that the slaying of P. Clodius, the burning of
the Curia, and the assault on the house of M. Lepidus had been carried out contrary to the interests
of the res publica’). Cf. Cic. Mil. 13, 15. It is not clear from Asconius whether Pompey consulted the
Senate on the day the contra rem publicam decree was passed or the day before (see Lewis 2006: 242,
with further references), but his rogatio de ui (‘bill about violence’) was formulated only after the
Senate’s decree.
29
Originally it was part of the motion calling for a trial under existing laws: Cic. Mil. 13–14; Asc.
43–5C.
30
Cic. Mil. 13–14; Asc. 43–5C.
31
In 56 bc, Cato divorced his wife Marcia so that Hortensius could marry her; the intention was to
strengthen their personal connection through children who would be half-siblings. Cato and Marcia
remarried after Hortensius’ death. See e.g. Plut. Cat. Min. 25.2–5, 52.3–4; Luc. 2.326–45.
32
Asc. 38C; see n. 45.
33
Cato supported the sole consulship on the basis that ‘any form of government is better than anarchy’
(πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν ὡς ἀναρχίας κρείττονα): Plut. Cat. Min. 47.3; cf. Pomp. 55.4. Cicero (Mil. 13) outlines
the Senate’s policy: cur igitur incendium curiae, oppugnationem aedium M. Lepidi, caedem hanc ipsam
contra rem publicam senatus factam esse decreuit? quia nulla uis umquam est in libera ciuitate suscepta
inter ciuis non contra rem publicam (‘Why, therefore, did the Senate pronounce that the burning of
the Curia, the attack on the house of M. Lepidus, and this very murder with which we are dealing
the lex Pompeia de ui came from Caelius, not from Cato and friends
(Asc. 36C).
In delivering his verdict, however, Cato made his true feelings known –
or so Velleius believed:
quem quidem M. Cato palam lata absoluit sententia; qui si maturius
tulisset, non defuissent qui sequerentur exemplum probarentque eum
ciuem occisum quo nemo perniciosior rei publicae neque bonis inimicior
uixerat.34 (Vell. Pat. 2.47.5)
If Velleius is correct, Cato’s actions amounted to public criticism of the
trial process, which excluded any argument that Milo had acted for the
good of the state,35 and a clear signal that any previous cooperation with
Pompey was at an end. But Asconius, who investigated the matter speci-
fically, says that no one could find out how Cato voted:
fuerunt qui crederent M. Catonis sententia eum esse absolutum; nam et
bene cum re publica actum esse morte P. Clodi non dissimulauerat et
studebat in petitione consulatus Miloni et reo adfuerat. nominauerat quo-
que eum Cicero praesentem et testatus erat audisse eum a M. Fauonio ante
diem tertium quam facta caedes erat, Clodium dixisse periturum esse eo
triduo Milonem sed Milonis quoque notam audaciam <remo>ueri a re
p<ublica> utile uisum est. scire t<amen> ne<mo> umquam potuit utram
sententiam <tulisset>.36 (Asc. 53–4C)
Asconius seems to have known Velleius’ version and rejected it.37
Nonetheless, most modern scholars hold that Cato voted to acquit and
some that he did so openly.38 Indeed, according to Lintott and Stone, Cato
thought that Milo should have been defended on the grounds that he had
were contrary to the interests of the state? Because no violence is ever used between citizens in a free
state which is not contrary to the interests of the state’). On the significance of declaring an action to
be contra rem publicam, see Lintott 1999a: 116–18.
34
‘Cato, however, voted openly for acquittal. If he had voted earlier, there would have been others who
followed his example and approved the killing of a citizen more ruinous to the Republic and more
hostile to good men than any who had ever lived.’
35
Stone 1980: 90–5; see below.
36
‘There were some who believed that the vote of M. Cato was for acquittal, for he did not conceal his
belief that the state had benefited by the death of P. Clodius, and he supported Milo in his campaign
for the consulship and as a defendant. In addition, Cicero had named him [Cato] as present and
attested that he [Cato] had heard from M. Favonius three days before the murder took place that
Clodius had said that Milo would have perished within three days. But it also seemed beneficial that
Milo’s notorious audacity should be removed from the state. However, no one could ever find out
which way Cato voted.’ The last sentences have been restored, but the meaning seems secure. Stangl
(p. 45.14–15) has the same text.
37
Cf. Greenidge 1901: 396, n. 1; Fehrle 1983: 212–13.
38
E.g. Gruen 1995: 340; Stone 1980: 103, n. 121; Alexander 1990: 151 (no. 309); Wiseman 1994: 412,
n. 166.
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performed a public service by killing Clodius39 – a defence that flew in the
face of the anti-violence policy of the Senate and the sole consul. I argue, on
the contrary, that Cato deliberately concealed his verdict so as not to
undermine the trial process or Pompey’s authority as consul and that his
support for Milo was entirely compatible with the Senate’s policy.
Contra Rem Publicam

As Stone has shown, one effect of the contra rem publicam decree was to
preclude the defence from arguing that Milo had killed Clodius for the
sake of the state.40 At the trial, therefore, Cicero relied solely on the
argument that Clodius had laid an ambush and that Milo had acted in
self-defence (Asc. 41–2C); the pro re publica (‘for the state’ or ‘public
interest’) argument found in the published version was a later addition.41
It was a significant handicap but one self-imposed by Milo’s
supporters.42 It appears that they had consciously sacrificed Milo’s
strongest line of defence to the anti-violence policy that also produced
the sole consulship.
Cato, as we have seen, probably supported the contra rem publicam
decree; indeed, he had been one of the architects of the Senate’s policy.43
We would therefore expect him to accept its implications,44 and there is
strong evidence that he did. During the intercalary month, when
Clodius’ nephews brought a private law action for the production of
39
Lintott 1999a: 60; Stone 1980: 94–5.
40
Stone 1980: 91; cf. 90–5. Stone suggests that the terms of the contra rem publicam decree were
incorporated in the lex Pompeia, but in my view it would have had the same effect on a trial under
existing laws (cf. note 29). The view that Cicero chose not to adopt the pro re publica line (Riggsby
1999: 112–19; Lintott 2008: 250–1) is less plausible in view of the weakness of the self-defence
argument: it was a poor fit with the facts (cf. Asc. 32C), and Milo, for one, thought the published
speech would have been more effective (Dio Cass. 40.54.3).
41
Perhaps in early 51 bc: Stone 1980: 109–11 (see below). Cf. Berry 1993; Riggsby 1999: 110; Alexander
2002: 22; Lintott 2008: 250. In my view, Fotheringham’s arguments against later revision (2013:
10–12) are not sufficient to overcome the combination of Asconius’ evidence and the strong internal
and historical arguments raised by other scholars.
42
See above.
43
See note 33. More specifically, Riggsby (1999: 199) points out that the ‘medical’ rhetoric of the sole
consulship co-opts the language used previously of ‘self-appointed’ defenders of the res publica –
tumultuous figures such as P. Sestius and Milo himself. That is, the care of the state is no longer to be
effected through private violence but through magisterial imperium. Plutarch (Cat. Min. 47.2)
implies that Cato helped devise this rhetoric when he has Cato propose the sole consulship as
a remedy (ἴαμα) for the state.
44
Lintott’s view (1999a: 60) that Cato ‘seems to have approved in principle of private action against
enemies of the Republic’ is contradicted by the evidence, as he himself acknowledges: in addition to
Cato’s policy in 52 bc, note Plut. Cat. Min. 35.1 and Dio Cass. 38.17.4.
Milo’s slaves,45 and in a contio around the same time, Cato took up the
self-defence line: ‘Those who had defended the life of their master were in
the highest degree deserving not only of freedom but of every reward.’46
This speech and the conversation reported to Cato by Favonius – that
Clodius had said that Milo would be dead in three days’ time47 – also
supported the positive onus the defence was obliged to establish at trial,
namely, that Clodius had laid an ambush for Milo.48 But there is no trace
here of a pro re publica argument; indeed, the self-defence line was
actually inconsistent with any claim that Milo had killed Clodius for
the good of the state.
It is likely that Cato took the same position in the Senate. Cicero later
wrote to him, ‘You regarded my enemy as your enemy, and even approved
his destruction – I see clearly how much you were doing for me – when you
defended the causa Milonis in the Senate.’49 Again, there is nothing to
suggest that Cato raised the pro re publica argument. Interitum . . . appro-
baris is Cicero’s inference, not Cato’s opinion, and in any case not incon-
sistent with the anti-violence policy.50 Moreover, Cicero claims that only
four or five senators could be found who did not approve the causa Milonis
(Mil. 12). Assuming that the Senate did not both approve Clodius’ murder
and pronounce it contra rem publicam,51 probably this means that the
majority (Cato included) accepted Milo’s claim to have acted in self-
defence. It is possible that Asconius (34C) refers to this occasion when he
describes Metellus Scipio’s speech in senatu contra †M. Cepionem† around
18 February.52 The name is usually emended to Q. Caepio (that is,
M. Brutus),53 but Stangl, Marshall and others favour a reference to
Cato.54 Certainty is not possible, but what is clear is that Scipio’s opponent
had advanced the self-defence argument.55
45
Asc. 34C. Asconius gives only Hortensius’ argument but Cato’s was evidently similar. See Lintott
1974: 71 on the nature of these proceedings, which were entirely separate from Milo’s later trial under
the lex Pompeia de ui.
46
Cic. Mil. 58: non libertate solum sed etiam omnibus praemiis dignissimos fuisse qui domini caput
defendissent. On the timing, cf. Asc. 51C; Pina Polo 1989: 305; Morstein-Marx 2004: 3, n. 11.
47 48
Cic. Mil. 26, 44; Asc. 54C. Cic. Mil. 23, 31; Stone 1980: 91–2.
49
Cic. Fam. 15.4.12 ((SB 110), late 51 or early 50 bc): inimicum meum tuum inimicum putaris; cuius
etiam interitum, cum facile intellegerem mihi quantum tribueres, Milonis causa in senatu defendenda
approbaris.
50
That is, Cato could approve Clodius’ death without approving his murder; see below.
51
As Cic. Mil. 12 tries to imply. 52 Asc. 34C; cf. Ruebel 1979: 238 on the date.
53
See Lewis 2006: 240–1. This is impossible, however, if Brutus was not in Rome at the time (see
Marshall 1985: 174; and note 57 in this chapter).
54
Asc. 33.6St; Marshall 1985: 174–5. Other possibilities are M. Cicero and M. Caelius.
55
Asc. 34–5C; cf. Stone 1980: 93, n. 28.
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The evidence that Cato nonetheless claimed Milo had acted pro re
publica – despite the contra rem publicam decree and his own anti-
violence policy – is not compelling. Velleius’ account is suspect;56 nor
can we infer Cato’s views from Brutus’ Pro Milone, which was likely
written later and at any rate was not subject to the same constraints as
a forensic speech.57 By contrast, there is no reason to doubt Asconius’
testimony that Cato considered Clodius’ death a benefit to the state and
was prepared to say so.58 The murder had been contra rem publicam, but it
was quite possible to approve the mors (‘death’) without approving the
caedes (‘killing’). Cicero draws just such a distinction in Mil. 14 when he
says that the public interest demanded Ti. Gracchus and Saturninus be
crushed, yet the crushing itself inflicted a wound on the Republic.
Likewise, Clodius’ death – an end to his wickedness – could be a benefit
to the state even though the violence that brought it about was contra rem
publicam (and Asconius suggests that Cato saw utility in removing Milo as
well).59 This distinction, I suggest, reflects the finely tuned policy of the
Senate and is critical to understanding Cato’s attitude.
Finally, whatever Cato’s views, on legal grounds alone it is highly
unlikely that he revealed his voting tablet in the manner Velleius suggests.
Voting under the lex Pompeia de ui was, as usual, by secret ballot.60
56
See above. Woodman 1983: 76 notes that Velleius’ language at 2.47.5 is ‘conspicuously and
characteristically Ciceronian’.
57
Brutus’ exercitatio maintained that Milo had killed Clodius pro re publica (Asc. 41C; Quint. Inst.
3.6.93). According to Asconius, ‘certain persons’ (quidam) wanted Cicero to defend Milo on that
basis, and some scholars number Cato among them, but Schol. Bob. p. 112.15–16St mentions only
Brutus, and the story may be no more than an inference from the existence of the two speeches (see
Stone 1980: 89, n. 10). In fact, Brutus was probably absent from Rome at the time of the trial.
In 53 bc, he was quaestor in Cilicia under Ap. Claudius Pulcher (De uir. ill. 82.4; cf. Marshall 1985:
174). Appius did not leave until 51 bc; the date of Brutus’ return is unknown but was very possibly
after April 52 bc. Cic. Brut. 324 indicates that Brutus participated in some of the trials under
Pompey’s law, but Milo’s trial apparently was not among them. Neither can we assume that Cato
and Brutus were of one mind on all points; Cicero certainly expected a difference of opinion over
Brutus’ loans to the Salaminians (e.g. Att. 6.2.8 [SB 116]). Cf. Balbo 2013: 319–20.
58
Asc. 54C, quoted earlier.
59
Asc. 54C. The Stoic resonance of utile may be significant. In my view Cato did favour acquittal, but
his personal attachment to Milo should not be overestimated. Like other boni, he supported Milo in
52 as a counterweight to Clodius (Asc. 30–1, 54C), but we know nothing of their earlier relations,
while Milo’s methods were anathema to Cato’s struggle against corruption (see Morrell 2014 and
below) and the notice that Cato had defended Milo as a favour to Cicero (Cic. Fam. 15.4.12 [SB 110],
above) casts doubt on the strength of Cato’s commitment to Milo in his own right. With Clodius
dead, Cato might have re-evaluated Milo.
60
Under the lex Aurelia, secret voting was universal (see Mommsen 1899: 444; Greenidge 1901: 442)
and Asc. 39C specifies that, at Milo’s trial, fifty-one jurors sententias ferrent – that is, cast votes
secretly (cf. Ryan 1998: 74, n. 136). Cn. Domitius Calvinus had displayed his tablet at Gabinius’ trial
de maiestate in 54 bc, but Cicero’s account (Q Fr. 3.4.1 (SB 24)) makes clear that the incident was
extraordinary. Cf. Greenidge 1901: 396, n. 1.
It would be very surprising if Cato, who was so outspoken in defence of law
and order, flouted the legally prescribed procedure by displaying his
tablet.61 Nor, it appears, did he later reveal how he had voted – surely
a deliberate choice, in light of the keen interest in the question both at the
time and afterwards. One reason, I suggest, was to uphold the integrity of
the trial process, which might have been undermined if Cato was seen to
oppose its verdict.
Conflicting Loyalties
Far from being a contest, then, Milo’s trial was a demonstration of continu-
ing co-operation between Pompey and Cato’s circle. Cato supported Milo,
but in a way that was fully consistent with the parameters of the trial, and
even that seems to have been muted after Pompey’s installation as consul.
Cato’s only datable appearance for Milo occurred during the interregnum;62
contrary to what some scholars believe,63 he did not give evidence at Milo’s
trial and neither, it seems, did Favonius:64 we have only Cicero’s statement
of what Favonius heard and repeated to Cato at some point before the trial,
indeed while Clodius was still alive.65 Meanwhile, Cato’s service as juror, like
Domitius’ as quaesitor, actually enhanced the legitimacy of the trial66 – the
more so, probably, because he was a known supporter of Milo.
It is worth comparing Cicero’s attitude. Even Cicero, Milo’s most com-
mitted supporter (Asc. 37–8C), toed the line at trial and accepted the
limitations of the contra rem publicam decree. It was only later, in the
published speech, that he argued Milo had acted for the good of the state.
Stone makes a strong case that the revised Pro Milone was prompted by the
trial of T. Munatius Plancus Bursa in early 51 bc and Pompey’s departure
from the strict justice he had insisted on in Milo’s case.67 Plancus had been
involved in the burning of the Curia (Asc. 33C), which, like Clodius’ death,
had been pronounced contra rem publicam, and Milo’s supporters were
61
See below on Cato’s criticism of Pompey for disregarding the law; cf. e.g. Plut. Cat. Min. 47.1 and
note 33.
62
I.e. the exhibitory action during the intercalary month (Asc. 34C). Cato’s contio speech took place
soon afterwards (see Pina Polo 1989: 305; Morstein-Marx 2004: 3, n. 11).
63
E.g. Alexander 1990: 151 (no. 309); Ruebel 1979: 244–5.
64
Cf. Fehrle 1983: 212 and Berry 2000: 166.
65
Cic. Mil. 44; Asc. 54C. Pace Marshall (1985: 189, 206) and Lewis (2006: 257), there is no conflict
between Cicero and Asconius on this point.
66
Cic. Mil. 21–2 and above.
67
Stone 1980: 109–11. On the date, cf. Shackleton Bailey 1977 I: 351; Gruen 1995: 346, n. 172; Alexander
1990: 159 (no. 327). Cicero acted as prosecutor, his first known appearance in that role since the trial
of Verres in 70 bc.
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entitled to expect an equally rigorous trial once Plancus’ tribunate had ended
(Stone 1980: 107–8). The contra rem publicam decree and the lex Pompeia de
ui were designed to facilitate an even-handed purge of violent elements. Yet,
Pompey intervened for Plancus, even submitting a written laudatio (‘char-
acter reference’) in violation of his own law.68 When Plancus was convicted
nonetheless, Cicero considered the verdict a triumph both for himself and for
Milo69 and was emboldened to depict Milo as a hero, at Pompey’s expense.70
I suggest that Plancus’ trial was a turning point for Cato as well. Cato
responded to Pompey’s transgression by reciting the law (Val. Max. 6.2.5)
and, according to Plutarch, by blocking his ears so as not to hear the illegal
laudatio.71 His actions must be understood as a public protest against
Pompey, who had reneged on the agreement of 52 bc. Cato was promptly
rejected as a juror, but Plancus was condemned and Pompey remembered by
Tacitus as ‘the overthrower of his own laws’.72 In this context, Cato might
well have been moved to proclaim that Milo had acted pro re publica.73
However, the incident should not be regarded as typical of relations between
Pompey and Cato in this period – nor, indeed, as a fatal breach, since Cato
would be one of Pompey’s closest allies in the Civil War.74
Evidence from two earlier trials suggests that Pompey was responsive to
Cato’s criticism, at least while his consulship lasted. Around July 52 bc,75
Pompey earned Cato’s rebuke when he intervened on behalf of his new
father-in-law, Metellus Scipio.76 Scipio, one of the original candidates for
68
Val. Max. 6.2.5; Plut. Cat. Min. 48.4; Dio Cass. 40.55.2.
69
Cic. Fam. 7.2.2 (SB 52); cf. Shackleton Bailey 1977 I: 351.
70
Stone 1980: 108–9. The facts were sufficiently similar that Plancus’ trial could be seen as ‘a
reconsideration of the affair of Milo’.
71
Plut. Cat. Min. 48.4; cf. Dio Cass. 40.55.2. Plut. Pomp. 55.4–5 mistakenly says that Pompey appeared
in person.
72
Tac. Ann. 3.28 (suarumque legum auctor idem ac subuersor), probably referring to this incident. Cf.
Stone 1980: 110.
73
Such a speech might explain Velleius’ story (2.47.5): hypothetically, a reference to Cato’s sententia
(‘opinion’) in the Senate could have become confused with his sententia (‘vote’) at trial. Vell. Pat.
2.35.4 describes how Cato’s sententia on the Catilinarian conspirators reversed the feeling of the
house; Velleius or his source might have envisioned a similar effect on Milo’s jury, had Cato spoken
before the trial.
74
See Welch 2012: 58–9, 68–9.
75
Scipio was prosecuted some time between Milo’s trial and August, when he became Pompey’s
colleague in the consulship: see Dio Cass. 40.51.2–3; Plut. Pomp. 55.7; Linderski 1972: 195, n. 57 =
1995: 245, n. 57; Alexander 1990: 157 (no. 321).
76
Plut. Pomp. 55.4; Cat. Min. 48.4. The marriage, which took place shortly after Pompey became
consul, is another sign that Pompey was aligning himself with the optimates in 52 bc (though Scipio
was not a friend of Cato’s: Plut. Cat. Min. 7.1–3). Previously Pompey had refused a renewed
marriage alliance with Caesar (Suet. Iul. 27.1). Note also the marriage between Pompey’s son and
the daughter of Ap. Claudius Pulcher, probably in place by this time (Cic. Fam. 3.4.2 [SB 67],
3.10.10 [SB 73]; Dio Cass. 39.60.3).
the consulship of 52, had been accused of ambitus (‘electoral bribery’);
Pompey managed to have the charges dropped, probably by taking Scipio
as his colleague in the consulship.77 No doubt Pompey considered his new
marriage connection too important to sacrifice to the law-and-order cam-
paign, and in fact he was able to save Scipio without breaking any law.78
Cato, however, was not impressed and censured Pompey’s actions (Plut.
Cat. Min. 48.4). But the ‘wake-up call’79 Plutarch describes here is of a very
different nature to Cato’s public protest at Plancus’ trial and need not have
signalled the end of cooperation.80 Indeed, Pompey seems to have heeded
Cato’s words. It was probably not long afterwards that Scipio’s fellow
candidate, P. Plautius Hypsaeus, also faced trial for ambitus.81 Hypsaeus,
once Pompey’s quaestor, was an important political adherent, and Pompey
had supported him vigorously in his campaign for the consulship.82
Hypsaeus’ role lobbying Pompey on Cicero’s behalf in 58 bc suggests
a reasonably close connection.83 Now, however, when Hypsaeus prostrated
himself before Pompey, he found himself dismissed with the remark that he
was achieving nothing but spoiling Pompey’s dinner.84 Pompey’s behaviour
is most plausibly explained as an attempt to ameliorate criticism over
Scipio85 – a response, perhaps, to Cato’s ‘constructive criticism’. In any
case, it seems that Pompey valued his task as consul and those who had given
it to him highly enough to sacrifice an old friend.86
77
Dio Cass. 40.51.2–3. This is the most plausible of the explanations offered by the sources; cf. Gruen
1995: 345.
78
Cf. Gruen 1995: 345; Stone 1980: 106.
79
Literally, ‘[Cato] censured Pompey sternly and awakened him’ (ἐπετίμα σφοδρῶς καὶ διήγειρεν). Cf.
Plut. Pomp. 54.2–3 for another instance of Pompey responding to correction from Cato (in 53 bc).
80
Cf. Plut. Pomp. 55.4–5, where Plutarch states that the ill-repute Pompey incurred on Scipio’s
account was increased by his intervention for Plancus.
81
Plutarch places the incident a few days after Plancus’ trial, but Plancus was almost certainly tried in
early 51 bc (see note 67), whereas 52 bc was the natural time to prosecute Hypsaeus, around the same
time as his fellow candidate Scipio. Val. Max. 9.5.3 juxtaposes the cases of Scipio and Hypsaeus; he
reports Hypsaeus’ first but gives no indication of temporal relationship. Alexander 1990: 158
(no. 322) dates the trial no more precisely than 52 bc.
82
Asc. 35C; cf. e.g. Cic. Fam. 1.1.3 (SB 12).
83
Cic. Att. 3.8.3 (SB 53). Cicero mentions him along with Pompey’s intimate friend M. Terentius
Varro.
84
Val. Max. 9.5.3; Plut. Pomp. 55.6.
85
Cf. Gruen 1995: 347. Scipio and Hypsaeus were equally guilty (Asc. 30C; Dio Cass. 40.53.1), and
Pompey’s rebuff to Hypsaeus cannot be explained by any previous falling out: Val. Max. 9.5.3
emphasises that Hypsaeus was an amicus (‘friend’) at the time. Pompey’s strategy backfired,
however, in that he was now criticised for mistreating a friend (Plut. Pomp. 55.6; Val. Max. 9.5.3).
86
It is also worth noting that Pompey offered no support to Q. Pompeius Rufus, who was probably
prosecuted around the same time as his tribunician colleague Plancus (Val. Max. 4.2.7; Cic. Fam.
8.1.4 (SB 77); Gruen 1995: 347). Why Pompey assisted Plancus but not Hypsaeus we can only guess.
Gruen 1995: 347 and Stone 1980: 106 suggest Pompey could not afford to lose any more friends.
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Cato’s Consular Campaign
Another important factor in the political matrix of 52 bc was Cato’s
(unsuccessful) campaign for the consulship.87 The notion we find in the
sources that Cato was indifferent to the office or to his failure at the polls
must be rejected.88 Such sentiments look like face-saving or products of the
‘Stoic martyr’ tradition. In fact, Cato was laying the groundwork for his
consular campaign well in advance,89 though he does seem to have con-
tributed to his own defeat by putting principle before popularity: he
persuaded the Senate to pass a decree requiring candidates to canvass in
person, which he rigorously obeyed, and Cicero, at least, thought he ought
to have done more to win popular favour.90 As far as Cato was concerned,
it was a campaign not only for the consulship but for clean elections.91 His
openly anti-Caesarian platform will also have lost him votes.92 But Cato
sought the consulship with the intention of winning it. His swipe at his
friend and competitor Ser. Sulpicius Rufus – ‘what wonder is it if a man
will not yield to another what he regards as the greatest of all good
things?’93 – and his comment to Cicero that he would neither change his
ways nor again suffer the same fate94 show that the defeat stung.
If Cato had hoped for Pompey’s blessing, or at least neutrality,95 that
might have made him more willing to cooperate, even after Pompey
The fact that in 51 bc he was no longer consul and thus no longer responsible for the res publica in the
same way was surely also relevant.
87
The date of the comitia for 51 bc is not attested but was presumably after Scipio became Pompey’s
colleague in about August 52 bc. Broughton 1986: 19 suggests early autumn; cf. Linderski 1972: 195,
n. 57 = 1995: 245, n. 57.
88
Dio Cass. 40.58.1; Plut. Cat. Min. 50.1; Sen. Ep. 104.33.
89
In 53 bc, for instance, he took the opportunity of one of Clodius’ harangues to remind the people of
his achievements in Cyprus (Plut. Cat. Min. 45.2), and his takeover of Favonius’ aedilician games in
53 or 52 bc (46.2–5) was probably intended to support his consular canvass.
90
Plut. Cat. Min. 49.3–4, 50.2. Cf. Broughton 1991: 15.
91
It was successful, in that his competitors did not employ money or violence (Dio Cass. 40.58.3), and
Cato accepted that he had lost in an honest election (see note 96). Compare Plut. Cat. Min. 8.2 on
Cato’s consciously exemplary campaign for the military tribunate.
92
See Plut. Cat. Min. 49.1; Dio Cass. 40.58.2. Caesar himself later claimed credit for Cato’s defeat
(Caes. B Civ. 1.4.1: dolor repulsae); cf. e.g. Taylor 1949: 151; Raaflaub 1974: 117.
93
Plut. Cat. Min. 49.2: ‘τί γὰρ . . . θαυμαστόν, εἰ ὅ τις νομίζει τῶν ἀγαθῶν μέγιστον, ἑτέρῳ μὴ
παρίησι;’ Sulpicius, repulsed a decade earlier, may have been a surprise candidate in 52 bc. He was
thought to have acted in an inappropriate and ungrateful manner by campaigning against a friend.
Plutarch states that Cato found no fault with him, but the comment above suggests the opposite; cf.
Fehrle 1983: 214. We find no such criticism of the other successful candidate, M. Claudius Marcellus,
who was a friend and coeval of Cato (Plut. Cat. Min. 18.3) and united with him in hostility to Caesar.
They are better seen as running mates (cf. Mommsen 1857: 340).
94
Plut. Cat. Min. 50.3 (below).
95
Note [Q. Cic.] Pet. 5 on the importance of having Pompey ‘as a friend . . . or certainly not an
opponent’ in one’s canvass (aut amicum . . . aut certe non aduersarium). I suspect Pompey took
strayed from the strict path of law and order. Pompey, still tied to Caesar
(publicly, at least), could not have supported Cato, but neither should we
assume that he opposed Cato’s candidacy. Likewise, Cato might have been
freer in his criticism of Pompey once the elections were over. It is sig-
nificant, however, that he had no fault to find with Pompey’s conduct of
the elections. He acknowledged that there had been no malpractice and
explicitly contrasted his (legitimate) failure to win the consulship with his
corrupt exclusion from the praetorship of 55 bc.96 Cato’s public response to
his defeat was another endorsement of Pompey’s consulship.
A Complicated Relationship
The year 52 bc was politically untidy, a period of transition and contra-
diction. Pompey was cooperating with Cato’s circle but had not broken
with Caesar. Thus, soon after Pompey’s election, the ‘law of the ten
tribunes’ granting Caesar permission to stand for the consulship in absence
was passed at Pompey’s urging and with Cato’s vehement opposition.97
This was a more acute point of difference than Milo’s trial, yet it was passed
in a period of demonstrable collaboration between Pompey and Cato’s
circle.98 The contradiction is nicely encapsulated in the rider, of question-
able legal validity, that Pompey added to his lex de iure magistratuum (‘law
on the rights of magistrates’).99 That law, passed after the law of the ten
tribunes, restated the earlier prohibition on candidacy in absence, from
a ‘hands-off’ approach to the elections for 51 bc, though he may have supported Sulpicius as
a neutral or ‘compromise’ candidate.
96
Plut. Cat. Min. 50.3: ἔλεγεν οὖν ὁ Κάτων, ὅτι τῆς μὲν στρατηγίας οὐ κατὰ γνώμην ἐξέπεσε τῶν
πολλῶν, ἀλλὰ βιασθέντων ἢ διαφθαρέντων, ἐν δὲ ταῖς ὑπατικαῖς ψήφοις μηδεμιᾶς κακουργίας
γενομένης ἔγνωκε τῷ δήμῳ προσκεκρουκὼς διὰ τὸν αὑτοῦ τρόπον, ὃν οὔτε μεταθέσθαι πρὸς
ἑτέρων χάριν οὔτε χρώμενον ὁμοίῳ πάλιν ὅμοια παθεῖν νοῦν ἔχοντος ἀνδρός ἐστι (‘Cato said that
he had been deprived of the praetorship not by the judgement of the majority but because they had
been forced or corrupted, whereas, there having been no malpractice in the consular elections, he
recognised that he had given offence to the people by his manners, which no man of sense changes
to win the favour of others, but neither does he suffer the same fate in the same way again’). Cf. Dio
Cass. 40.58.3. It was the supporters of Pompey and Crassus who had kept Cato out of the
praetorship of 55 bc (Plut. Cat. Min. 42; Dio Cass. 39.32.1–2).
97
Caes. B Civ. 1.32.3: Catone uero acerrime repugnante et pristina consuetudine dicendi mora dies
extrahente (‘Cato fought against [the law] most vehemently and, according to his old habit, drew
out the days by speaking’). Cf. Livy, Per. 107. Nothing similar is reported in connection with Milo’s
trial. For Pompey’s support, see e.g. Cic. Att. 7.1.4 (SB 124), 7.3.4 (SB 126), 8.3.3 (SB 153); Dio Cass.
40.51.2. On the date, see Stone 1980: 104–6.
98
Cf. Dragstedt 1969: 82. Stone 1980: 104–5 suggests that a fair trial for Milo was the trade-off for the
ratio absentis.
99
Cf. Steel 2013b: 187.
178 kit morrell
which Caesar had just been exempted.100 There is a good chance that Cato
was involved.101 Evidently Caesar’s supporters noted the discrepancy, and
Pompey subsequently attempted to affirm Caesar’s exemption.102
Nonetheless, M. Marcellus could at least argue that Pompey’s lex had
nullified the tribunes’ law,103 and Pompey’s intentions continue to be
debated.104
The unusually rich evidence for the events surrounding Milo’s trial
offers a glimpse of how Cato and Pompey negotiated this complex situa-
tion. There is no reason to think that collaboration ended with the trial of
Milo. Rather, Cato’s role and his careful concealment of his vote show
continuing commitment to the sole consulship he had been instrumental
in establishing. It is not until 51 bc that we find Cato openly challenging
Pompey, by which time order had been restored and Pompey’s consulship
had come to an end. In the meantime, Pompey, who had pursued an
alliance with Cato ten years earlier,105 showed himself to be willing to
sacrifice old friendships to preserve the new relationship. This timing has
implications for our broader understanding of 52 bc.
Pompey’s third consulship was not just a necessary evil or a temporary
expedient but the basis of real cooperation. An end to violence was the first
objective, but its ‘official rhetoric’ shows that the Senate wanted more than
emergency measures to restore order.106 The whole state, the tota res
publica, was committed to Pompey’s care.107 Cicero offers a neat summa-
tion of his objectives: to restore the city to health by the suppression of
licence and passion and the constitution of laws and courts.108 The lex de
100
Suet. Iul. 28.3; Dio Cass. 40.56.1.
101
Also in 52 bc, Cato persuaded the Senate to pass a decree requiring candidates to canvass in person
and prohibiting the use of agents (Plut. Cat. Min. 49.3). This decree is closely similar to the known
provisions of the lex de iure magistratuum and might conceivably have been a preliminary step in the
passage of the law.
102
Dio Cass. 40.56; Suet. Iul. 28.2–3; Cic. Att. 8.3.3 (SB 153). Exactly what Pompey did is not clear and
cannot be considered here, but its validity was debatable.
103
As consul in 51 bc: Suet. Iul. 28.2.
104
E.g. Gelzer 1968: 153; Gruen 1995: 457; Seager 2002: 138–9; Steel 2013b: 187.
105
Plut. Cat. Min. 30.1–4, 45.1–2; Pomp. 44.2–3.
106
See Stone 1980: 97–8 and above (note 43) for Cato’s role in devising this rhetoric.
107
Cic. Mil. 65, 56, 68. Wiseman (2009: 121), for instance, emphasises the moral content of Pompey’s
reforms.
108
Cic. Mil. 78: in spem maximam et, quem ad modum confido, uerissimam sumus adducti, hunc ipsum
annum, hoc summo uiro consule, compressa hominum licentia, cupiditatibus confractis, legibus et
iudiciis constitutis, salutarem ciuitati fore (‘We have been moved to the greatest and, as I trust, the
most certain hope that this very year, with this most exalted gentleman as consul, the licence of men
having been checked, passions broken, and the laws and the courts set in order, will be healthful for
the community’). Tac. Ann. 3.28 says that Pompey was elected to his third consulship corrigendis
moribus.
iure magistratuum and the lex de prouinciis (‘law on the provinces’) belong
to this context, and both, I argue, reflect Cato’s influence.109 We should
therefore accept Plutarch’s testimony that Cato functioned, in this period,
as Pompey’s counsellor in government (σύμβουλος τῆς ἀρχῆς).110 He and
his friends acted under pressure in early 52 bc, but by acting as they did,
they secured in exchange for Pompey’s powers some say in how he would
use them.
The complexities of 52 bc also offer a valuable cross-section of some of
the forms that political alliance might take, from the familiar sort of bond
between father- and son-in-law (Cato and Bibulus, Scipio and Pompey)111
or general and officer (Pompey and Hypsaeus)112 to the larger cluster of
Cato’s associates and the extraordinary arrangement between Pompey and
Caesar.113 These examples confirm, incidentally, that personal relationships
could have enduring political significance; while this should never be
assumed,114 and bonds could be severed as quickly as they could be
formed,115 the possibility should not be lost sight of in the shift away
from prosopographical methods.116
The alignment between Pompey and Cato’s circle differed from these
examples in that political collaboration was accompanied neither by any
pre-existing personal relationship117 nor obvious mutual advantage.118
109
See above on the lex de iure magistratuum and Morrell 2014: 679–80 on the lex de prouinciis. Morrell
2017 explores this connection further. Plut. Cat. Min. 48.3 confirms that Cato advised Pompey on
his legislative programme, though not all his suggestions were adopted.
110
Plut. Cat. Min. 48.1–3; Pomp. 54.5–6. This in turn is grounds for re-evaluating Pompey’s overtures
to Cato in 62 bc (see note 105) as a genuine attempt to align himself politically with Cato.
111
We are safer in attributing political significance to this relationship than some other marriage
connections in view of a father’s power to choose his daughter’s husband (though the marriage of
Tullia and Dolabella illustrates the need for caution; see e.g. Cic. Fam. 3.12 [SB 75]). Other examples
of political collaboration between father- and son-in-law include Ap. Claudius Pulcher and Ti.
Gracchus (Plut. Ti. Gracch. 9.1, 13.1; App. B Civ. 13.1) and, of course, Caesar and Pompey.
112
Pompey regularly pursued his objectives through former officers in exchange for electoral support,
albeit with limited success (see e.g. Gruen 1995: 85–7 on M. Pupius Piso and L. Afranius). According
to Cic. Div. Caec. 61, the bond between commander and quaestor was supposed to be particularly
close.
113
To these we may add the various alliances between candidates, probably all of which were founded
on mutual advantage (see Asc. 30–1C), the long-standing bond between Cicero and Milo and other
relationships, the origins of which are obscure to us, such as that between Pompey and Plancus.
114
See Brunt 1988: 456 for a classic exposition of the perils of such assumptions.
115
As Hypsaeus discovered; see above.
116
In this context it is worth noting Hortensius’ determination to strengthen his relationship with
Cato through a kinship tie (see note 31) and Caesar’s eagerness to secure a new marriage alliance
with Pompey following Julia’s death (note 76).
117
Plutarch’s reference to hand clasps (Cat. Min. 48.1) suggests that the formation (or confirmation) of
amicitia (‘friendship’) between Pompey and Cato followed Cato’s support for the sole consulship.
118
Cato does not seem to have obtained any personal benefit (such as endorsement for his consular
candidacy) in return for supporting Pompey; by contrast, the combination of Pompey and Crassus
180 kit morrell
Indeed, Cato insisted that he had acted not in Pompey’s interests, or to win
his favour, but for the good of the city.119 But that was how politics was
supposed to work, and probably did, more often than we might realise:
a senator was expected to set aside all personal considerations in the
interests of the state.120 What was perhaps unusual was that this coalition
of sometime opponents was not limited to a single issue but, I have argued,
formed the basis of an ongoing programme of reform. Cato made clear,
however, that his cooperation could be relied upon only so long as Pompey
acted in the interests of the res publica. It therefore seems fitting to close
with the message Cato is said to have relayed to Pompey on refusing
a marriage alliance in 61 bc: that if Pompey did what was just, he would
grant a friendship more faithful than any marriage tie.121 That promise, it
seems, was realised in 52 bc.
in 71 bc and the so-called First Triumvirate – both of which were probably just as surprising to
contemporaries – offered clear advantages to all parties.
119
Plut. Cat. Min. 48.2; Pomp. 54.6.
120
See e.g. Cic. Off. 1.57–8; Prov. cons. 18–20; Brunt 1988: 39–43, 378–81, 450.
121
Plut. Cat. Min. 30.4: ‘τὰ δίκαια ποιοῦντι φιλίαν παρέξει πάσης πιστοτέραν οἰκειότητος.’
part iii
Institutions in Theory and Practice
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chapter 9
Falsifying the Auspices in Republican Politics

Lindsay G. Driediger-Murphy
The purpose of this chapter is to explore what it meant to ‘falsify the

auspices’ (auspicia ementiri) in Republican Rome and, in particular, to
probe the importance of allegations of auspicial falsification in Roman
politics and oratory.1 It is well known that Roman politicians could and
did use allegations of impiety and religious infraction to damage their
rivals’ reputations and to undermine their plans. Cicero’s orations
present the most famous examples of the tactic,2 but it is also visible
in the surviving fragments of the Roman Republican orators3 and
attested in ancient historians.4 In rhetorical handbooks, the accusation
that an opponent has acted ‘against the auspices’ (contra/aduersus
auspicia) or offended the gods is even listed as a standard component
of the indignatio, that part of a speech which was designed to arouse
‘great hatred’ against a person or to associate an action with ‘a grievous
sense of offense’.5 Even once we have accounted for the degree of
My thanks go out to the participants in the ‘People, Politics, and Res Publica Colloquium’ for their
useful and generous feedback and to the editors of this volume for the fruitful suggestions and the
undoubted improvements they brought to this chapter. This research was supported by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
1
The technical phrase auspicia ementiri/auspicia ementita occurs in Livy, 21.63; Cic. Phil. 2.83, 88, 3.9;
and Cic. Div. 1.29. The most detailed modern studies are those by Valeton 1890; Simpson 1938; Bayet
1960; Schäublin 1986; Kany-Turpin 1999; Konrad 2004; Weggen 2011; and numerous articles by
Linderski, especially 1971 = 1995; 1986 = 1995.
2
The mutual barrage of impiety allegations hurled between Cicero and Clodius in 57 bc is perhaps the
best-known example; see especially North 1990b, 2000; Corbeill 2010; Beard 2012.
3
In a speech delivered in the Senate in 58 bc, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus alleged that Caesar had acted
‘against the auspices’ (aduersus auspicia) and ‘without taking the auspices properly’ (inauspicato)
during his consulship of 59 bc (ORF4 132 F2–3).
4
In the case of false auspices, with which this chapter is concerned, we may highlight Livy, 21.63.5
(217 bc), where the consul Gaius Flaminius suspects that his enemies in the Senate will attempt to
prevent his departure for his province using ‘falsified auspices’ (auspiciis ementiendis). But note that
Livy may not have expected his readers to sympathize with Flaminius here; see North 1967: 769–70;
Levene 1993: 39–40; Champion 2004: 201–2.
5
Cic. Inv. rhet. 1.101; similarly, Quint. Inst. 2.4.35. On the definition of indignatio, see Cic. Inv. rhet.
1.100, with Craig 2010.
183
184 lindsay g. driediger-murphy
factual latitude that Romans allowed to hostile speeches, therefore, it
remains evident that allegations of religious wrongdoing could be
dangerous to Republican Romans’ political ‘face’, reputation and
position.6
What this chapter argues is that the act and the charge of ‘falsifying the
auspices’ were effective and dangerous in Rome because they evoked and
involved genuine Roman anxieties about the gods’ attitude towards the
Roman state. In what follows, we will see that these anxieties were felt both
by the people and by their politicians and that they played a more serious
role in political oratory than has generally been recognized. If we are fully
to understand how Republican politics worked, therefore, we must recog-
nize this Roman fear of the gods as a significant factor in public discourse
and behaviour.
I concentrate here on one case study: the clash between the tribune
C. Ateius Capito and the ‘triumvir’ M. Licinius Crassus in the 50s bc.7
The conflict began in 55 bc, when Capito as tribune made an announce-
ment of dreadfully unfavourable auspices (dirae) to Crassus when the latter
was leaving Rome to begin his Parthian campaign. However, Crassus
ignored Capito’s signs, and in 53 bc he and his legions were disastrously
defeated by the Parthians at Carrhae. We might have expected Romans to
interpret this defeat as a straightforward illustration of why the auspices
should be obeyed and as a vindication of Capito’s action. In fact, events
took quite a different turn. Just a few years later, in 50 bc, Ap. Claudius
Pulcher as censor formally reprimanded Capito for his role in this incident.
According to Cicero, who provides the only surviving account of the
censure, Appius gave two reasons for his punishment of the former tribune.
Firstly, Capito was to be condemned for ‘falsifying the auspices’ that he
reported to Crassus (ementitus auspicia). Secondly, and seemingly para-
doxically, Capito was blameworthy because ‘for this reason the greatest
possible disaster had befallen the Roman people’ (ob eam causam populum
Romanum calamitatem maximam cepisse).8 This incident, and the apparent
paradox in Appius’ reasoning about it, raises several questions. Firstly, what
did Capito actually do in 55 bc? Secondly, why did Crassus ignore Capito’s
auspices, and was this response typical? And thirdly, how could Appius
Claudius maintain that Capito’s auspices were both false and the cause of
Crassus’ destruction?
6
On truth, falsehood and ‘face’ in invective, see Syme 1939: 149; Nisbet 1961: 193; Riggsby 1997: 147–8;
in forensic oratory, see Riggsby 1997: 247–9; Craig 2004: 196–7, 212 (contra Gotoff 1993).
7
On Capito, see Shackleton Bailey 1965–70 II: 217–18; Buongiorno 2011: 207–13.
8
Cic. Div. 1.29–30.
Falsifying the Auspices in Republican Politics 185
The political motives of Crassus and Capito in all of this are not far to
seek: our sources claim that Crassus was desperate for military glory,
even at an indecorous age,9 whereas Capito at this time was a known
opponent of the ‘triumvirs’.10 Dio reports that he made strenuous
attempts earlier in 55 bc to block the passing of the lex Trebonia,11 and
both Plutarch and Dio state that Capito and his fellow tribunes
attempted to prevent Crassus’ departure from the city not just by
announcing unfavourable auspices but also by trying to repeal the lex
Trebonia, to block Crassus’ levy and/or to put Crassus under arrest.12
It is thus easy to see why Capito would have wanted some unfavourable
auspices to announce to Crassus and likewise why Crassus would have
wanted to ignore those auspices. In these respects, the battle between
Crassus and Capito would seem to reflect precisely those political and
rhetorical uses of religion that we would expect. In what follows, how-
ever, as we analyse the actions of Capito, Crassus and Claudius, and
especially when we consider how their fellow Romans responded to their
behaviour, a more forbidding picture will emerge. What we glimpse is
a world in which invoking the gods to score political points was no mere
matter of course, but a risky, even dangerous strategy. It was dangerous
because the gods were envisioned as ready to exact a horrible vengeance
for infractions of the rules set down for political institutions such as the
public auspices. Moreover, this danger was only compounded by the
tension visible in so many of the political institutions discussed in this
volume: the tension between Romans’ ideological commitment to pre-
cedent and rules, on the one hand, and their practice of continual
institutional adaptation and evolution, on the other. In the case of
public auspices, as we will see, the costs of ‘getting the rules wrong’ in
response to new circumstances could be immense, not just for the
individual politician but also, as Romans saw it, for the state itself.
It is only by understanding these perceived risks that we will be able
to see why Republican Romans may well have had reason to fear the
gods’ involvement in the res publica.
9
Vell. Pat. 2.46; Plut. Crass. 16; App. B Civ. 2.3.18; cf. Beneker 2005: 323–5.
10
Dio Cass. 39.32; Gruen 1995: 187. He continued his resistance in 54 bc, when according to Cicero
(Att. 4.17 [SB 91]) he was one of only two senators to speak ‘freely’ (libere) on the electoral corruption
scandal of that year involving Caesar’s preferred candidate, C. Memmius (on the ‘triumvirs’’
attitudes towards this affair, see Seager 2002: 126–7). He later took Caesar’s side in the Civil War
(as attested by Cic. Fam. 13.29 [SB 282; 46 bc] and Att. 16.16C, 16.16F [SB 407C, 407F; 44 bc]), but
this about-face may well have been prompted by his censure at Pulcher’s hands in 50 bc (Shackleton
Bailey 1965–70 II: 218; Gruen 1995: 484; contra Buongiorno 2011).
11
Dio Cass. 39.32, 35–6, 39. 12 Plut. Crass. 16; Dio Cass. 39.39.
55 bc: Capito
The first illustration of the risks posed by invoking the gods in this case is
provided by the controversy that arose in antiquity around Capito’s
behaviour in 55 bc. This controversy may well have been ignited by
Appius’ own arguments in 50 bc (as these were especially complex, they
will receive their own treatment in the final section of this chapter).
Following Appius’ lead, several writers felt compelled to raise the issue of
whether Capito meant to cause a disaster like Carrhae and whether he
could have foreseen it when he invoked the tremendous power of the gods
in his political squabble with Crassus. Thus, Plutarch claims that the
Romans ‘found fault with’ Capito for using such powerful means of getting
the gods’ attention,13 while Dio writes that the tribunes ‘uttered many dire
imprecations against Crassus, as if, indeed, they were not cursing the state
through him’.14 (Dio’s implication is that the tribunes should have known
that they were indeed endangering the state as well as Crassus through their
actions.) Similarly, Velleius Paterculus opines that ‘if the curses which [the
tribunes] called down upon him had affected Crassus alone, the loss of the
commander would not have been without advantage to the state, had but
the army been saved’.15 What such complaints reveal is a lively ancient
debate about how far the gods’ anger was likely to extend when it was
directed against public figures. Would it fall only on individuals? Or would
it fall on whole armies as well? Was there any way to tell when it would go
one way or the other? We will explore some possible answers to these
questions later, but for now, what is interesting about this debate is that it
suggests that appealing to the gods in Roman politics was seen as
a genuinely risky move. It could not have been something that one did
lightly, in casual confidence that the gods were simply ‘embedded’ in
public life and willing to have their names bandied about as rhetorical
flourishes or window dressing. Because the man who got it wrong, as our
writers felt that Capito had got it wrong when he invoked the gods against
Crassus, would be unleashing powers that he could not control, powers
whose actions might turn out far otherwise than he had hoped.
It will not have escaped the observant reader that Plutarch, Dio and
Velleius refer to ‘curses’ rather than auspices. Several ancient writers appear
13
Plut. Crass. 16: ‘The Romans say that these mysterious and ancient curses have such power that no
one involved in them ever escapes, and things also go badly for the one who uses them, and for this
reason they are not employed at random nor by many people. And accordingly at this time they
found fault with Ateius because it was for the city’s sake that he was angered at Crassus, and yet it was
against the city that he had discharged curses and such excessive fear of the divine.’
14
Dio Cass. 39.39. 15 Vell. Pat. 2.46.
to have confused Capito’s auspices with curses (more on this later), and this
should, of course, give us pause as we evaluate how representative their
views are. Further complicating the issue is the fact that although modern
scholars have sometimes seen Appius’ arguments as agreeing with tradi-
tional Roman augural doctrine, they have tended to view Capito’s own
actions as violating augural law and custom. To understand the ancient
response to Capito fully and, in particular, to determine how much it can
tell us about the way religion and politics typically interacted in Rome, it is
therefore necessary to assess the legitimacy of Capito’s behaviour in 55 bc.
A brief overview of the relevant augural requirements will help to frame
our discussion. Augural law and custom required that Jupiter be given the
opportunity to express through auspices his consent, or lack thereof, to
many of the most important actions in Roman public life, from sessions of
the Senate to assemblies of the people, electoral results to legislation and, in
the field, from crossing a river to deciding to engage the enemy.16
The magistrate about to depart from Rome on campaign was similarly
expected to take the auspices: it was only once he had taken these ‘auspices
of departure’ (a modern coinage) that he could proceed to the Capitol to
complete the various other ceremonies (such as offering the so-called uota
nuncupata) that were necessary to render his departure ritually correct (as
signified by his donning of the paludamentum, the military cloak).17
Republican Romans were raised on stories of what could happen when
the auspices were not properly taken on this occasion: the classic exemplum
was C. Flaminius (cos. 217 bc), whose catastrophic defeat at Lake
Trasimene was explicitly attributed to his failure to take these auspices
and to fulfil the other ceremonies of departure.18 We also read of several
commanders who were called back to Rome even after departing the city in
order to correct flaws in their auspices by ‘retaking’ them (auspiciorum
repetendorum causa),19 and although we do not know exactly which aus-
pices these were, they may well have been the ‘auspices of departure’.20
If so, these incidents confirm the seriousness with which Romans regarded
problems in the ‘auspices of departure’. The assumption appears to have
16
E.g. Cic. Leg. 2.31; Div. 1.3, 28.
17
The procedure is summarized in Livy, 21.63, where Flaminius is criticized because he had not (a)
taken the auspices, (b) proceeded to the Capitol to make vows and (c) departed for his province
robed in the military cloak and accompanied by lictors (ne auspicato profectus in Capitolium ad uota
nuncupanda paludatus inde cum lictoribus in prouinciam iret). On the ‘auspices of departure’, see
Mommsen 1887–8 I: 99–101; Rüpke 1990: 45–6. On the other ceremonies in general, see Mommsen
1887–8 I: 63–4; on the vows, see Orlin 1997: 38–41, 46–8.
18
Livy, 21.63 and 22.1. 19 Livy, 8.30.1–2, 10.3.6, 23.19.3, 36.10.
20
For a concise overview, see Konrad 2008: 350.
been that if these auspices were in any way out of order, disaster would
ensue not just for the relevant magistrate himself but also for his army.21
Thus, in order to leave Rome in 55 bc (at least with the full blessing of
Roman religious authority), Crassus would have had to take these ‘auspices
of departure’. Given that he did try to leave the city and that Cicero in
a contemporary letter (Att. 4.13.2 [SB 87]) describes him as departing
paludatus, it is likely that the results of this initial auspication were
favourable.22
However, augural law dictated that it was not just the magistrate himself
who needed to obtain favourable results from Jupiter, for even if the
auspices the magistrate himself had taken were favourable, they could
still be cancelled out by unfavourable auspices received and announced by
others.23 The dutiful magistrate was expected to heed such announcements
(if made in due form) and postpone his action until at least the next day,24
and despite certain examples of disregard for the rules during the convul-
sions of the Late Republic, this principle still held in 55 bc.25 The technical
term for such augurally obstructive announcements was obnuntiatio,26 and
it is this term that Cicero applies several times to Capito’s report to
Crassus.27 Given that Capito was said to have made this obnuntiatio
when Crassus was trying to leave the city, it is likely that he presented his
21
As evinced also by Livy’s need to explain the fact that in 325 bc a flaw in these auspices had not
resulted in military defeat (as his readers must have expected) but in animosity between the
commanders: Livy, 8.30.1, incertis itum auspiciis est; cuius rei uitium non in belli euentum, quod
prospere gestum est, sed in rabiem atque iras imperatorum uertit (‘again there were uncertain auspices;
the ritual flaw did not manifest itself in the outcome of the war, which was fought successfully, but in
the madness and anger of the generals’).
22
As assumed by Konrad 2004: 184; Wardle 2006: 182–3 (though his statement that ‘at no stage during
these [ceremonies of departure] was any adverse indication received by Crassus himself or his
augural assistant’ is overconfident).
23
A particularly clear example may be found in Livy, 22.42 (an exchange between L. Aemilius Paullus
and C. Terentius Varro shortly before Cannae in 216 bc). Varro wanted to attack and gave the order
accordingly, only to be stopped by the auspice received by his colleague Paullus. It is evident here
that even though Varro was the magistrate holding the fasces on the day in question, and even
though his own auspication had presumably yielded a favourable result, he was still expected to
postpone his action in response to Paullus’ announcement.
24
On the temporal application of auspices (usually to a single day), see Catalano 1960: 42–5; Linderski
1986: 2164, n. 53, 2187, n. 151.
25
The once-standard notion that divination in the Late Republic was routinely manipulated must be
laid to rest; see especially Beard, North and Price 1998; Scheid 2005; Santangelo 2013.
26
The obstructive character of obnuntiatio is illustrated by the definition in Don. Ter. Adelph. 4.2.8:
qui malam rem nuntiat, obnuntiat, qui bonam, adnuntiat: nam proprie obnuntiare dicuntur augures,
qui aliquid mali ominis scaeuumque uiderint (‘He who announces a bad thing makes obnuntiatio; he
who announces a good thing makes adnuntiatio; for augurs who see something unfavourable and of
bad omen are said, technically, to make obnuntiatio’).
27
Cic. Div. 1.29–30.
signs as pertaining to (and cancelling out) Crassus’ ‘auspices of departure’,
though we do not know this for certain. The rules governing who had the
right to make an obnuntiatio against a magistrate embarking on a specific
action, and how seriously such an announcement would be taken, varied
according to the nature of the proposed action as well as the nature of the
auspice.28 Unfortunately, no explicit statement survives regarding who
could make obnuntiationes (and of what kind) against magistrates taking
the ‘auspices of departure’. However, magistrates seem to have had the
right to make obnuntiationes in most instances, and tribunes are known to
have made obnuntiationes (regarding the action of holding assemblies)
against both plebeian and curule magistrates,29 so it seems reasonable to
suppose that Capito as tribune had the right to make an obnuntiatio to
a consul like Crassus in the case of ‘auspices of departure’ as well.
Finally, a word is necessary on the kind of auspices announced by
Capito. According to Cicero (Div. 1.29–30), they were dirae. The word
dirus connoted divine wrath, as suggested by the etymologies given in
Festus [= Paulus] p. 61.1 L (‘dirus means “born of divine anger”’; dirus, dei
ira natus) and Servius (Aen. 2.519: ‘dira is the anger of the gods’; dira enim
est deorum ira). In Latin literature, the word is used to describe a variety of
unfavourable or dangerous religious phenomena, including bad dreams,30
curses (to which we will return),31 nefarious rituals32 and, as a substantive,
the Furies.33 However, dirae also had a more specialized meaning within
the augural discipline. Here they seem to have constituted a category of
auspicial signs34 that were interpreted as an especially forceful divine
indication that the action to which they pertained should not proceed.35
28
The act of perceiving and announcing prohibitive spontaneous signs while the assembly was being
held, for example, seems to have been open to all citizens, whereas the right to deliberately solicit
auspices with regard to public affairs may have been restricted to magistrates (see e.g. Mommsen
1887–8 I: 110–14; Valeton 1890: 455–6; Catalano 1960: 41, 226, n. 52; Magdelain 1964 = 1990;
Linderski 1971: 315, 317–18 = 1995: 450, 452–3; Linderski 1983: 457 = 1995: 539).
29
For examples of tribunes making obnuntiatio to consuls, see note 51. Cic. Att. 4.9 (SB 85) reveals that
tribunes were also capable of using auspices to prevent the census, presumably by making obnun-
tiatio against censors. See e.g. Botsford 1909: 114–15; McDonald 1929: 171–3; Vaahtera 2001: 160–4;
Weinrib 1970: 401; cf. Valeton 1891: 90–1; Linderski 1971: 319–21 = 1995: 454–6.
30
E.g. V. Fl. 3.59. 31 E.g. Livy, 28.22, 40.56; Suet. Claud. 12. 32 E.g. Tac. Ann. 16.8.
33
E.g. Verg. Aen. 12.845. On dirae in poetry, see Hübner 1970.
34
Fest. [= Paul.] p. 317.6L: quinque genera signorum obseruant augures: ex caelo, ex auibus, ex tripudis, ex
quadrupedibus, ex diris (‘The augurs observe five kinds of signs: [auspices] from the sky, from birds,
from the tripudium [a sign given by sacred chickens], from four-footed animals, and from those
things that are dreadfully unfavourable’).
35
Cic. Leg. 2.21: quae augur iniusta, nefasta, uitiosa, dira defixerit, irrita infectaque sunto (‘Whatever an
augur has declared to be unjust, contrary to religion, ritually flawed or dreadfully unfavourable, let
those things be void’). On the augural meaning of these terms (sometimes neglected in modern
translations, e.g. Zetzel 1999), see the foundational study of Linderski 1986.
Unfortunately, our surviving sources do not specify exactly what auspicial
dirae were, nor how they were produced and interpreted.36 For the pur-
poses of our discussion, one point is especially important. Augury appears
to have assigned all types of auspices to one of two overarching classes: that
of signs spontaneously offered by Jupiter (which were called ‘oblative’
auspices), or that of signs deliberately solicited and obtained from Jupiter
through rituals of auspication (these were called ‘impetrative’ auspices).37
How a particular auspice was classified thus depended not necessarily on
what type of auspice it was (i.e. what phenomenon the Romans had
observed) but on whether it occurred in conjunction with specific
rituals.38 Modern scholars have long seen the distinction between oblative
and impetrative as vital in determining how seriously a particular auspice
was to be taken and as governing whether the magistrate to whom an
auspice was reported was actually obliged to heed it.39 This distinction will
therefore be important when we come to consider why Crassus ignored
Capito’s dirae and whether he was within his rights to do so. For now, the
crucial point to observe is that although modern scholars frequently
assume that dirae were oblative,40 we actually do not know whether they
were oblative or impetrative either in general or in the specific case of
Capito’s obnuntiatio in 55 bc. At Div. 1.30, Cicero describes Capito’s
announcement this way: ‘he warned Crassus, a sign having been put
forward in opposition’ (or ‘a sign having appeared’ [signo obiecto monuit
Crassum]). Modern discussions tend to opt for the latter translation, taking
it as evidence that Capito’s dirae appeared spontaneously and were there-
fore oblative. However, the former translation (‘the sign having been put
forward in opposition’) is just as likely and would not preclude impetrative
36
Were they the same kinds of signs, interpreted from lightning, thunder, birds and other animals,
which practitioners of augury usually watched for, but which might be called dirae when they
seemed especially threatening? Or were dirae a unique type of sign that would have been instantly
recognizable to the expert? On the evidence we have, it is impossible to say. Given the important role
of bird signs in augury, descriptions of birds as dirae in Tac. Ann. 12.43, Suet. Claud. 22, and Plin.
HN 18.1.4 may suggest that birds could produce auspicial dirae. Certainty evades us, however, for in
Tacitus and Suetonius the birds at issue are treated as a prodigy (that is, under a different branch of
the state divinatory system), while Pliny may simply be using the word dirus as an adjective.
37
On the distinction between oblative and impetrative auspices in general, see Linderski 1986: 2195–7.
38
For example, flashes of lightning were considered a type of auspice that could occur both sponta-
neously (as oblative auspices e.g. during an assembly) and in response to human solicitation (as
impetrative auspices e.g. during the so-called ‘auspication upon entry into office’ [Dion. Hal. Ant.
Rom. 2.6]).
39
See below.
40
So Catalano 1960: 137, n. 68; Schäublin 1986: 174, n. 33; Linderski 1986: 2200, 2202, n. 199;
Rosenstein 1990: 71, n. 62; Linderski 1993: 63 = 1995: 618; Badian 1996: 201; Konrad 2004: 181;
Wardle 2006: 182–3; Santangelo 2013: 277.
auspices.41 Given how little we know about auspicial dirae, the evidence is
simply insufficient to establish whether they were oblative or impetrative.
What I have suggested thus far is that (setting aside for a moment the
question of whether Capito’s specific dirae were ‘true’ or ‘false’) it was
theoretically in accordance with religious law and custom for a tribune like
Capito to make an obnuntiatio dirarum against a consul like Crassus.
However, as noted earlier, this is not how scholars have typically inter-
preted Capito’s actions in 55 bc. Many have instead supposed that he
somehow violated augural law. The most complicated theory is that of
Valeton, who claimed that tribunes had only the right to announce
oblative auspices, not the right to take impetrative auspices, but that
what Capito announced in 55 bc were indeed impetrative auspices and
that Capito thereby broke the rules (with supposed consequences to which
we will return).42 Linderski believes that Capito’s auspices were oblative,
but that tribunes had no right to make a formal obnuntiatio of oblative
signs, and thus that Capito’s announcement was ‘technically not binding
on Crassus’.43 Finally, Wardle asserts that the auspices of one magistrate
could only be cancelled out by the auspices of a colleague in the same
magistracy and thus that Capito’s auspices could not have legitimately
applied to Crassus.44 Whether we accept these arguments will obviously
affect not just how we view Capito’s action but also how we choose to
evaluate the propriety of Crassus’ reaction to it, and we will return to this
issue in the next section of this chapter.
In addition, many scholars have also accepted at face value the ancient
tradition that Capito invoked not just auspices but curses and magic as
well.45 Several sources testify to this tradition. Although our earliest
sources, Cicero (Div. 1.29–30) and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant.
Rom. 2.6.4), mention only unfavourable signs, in several later sources
(Luc. 3.125–7; Plut. Crass. 16; Flor. 1.46; Min. Fel. Oct. 7) curses have
displaced auspices altogether,46 while Velleius Paterculus (2.46), Appian
41
See OLD s.v. obiecto.
42
Valeton 1890: 440–3, 446–7, 451–2; accepted by Rosenstein 1990: 71, n. 62.
43
Linderski 1986: 2202, n. 199. I must confess that I do not see how Linderski’s assertion here that ‘the
tribunes of the plebs had no right to the nuntiatio oblatiuorum’ can be reconciled with his statement
at 2195–6 that ‘[a]ny person, even a priuatus, could announce’ an oblative sign, though (in his view)
only announcements by augurs were considered binding.
44
Wardle 2006: 182, 185.
45
So e.g. Shackleton Bailey 1965 II: 198; Gruen 1995: 187; Griffiths 1991: 98; Johnston 2004: 510;
Konrad 2004: 181, n. 30 (who has overlooked the fact that Appian mentions unfavourable signs as
well as curses); Wardle 2006: 183; Buongiorno 2011: 208, n. 44; Santangelo 2013: 235, n. 2.
46
Lucan writes of dirae that function as vows (uouerunt); Plutarch mentions curses (ἀρὰς . . . δεινὰς
μὲν αὐτὰς καὶ φρικώδεις) invoking strange and terrifying gods; Florus again has curses that function
(B Civ. 2.3.18) and Cassius Dio (39.39) seem to have merged the two
traditions and imagined two discrete events, with the tribunes trying
unfavourable signs first and then, when Crassus is undeterred, resorting to
curses.47 However, for Capito to have used magic publicly on this occasion
would have been a signally transgressive act. Though many Romans used
magic, and though the boundary between magic and religion lay often in
the eye of the beholder,48 in Roman discourse magic was presented as
impious and anti-social, with acts of harmful magic prohibited by Roman
law as early as the Twelve Tables.49 If Capito did use curses against Crassus
in 55 bc, he would presumably have been thought to incur more respon-
sibility for Crassus’ disaster, on the grounds that he really ought to have
known that when one invoked baleful magic against someone’s campaign,
that campaign would go badly wrong. This would again make it harder for
us to tell whether Romans generally considered the gods to be as unpre-
dictable, and their involvement in public life to be as dangerous, as we
suggested at the start of this chapter.
My own view, however, is that neither of these objections to the
significance of Capito’s actions is compelling. To take the issue of augural
law first, three key points may be made. Firstly, there is no good reason to
assume that tribunes were forbidden to take impetrative auspices of some
description,50 nor that they lacked the right to announce oblative auspices.
Secondly, as noted earlier, we have no way of knowing whether dirae were
oblative or impetrative, so any argument that depends on their being one
or the other is tenuous. Finally, we have numerous cases from the Late
Republic which demonstrate beyond all doubt that other magistrates,
including consuls, were obligated to respect the obnuntiationes of
tribunes.51 There is thus no reason to doubt that Capito had every right
as vows (hostilibus diris deuouerat); and Minucius Felix appears to have understood dirae as curses in
themselves (imprecationes dirarum; but cf. Weggen 2011: 29). On the ambiguities of the vocabulary
used in these passages and those in note 47, see Weggen 2011: 23–9, 32–3, n. 93.
47
Velleius thus has ‘dreadful omens’ (dira omina), then execrationes; in Appian likewise we have
unfavourable omens, then public imprecations (πολλά τε ἄλλα ἀπαίσια ἐγίγνετο . . . οἱ
δήμαρχοι . . . δημοσίας ἀρὰς ἐπηρῶντο); and in Cassius Dio, omens and portents, then terrible
curses (διοσημίας τινὰς καὶ τέρατα διεθρόουν, τοῦτο δὲ ἐξορμωμένῳ οἱ πολλὰ καὶ δεινὰ
ἐπηράσαντο).
48
On defining ancient magic, see especially Versnel 1991; Fowler 1995 = 2000; Gordon 1999; Bremmer
1999.
49
On Roman magical practices, see Graf 1997; Dickie 2001; Mirecki and Meyer 2002; Wiseman
2008a. On the position of magic in Roman law, see Bradley 1997; Kippenberg 1997; Rives 2003.
50
As rightly noted by Botsford 1909: 104, 114–15 and Badian 1996: 200–2.
51
For example, the tribunes P. Sestius (Cic. Sest. 79, 83) and T. Annius Milo (Cic. Att. 4.3.4 [SB 75])
made obnuntiationes to the consuls in 57 bc; Milo’s were especially effective, delaying the aedilician
elections from November 57 to January 56 bc and embarrassing the consul Metellus Nepos, as
to announce unfavourable auspices to Crassus in 55 bc and that (as Cicero’s
use of the technical term obnuntiatio indeed suggests) his action could be
seen as lying within the parameters of Roman state religion and augural
law.52 There remains, of course, the question of whether Capito’s dirae
were actually ‘false’ in some other sense: this will be addressed in the final
section of this chapter.
As for the claim that Capito called down curses on Crassus, Mommsen
and Simpson argued long ago, and Weggen showed again in 2011, that such
flamboyant and illicit behaviour is hardly likely to be historical,53 and
I believe that they must be right. Consider, for example, the vivid picture
in Plutarch: here Capito runs ahead to the city gate, sets up a brazier and
recites ‘curses which were dreadful and terrifying in themselves, and were
reinforced by strange and dreadful gods whom he summoned and called by
name’ while burning incense and making libations. Tantalizing though
this image is, it cannot be accurate. As noted earlier, Romans viewed magic
with deep suspicion, particularly when it was directed towards harming
another. We know of no other instance during the Republic when one
magistrate publicly used magic rites to curse another;54 even the most
famous case of the Imperial period, Piso’s supposed cursing of
Germanicus, was assumed to have been carried out in secret.55 It would
have been one thing, therefore, for Capito to announce that Jupiter was
opposed to Crassus’ departure from the city but quite another for him to
have adopted, in the full glare of an attendant crowd, the posture of a magus
performing rites designed to injure. Such tactics could not have cast legal
doubts upon the validity of Crassus’ departure, as all of Capito’s efforts up
to this point were evidently intended to do; that he would have resorted to
such tactics is therefore highly unlikely.
More conclusive than the argument from probability is the fact that our
earliest sources for the exchange between Capito and Crassus establish
quite clearly that Capito’s signs were auspices, not vows or curses. This is
evident, firstly, in Appius Claudius Pulcher’s own action in 50 bc, where
his allegation was that Capito had ‘falsified the auspices’ (ementitus auspi-
cia), and is confirmed by Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, both of
vividly described by Cicero. The tribune Q. Mucius Scaevola similarly prevented consular elections
in 54 bc by making effective obnuntiationes to the presiding consul: Cic. Att. 4.17.4 (SB 91).
52
Pace Weggen 2011: 40–1.
53
Mommsen 1887–8 I: 107, n. 2; Simpson 1938; Weggen 2011: 21–45.
54
The closest parallels Simpson could find (1938: 535–6) were the public consecrations Late Republican
magistrates made of their opponents’ property, but, as Weggen rightly observes, these were
a recognized part of public religion and should not be confused with curses.
55
Tac. Ann. 2.69.3.
whom adduce Capito’s signs in discussions of the role of prohibiting signs
in augury.56 Dionysius’ testimony (which curiously enough is hardly ever
cited in modern discussions of this incident) is particularly valuable, for it
gives the lie to the standard modern claim that it is only Cicero who leaves
out the curses, supposedly for reasons of his own.57 Once we add Dionysius
to the equation, however, it becomes clear that this is not a case of Cicero
against the world but of our earliest sources against later, often less knowl-
edgeable ones.58 The most likely explanation for this pattern is therefore
that of Hübner, who suggests that over time the act of announcing terrible
dirae that affected someone probably came to be confused with the act of
cursing someone so as to cause the dirae to affect him.59 This confusion was
no doubt encouraged by the wide semantic range of the word dirus and
may well have been deepened by Appius Claudius’ own argument in 50 bc
that Capito’s auspices had somehow ‘caused’ Crassus’ disaster.
What we have seen, therefore, is that Capito’s actions in 55 bc were
probably in accordance with augural rules insofar as he used auspices not
curses and insofar as he had the legal right to make an obnuntiatio of dirae
against a consul. If so, the ancient debate about Capito’s culpability in
Crassus’ disaster may be said to stand a good chance of reflecting Roman
anxieties about the gods not just on the borderland between magic and
religion but also within traditional or normative public religion. What,
then, can we learn from Capito’s role in these events? Capito’s behaviour
reminds us, firstly, that Roman politicians went to significant lengths to
involve the gods in politics, whether to get them on side or to activate their
hostility towards rival politicians. So far, so familiar. What is noteworthy is
that these efforts were not just a matter, as the current consensus has it, of
invoking religion so as to enhance one’s own authority or in order to appeal
to a system perceived as being ‘above’ factionalism and personal rivalries.
What our understanding of the ancient response to Capito should add to
56
Cic. Div. 1.29; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.6.4 (who, in keeping with the augural definition of dirae,
describes Capito’s signs as ‘forbidding signs’ [τοῖς ἀποτρέπουσι τὴν ἔξοδον οἰωνοῖς]).
57
Various motives for Cicero’s supposed obfuscation have been proposed: Pease 1920: 295–6 suggested
that Cicero omits the curses out of friendship for Capito because this use of magic reflected badly on
him, while Bayet 1960 = 1971: 36 argued that because this passage of the De divinatione was focused
on augury, Cicero omitted the curses as irrelevant.
58
Rightly noted by Weggen 2011: 43–4. Note also Seneca (Q Nat. 5.18.10), who writes that Crassus was
not ‘terrified by the dirae of the tribune calling him to turn back’ (non horrebit reuocantis diras
tribuni) and experienced ‘the wrath of gods and men’ (hominum et deorum iras; perhaps an allusion
to the associations between dirae and divine anger). There is nothing here that demonstrates
conclusively what Seneca believed these dirae to be, although the lack of a reference to vows or
imprecationes may suggest that he had auspices, not curses, in mind.
59
Hübner 1970: 6, 8–11.
this functionalist picture is the recognition that when Roman politicians
invoked religion, they believed that they were appealing to potentially
dangerous and certainly independent agents, the gods. They were asking
the gods not just to strengthen or to undermine a given politician or public
decision but to take their own, potentially unpredictable action in the
world.
55 bc: Crassus
Let us turn to the question of why Crassus ignored Capito’s signs and what
this can tell us about Roman attitudes towards the gods. If Capito used
magic against Crassus, then the latter’s refusal to defer his departure from
Rome would become relatively understandable and probably justifiable in
Roman eyes. As we have already seen, however, it is more likely that Capito
invoked auspices against Crassus, as he was entitled to do. Explanations for
Crassus’ behaviour must therefore be sought within an augural context.
The most common solution to date has been to suppose that Capito’s dirae
were oblative, or at least that Crassus believed they were, but that consuls
were not obliged to respect oblative signs reported to them by others (with
the possible exception of augurs or fellow consuls) and therefore that
Crassus simply exercised this prerogative in rejecting Capito’s
announcement.60 In light of our earlier discussion, however, it should be
clear that this explanation is not entirely satisfactory, for even if it is true
that magistrates had greater freedom of action with respect to oblative
auspices, we actually do not know whether Capito’s dirae were oblative.
They could just as easily have been impetrative, in which case Crassus
would still have been expected to heed them. Even if Capito’s dirae were
oblative, however, we can now also recognize the frailty of the modern
claim that magistrates were not bound by oblative auspices unless these
were announced by a colleague or an augur. We have already seen that
Roman magistrates had always to reckon with the possibility that another
magistrate would announce auspices forbidding them from acting and that
such announcements were considered binding even when the two men
held different magistracies, as in the case of the numerous demonstrably
effective obnuntiationes made by tribunes to consuls with respect to the
holding of assemblies. What is worth noting now is that in several of these
cases we do not know whether the auspices at issue were impetrative or
60
So (with variations) Valeton 1890: 440–3, 446–7, 451–2; Linderski 1986: 2202, n. 199; Rosenstein
1990: 71, n. 62; Wardle 2006: 182, 185; Santangelo 2013: 277, n. 21.
oblative, and it is perfectly possible that they were oblative but still
considered binding. These points do not, of course, prove that previous
modern explanations of Crassus’ reasoning are incorrect, but they do
suggest that we should entertain the possibility that in reality it was
Crassus, not Capito, who disregarded the conventions of augury in
55 bc. For if Capito’s obnuntiatio dirarum was legal, as we have argued,
then Crassus’ decision to defy it may well have violated the traditional
expectation that the magistrate against whom an obnuntiatio was made
would allow himself to be guided by it.
In support of this interpretation, we may cite the ancient tradition
surrounding Crassus’ behaviour in this affair. Despite the fact that some
authors held Capito at least partly responsible for the disaster at Carrhae,
there was an even stronger ancient tradition of blaming Crassus himself
precisely because he had ignored Capito’s signs. In Div. 1.28–9, for exam-
ple, Cicero’s character ‘Quintus’ claims that the fault lay wholly with
Crassus for rejecting Capito’s warning, citing Crassus’ case as an example
of how, by failing to consult the gods, ‘we run into those things which are
dreadfully unfavourable and ritually-flawed’ (dirae . . . et . . . uitiosa). For
Dionysius, similarly, Crassus’ behaviour was the ‘most remarkable and the
greatest instance’ of ‘the contempt of the divine power that prevails among
some people in these days’.61 In Florus’ opinion, likewise, Crassus had so
‘defied both gods and men’ that Rome had no right to ‘complain of
fortune’.62 The shocking scale of Crassus’ defeat no doubt drew criticisms
that were not entirely fair, but even so, these ancient complaints about his
failure to respect Capito’s signs would seem to make little sense if Crassus
had acted fully within his rights and in accordance with augural law and
custom.
How else, then, might we reconstruct Crassus’ role in the events of
55 bc? Two possibilities suggest themselves (and Crassus may well have
employed them both). Firstly, Crassus may have claimed that he was not
obliged to respect Capito’s signs, not because they were oblative or because
Capito was a tribune, but simply because they were ‘false’ in the literal
sense, i.e. that Capito had not actually received any dirae and had simply
made some up.63 However, this strategy was unlikely to have got Crassus
off the hook with respect to augural law. Most scholars suppose that even
announcements of auspices that were known to be fake were still consid-
ered binding on the gods and on the magistrates to whom they were made,
61 62
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.6.4. Flor. 1.46.
63
As acutely observed by Konrad 2004: 182, 184.
and if so, then Crassus would still have been expected to submit to Capito’s
intervention. As I will argue later, this modern supposition that the issue of
veracity was irrelevant in augury actually has little to commend it.
However, it does seem likely that, in the absence of proof of
falsification,64 magistrates were encouraged to err on the side of caution
and to respect the obnuntiationes they received even when they had private
doubts about them.65
Secondly, Crassus may simply have decided to ignore Capito’s signs
even though he had no grounds on which to do so according to traditional
augural law and custom.66 Here again, Dionysius of Halicarnassus pro-
vides particularly intriguing evidence. Ant. Rom. 2.6.4 claims that in 55 bc
Crassus did not simply ignore Capito’s signs; rather, he ‘declared that he
took great delight’ in them. This looks like another example of the charis-
matic reinterpretation of signs that became more and more prominent in
the Late Republic as individualistic military leaders overturned traditional
religious interpretations to produce their own readings of the signs as being
in their favour.67 But, like the claim that Capito’s auspices were false, it
seems unlikely to have rescued Crassus from his obligations under tradi-
tional augural law and custom.
Thus, we might choose to see Crassus, on the one hand, as
a representative of a new way of interpreting auspices, a proponent of
a Late Republican trend towards trying to force divination to say what one
wanted to hear. On the other hand, our sources make it clear that Crassus
did not really get away with this attempt at pushing the boundaries,
64
Konrad 2004: 182, 184 suggests that Crassus did have proof of falsification in this case, on the
supposition that dirae were oblative and therefore could only be said to pertain to an action if they
occurred simultaneously with it (the principle here would be the so-called uinculum temporis). Since
Crassus must have had witnesses to his ‘auspication of departure’, Konrad argues, and since they
apparently mounted no objection to his leaving the city, he could have objected that no such
oblative signs had actually occurred. However, this reconstruction is tenuous: dirae may not have
been oblative, or Capito may have accused Crassus and his supporters of ignoring an oblative sign
that did occur during his ‘auspication of departure’, and the uinculum temporis is a modern coinage
of Valeton’s (followed by Linderski); it may not have governed all oblative auspices in any case.
65
This, I suggest, is what Cicero means when he says that the Roman people were ‘bound’ by Mark
Antony’s announcement of ‘false’ auspices in 44 bc; see below.
66
Cf. Konrad 2004: 184, who appears to want to have his cake and eat it too when he proposes that
augural law gave Crassus the option of formally rejecting Capito’s auspice but that Crassus ‘simply
shrugged [it] off’ instead, thereby opening himself up to the virulent criticism we find in the ancient
tradition. This is hard to believe: if augural law had offered Crassus an easy and perfectly legitimate
way out of his dilemma, he would have taken it.
67
We might compare Caesar’s notorious disregard for unfavourable sacrifices – even, as legend had it,
on the day of his death, when he informed his haruspex that ‘the signs will be favourable when I wish
it’ (Suet. Iul. 77), or Octavian’s alleged declaration, during the Sicilian War against Sextus
Pompeius, that he would prevail etiam inuito Neptuno (‘even in spite of Neptune’: Suet. Aug. 16).
because he was heavily criticized for ignoring Capito’s signs and thereby
provoking the wrath of the gods. For all Crassus’ potential attempts at
reinterpretation, therefore, the gods’ involvement in politics in this case
seems to have been considered dangerous not just for Capito, as we saw
earlier, but also for Crassus and, through him, for Rome’s armies and
people.
This might seem like a fairly obvious point for ancient authors to make
about Crassus, perhaps as a convenient way of explaining why he met the
fate he did. However, there are hints of the same Roman anxiety about
divine involvement in politics in other sources, too. In the Pro Sestio, for
example, Cicero made a similar point about the relationship between the
gods and his enemies Piso and Gabinius. He describes them at Sest. 71 as
leaving Rome under ‘evil omens and curses [malis ominibus atque exsecra-
tionibus]’. As in Crassus’ case, these curses are presumably not literal,
magical curses à la Plutarch but general ill-wishes or appeals for divine
vengeance.68 Cicero then offers an astonishing exclamation: ‘[w]ould that
the things which men prayed for at that time [quae tum homines precaban-
tur] had come only upon [Piso and Gabinius] themselves! [In that case] we
should not have lost the province of Macedonia with an army, nor cavalry
and our best cohorts in Syria.’
The significance of this remark for our understanding of Roman
attitudes towards the gods is easy to overlook in our familiarity with
Cicero’s rhetorical skill and his blatant desire to besmirch the names of
Gabinius and Piso as much as possible. It is tempting to see his com-
ment as one more example of the standard trope of impiety allegations
in invective that we highlighted at the start of this chapter; in other
words, it would be easy to dismiss Cicero’s words here as mere mud-
slinging and not to ponder what they can tell us about Roman concep-
tions of the gods as political agents. As Claudia Tiersch argues in
Chapter 2, however, we should not close our eyes to the possibilities
that open up before us when we take the ideological content of political
oratory seriously. We should ponder the theological implications of
claims such as those which Cicero makes against Piso and Gabinius.
And when we do ponder this, what seems to emerge is the same world-
view that we see in the ancient discussions of the Capito-Crassus affair.
What Cicero is claiming in the Pro Sestio is that once the gods had
involved themselves in the campaigns of Piso and Gabinius, as they
would later involve themselves in the campaign of Crassus, serious
68
So also Weggen 2011: 32–3, n. 93.
Roman losses were the result.69 In essence, this was a world in which
gods who were asked to do dangerous things might very well do those
things, even against other Romans, and not just against elite politicians
and commanders but also against their men, against common citizens.
Whether we see Cicero’s own use of this theme as sincere or not, it must
have resonated with fears that were felt by at least some members of his
audience.70
50 bc: Claudius Pulcher

Let us conclude by considering how Appius Claudius could have justified
his censure of Capito in 50 BC. Appius has often been blamed for the
rigour of his censorship, supposedly because it drove so many of his victims
into Caesar’s arms.71 Modern scholars have also been sharply critical of the
augural reasoning he employed in his treatment of Capito. The scholarly
literature abounds with blithe assertions that Appius’ attack on Capito
reflects ‘extreme, “un-Roman” views on divination’,72 that it met with
‘widespread criticism . . . among the boni, many of whom would not have
understood the augural argument on which it was based’73 and even that he
was not thinking like an augur when he addressed the matter.74
Much of this criticism depends on the ancient criticism of Appius that
Cicero puts into the mouth of ‘Quintus’ in Div. 1.29–30. Yet, as Schäublin
rightly observed, Cicero’s remarks here are clearly tendentious and no
doubt exaggerated to strengthen his own case. Modern assertions to the
effect that Appius was acting in an ‘un-Roman’ or ‘un-augural’ way in
50 bc are therefore tenuous: given the gaps in our surviving evidence for
augury, Pulcher ought on any account to have known more about augury
than we do. In fact, he not only prided himself on his augural knowledge
but was also highly respected for it by contemporaries, including Cicero.75
His attack on Capito is therefore best understood not as a bizarre aberra-
tion from augural norms but as one outworking of his commitment to
69
We may also compare the same sentiment in Val. Max. 1.6.6 on Flaminius: ‘Would that he had paid
the penalty for his rashness only by his own death, and not by a great slaughter of the Roman
people!’ Evidently the latter was the more expected outcome.
70
The bibliography on Cicero’s own religious attitudes is vast: for references, overview and
a treatment that is excellent in its own right, see Santangelo 2013. For our purposes here, the
question of Cicero’s personal beliefs or sincerity is not crucial, for whatever he himself believed, he
would only have used these arguments if he thought that they would resonate with his audience.
71 72
Dio Cass. 40.63–4; Gruen 1995: 484; Muñiz Coello 2003: 227. Wardle 2006: 181.
73 74 75
Konrad 2004: 182, n. 36. Kany-Turpin 1999: 262. Cic. Brut. 267.
a rigorous and punctilious censorship.76 His reasoning, therefore, has
much to tell us about why Capito’s action caused concern at Rome.
In order to understand Appius’ reasoning accurately, we must once
again clear away some modern theories about the rules of augury that
have obfuscated rather than clarified the issues involved. Valeton proposed
that although tribunes did not have the right to take impetrative auspices,
Capito in fact took them anyway and that this is what Appius meant when
he said that Capito had ‘falsified the auspices’. In this case, Appius’
complaint would be a technical one, on a point of procedure, rather than
telling us how Romans felt about actual invention of or dishonesty about
auspices. Kany-Turpin supposes that if an auspice was said to be unfavour-
able and an event then turned out badly, the relationship between sign and
event was considered true, even if the auspice itself had been falsely
reported.77 Rasmussen, on the other hand, claims that Cicero’s criticism
of Appius in De divinatione reflects a ‘crucial principle’ of augury, that,
because auspices do not cause things in and of themselves, ‘false auspices
therefore do not present any real danger to the Roman people’. So, she
concludes, ‘this kind of falsification’ was not very important from a Roman
point of view.78 Finally, many scholars, including Bayet, Linderski,
Konrad, Wardle and Engels, assume that even false auspices were made
valid simply by the act of publicly announcing them and that this is what
Appius must have meant by claiming both that Capito had ‘falsified the
auspices’ and that he had caused Crassus’ disaster. Thus, Wardle writes that
‘the gods too were bound by Ateius’ report of unpropitious signs . . . In one
sense the “reality” of an auspicial sign was never problematic for the
Romans’, and Konrad agrees: ‘By making a false report of dirae, Ateius
Capito had effectively created those calamitous signs: now Iuppiter had no
choice but to follow through with the disaster they warned of’ (unless
Crassus had heeded them).79
There are several reasons to doubt each of these theories, but I focus on
three points above all. Firstly, it seems very unlikely that Appius would
have raised the issue of whether Capito’s signs were true or false if the
veracity of auspices really made no difference to Romans. The puzzle of his
reasoning therefore cannot be resolved simply by assuming that the issue of
truth or falsehood was irrelevant. Secondly, as Schäublin argues against
Valeton, the most natural way of taking ementitus auspicia is as meaning
76
So Caelius Rufus to Cicero, Fam. 8.14 (SB 97). 77 Kany-Turpin 1999, 2003: 72–3.
78
Rasmussen 2003: 168.
79
Konrad 2004: 181–5; Wardle 2006: 180–1; similarly Bayet 1936 = 1971: 48, n. 6; Linderski 1986:
2210–11; Engels 2007: 645, n. 676.
what it says: not that the wrong procedure had been used but that someone
had ‘lied about the auspices’. Thirdly and most importantly, we need not
accept the theory that the gods were bound by false announcements. It is
difficult to see why the gods would ever have been thought to go along with
whatever any liar chose to say about their will; moreover, Schäublin long
ago provided an alternative way of understanding Appius’ reasoning,
which, despite its failure to gain traction in subsequent scholarship, must
be right.80 Schäublin’s suggestion is that falsifying auspices was considered
dangerous precisely because it meant ignoring or defying the gods and
thereby offending them, with the result that they might wreak their wrath
on the Roman state and armies.
This theory is confirmed by our final example of the use of gods in
oratory: Cicero’s Second Philippic. Here Cicero rails against Mark Antony
for the same crime of ‘falsifying the auspices’, in this case during the
election of Dolabella as suffect consul in 44 bc. What Cicero says is this:
‘Thus, by Hercules, you lied about the auspices, to your own great disaster,
I hope, rather than to the Republic’s; you have bound the Roman people in
a religious liability’ (ergo hercle magna, ut spero, tua potius quam rei publicae
calamitate ementitus es auspicia; obstrinxisti religione populum Romanum).
What Cicero is alluding to here must be the same Roman fear we saw
earlier in this chapter, the fear that the gods might get angry and punish the
Republic rather than the individual who committed a religious infraction.
I close, then, with the suggestion that we should see Pulcher’s criticism of
Capito as evidence that the veracity of religious claims in public discourse
mattered to Romans. For all the temptations of invective, for all the
attractions of using allegations of impiety to damage your opponent, the
Roman politician still had to bear in mind not just how his contemporary
humans would receive his claims but also how the gods would react to
them. He had to reckon with the belief that outright lies not only did not
fool the gods but could attract their vengeance, drawing down their wrath
not necessarily on the liar himself but on the whole state.
Conclusion
Roman reactions to the controversy between Capito, Crassus and Appius
Claudius were complex, displaying a wide variety of potential interpreta-
tions of the rightness or wrongness of each man’s position. Our sources
80
Weggen 2011: 41, 45 reaches a view similar to Schäublin’s, though seemingly without reference to his
work or the debate to which it pertains.
agree, however, in showing us that Republican politicians’ attempts to
invoke the gods in public discourse and to involve them in public affairs
were not casual, but risky, even dangerous. The gods were seen as poten-
tially unpredictable, as being eager to punish those who made false claims
about them, even as being willing to wreak vengeance, striking far beyond
individual culprits and onto the state, the people and the army. If we are
fully to understand how politics worked in the Republic, therefore, we
must consider not just humans’ machinations against each other but also
their potentially perilous, and deadly serious, attempts to involve the gods
themselves as agents in Roman life.
chapter 10
When the Senators Became ‘The Best’

Guido Clemente
The Senate that guided Rome through the conquest of Italy and the
building of the Empire was largely the creation of the plebiscitum
Ouinium, according to which by the end of the fourth century bc its
members were selected by the censors. The choice was made on the basis of
the cura morum, an inspection of the behaviour of the would-be senators
that was undertaken by the censors themselves.1 The selected men were
declared to be the optimi, the best among the citizens, and as such worthy
of the Senate. The cura morum had always been the distinctive feature of
the working of the censorship: at every census, the citizens were scrutinized
in order to be included in the various units (centuriae and tribus) that
formed the ciuitas; when the censors were entrusted with the lectio senatus,
they drew up the list of senators through a public scrutiny of their mores.
Consequently, the Senate became the council of the men whom the
censors declared to be the best, since they had met the standards of the
cura morum. The notion of optimus, then, defined a specific group: the
members of the Senate, who thus constituted an elite self-conscious of their
supremacy and whose legitimacy to rule was rooted in their observance of
the mores maiorum, the ancestral customs. The question to be addressed in
this chapter is: did the mos maiorum when the senators began to be defined
as, and to define themselves as, the ‘best’ – a self-definition that was rooted
in this supposedly unchanging mos maiorum – remain constant and socially
relevant, despite the massive expansion of Rome’s Empire and the admis-
sion of noui homines to the Senate?
The Romans had a very consistent definition of the mos maiorum: rules
of behaviour rooted in the past and accepted by the community as a whole
because of their antiquity and long-standing usage.2 The main feature of
1
On the plebiscitum, see below; the best treatment is Cornell 2000, whom I follow for the interpreta-
tion of its relevance in connection with the cura morum.
2
See e.g. Cic. Rep. 5.1.1; Inv. rhet. 2.162; Serv. Aen. 7.601; Gell. NA 15.11.2; Ulp. 1.4 for the mores based
on consensus (‘general approval and usage’). See also the funerary epitaphs of the Scipiones below. For
203
204 guido clemente
these ancestral customs was, of course, their continuity in time. The mores
that were considered to be essential to the welfare of the state were no
different in the fourth or in the first century bc in any relevant way; in fact,
the main worry of people such as Cicero was that they changed for the
worse. However, the self-description of the ruling group as the optimi,
which we know mostly from late sources glorifying the past, does not tell
the whole story. It tells of the need of the nobilitas, the self-styled new
aristocracy, to claim the right to rule exclusively, since only the nobiles had
the necessary moral equipment, provided they observed the mos maiorum.
It accounts for the constant tension between individual achievement,
indispensable for membership of the aristocracy, and collective control
that ensured stability and a certain equality among the members of the
elite.3
The society of the fourth century, however, was very different from that
of the first century bc. The ideology of continuity, if it helped to curb or
delay undesirable changes from the point of view of the ruling group, could
not prevent those same changes from taking place. So we have to deal with
a complicated scenario: the unchanging mores were at the core of the
ideology of the aristocracy, apparently accepted without any real alterna-
tive, and presented to all social groups as exemplary. At the same time, the
values of the maiores, the ancients, were the sole point of reference for this
political culture to recognize change and deal with it. There was occasional
criticism: on various occasions across the centuries, the leges sumptuariae,
the laws against luxury and lavish expenditure, raised a debate that mirrors
largely the debates of the end of the first century bc. This happened, for
example, at the time of the repeal of the Oppian law in 195 bc or when in
97 bc the tribune of the people Duronius wanted to abrogate the Licinian
law, being removed from the Senate by the censors as a result.4 We also
have hints of criticism voiced, for example, by Plautus or by intellectuals
such as Lucilius,5 but the model went virtually unchallenged from outside
the elite; we have no instance of a discussion of these topics on the part of
the people, who voted for laws in the legislative assemblies, despite
the significance of the aristocratic funeral and the establishment of aristocratic culture, see Flower
1996; for the problem of the evolution of the value system, see Wallace-Hadrill 2008.
3
Clemente 1990a.
4
Livy, 34.1–7; Val. Max. 2.9.5. See Arena 2011: 467–77 for an interesting interpretation of the debate
on luxury. On the sumptuary laws, see Clemente 1981; Baltrusch 1989: 40–131; a general discussion of
the attitude of the Romans towards wealth can be found in Gabba 1981 = 1988.
5
Plaut. Trin. 28–38, 642–8, 1028–49; see Persa 53–61 for the satire on ancestry. Gabba 1985 = 1988;
Blösel 2000: 27–37. On Lucilius, see Clemente 1985.
When the Senators Became ‘The Best’ 205
debating them in the informal gatherings, the contiones; inside the ruling
group, the opposition never amounted to any real alternative.
This raises a question: in a changing society that represents itself as
rooted in the mores of the past, how relevant was the control of the
customs applied to the senators, on the occasion of the lectio, in different
situations and times? Did the curbing of luxury really matter in the first
century bc, as it mattered, no doubt, in the fourth? The main point is, in
fact, that changes took place, but they were interpreted in relation to the
mos or, better, to the prevailing idea of the mos at any given time. From
the point of view of the practice of politics, the lectio senatus usually did
not depart from the approval of the best men, which meant, in the
aristocratic view, themselves; i.e. it played the role of representing the
ideal aristocracy, even when there was a deep gap between what the
Romans of all social groups experienced in everyday life and the constant
claim that one needed to behave according to the mores established by the
ancestors. This was not hypocrisy, since the power of the consensus
regarding an ideal society shaped the actions of men and influenced the
community as a whole.6
Our starting point for addressing this question is the evidence for the
earliest connection between the censors and the optimi who constituted the
Senate: an entry in a second-century dictionary compiled by Festus, draw-
ing from an antiquarian source of the Augustan age. Between 339–334 and
312 bc a tribune of the plebs otherwise unknown, Ovinius, transferred to
the censors the power to perform the lectio senatus:
PRAETERITI SENATORES quondam in opprobrio non erant, quod, ut
reges sibi legebant, sublegebantque, quos in consilio publico haberent, ita
post exactos eos consules quoque et tribuni militum consulari potestate
coniunctissimos sibi quosque patriciorum, et deinde plebeiorum legebant;
donec Ouinia tribunicia interuenit, qua sanctum est, ut censores ex omni
ordine optimum quemque iurati [curiati cod.] in senatum legerent. quo
factum est, ut qui praeteriti essent et loco moti, haberentur ignominiosi.7
(Festus p. 290.5–16L)
6
For a different emphasis on the mos as a developing concept, from an aristocratic concept to
a collective one, see Blösel 2000: 25–85.
7
Trans. Cornell 2000: 73: ‘Passed-over senators in former times were not in disgrace, because just as
the kings used to choose for themselves, and to choose as replacements, those whom they would have
in public council, so after the kings were expelled the consuls also, and the military tribunes with
consular power, used to choose for themselves all their closest friends from the patricians and then
from the plebeians; until the tribunician Ovinian law intervened, by which it was laid down that the
censors should be bound by oath to enrol in the Senate all the best men from every rank. Thus it came
about that those who were passed over and removed from their seats were considered dishonoured.’
206 guido clemente
Festus summarized in a few lines an act of which we know virtually nothing
else: the law, by transferring the choice of the senators to the censors,
submitted senators and would-be senators to a scrutiny of their behaviour.
The text of Festus is not unproblematic, however. The expression ‘from
every rank’ has been interpreted as meaning either ‘from every rank of the
magistrates’ or ‘from every rank of the citizen body as a whole’. In fact, the
former magistrates were not enough to fill the vacancies between one
selection and the next, which took place every five years as a general rule
(not always followed), yet the idea that the censors could, although only in
theory, scrutinize all the citizens for membership of the Senate does not
sound like a viable procedure. The reading iurati (‘under oath’),
a correction of curiati in the manuscript, however, seems to make sense.
It is difficult to envisage a crucial role for the curiae, the original units into
which the citizens were registered but long since obsolete, in the composi-
tion of the Senate, while the oath of the censors is well attested, and it
appears in rather suggestive passages of Cicero and others.8
These problems, though serious, do not have an impact on the general
meaning of the Ovinian law recorded by Festus: from now on the senatorial
elite were determined according to censorial scrutiny, implicitly of their
members’ mores (that is to say, their observance of the ancestral customs that
set the guidelines for the appropriate behaviour of citizens). Any senator
bypassed or removed was struck with dishonour, justified by the annotation
(nota) the censors wrote beside his name in the list they read in public. It was
the mos maiorum, therefore, that now underpinned the new notion of
optimi. By introducing the link between the definition of the best citizens
and the membership of the Senate, the law marked an epochal change.
To support this reading of optimi, it is necessary to point out some
features of the Ovinian law that have often been overlooked. However odd
it may seem to contemporary experience (or, for that matter, in compar-
ison e.g. with the practice of the Athenians), the members of the most
influential political body were scrutinized on the basis of their behaviour as
citizens, according to the mos maiorum. This did not concern, specifically,
the senators’ behaviour as magistrates, nor does it mean that the censors
8
On the reading of the passage, I follow Cornell 2000, although I differ from his interpretation of ex
omni ordine; recently, Ryan 1998: 150–5 and 2001 argued for a return to the reading of the manuscript,
although admitting that the selection through the curiae (or decuriae) was soon abandoned. Humm
2005: 199–203 supports curiatim (which means chosen according to the curiae), with new arguments
on their role at the time. The passages in Cic. Clu. 121,126–7 seem to me to be persuasive (see also
Zon. 7.9 and Dio Cass. 54.13.2 on the oath taken by Augustus in 18 BC for the lectio senatus).
The question, nonetheless, must be left open, since the expression ex omni ordine does not allow for
a fully satisfactory explanation.
only dealt with what we would call private life. In the Roman Republic, the
behaviour of the citizens amounted to the collective identity of the com-
munity and had to win the approval of the people. The selection of the
senators was not part of the religious procedures of the census, which was
valid only if the lustrum, the ceremony to purify the citizen body with
a sacrifice of three male animals (a bull, a ram and a pig) was performed.
It took place before the lustrum and was an independent activity. It was
a public ceremony, however, performed in front of the citizens, and both
the censors and the citizens had to take an oath. So it is difficult to
underestimate the impact, on the community as a whole, of the selection
of the best men, who were to exercise their auctoritas (the power to guide
the city); they were chosen for their virtues, widely known and approved by
the Roman people.9 When the plebiscitum Ouinium was enforced, the
censors charged with selecting the optimi must have made reference to the
mos maiorum of the time, a code of behaviour that was essentially con-
cerned with the relationships between members of the family, between
masters and slaves, with respect for the ancestral rites and with the care for
the basic needs of an agricultural society.
It is plausible that the new patrician-plebeian elite wanted to establish
themselves by fighting old-time procedures such as those initially described
by Festus. The introduction of a plebeian censor in 339 bc set the stage for
the change. For us, the main problem, however, is to define what made the
best senator at the time of the law and how far this was related to social
rank. The new ruling group went back now at least three or four genera-
tions, to the end of the fifth century and the first decades of the fourth; the
many plebeians who had held offices were now members of a group that
had contributed to the government of the res publica and claimed full
recognition. In the process, despite the differences still persisting with the
old patrician aristocracy, they had come to share the set of values that the
city had elaborated, which go under the name of mores maiorum.10
Although we know almost nothing about the actual working of that
society, we can safely assume that the mores were essential in shaping the
behaviour of individuals, and thus of the ciuitas as a whole.11
9
On the censorship in general, Mommsen 1887–8 II: 331–469 is still the fundamental work; Suolahti
1963 has a prosopographical approach; Pieri 1968 is important. On the censorship and the Senate, see
Willems 1878: 153–238, 265–580 (for the list of the lectiones); see also Astin 1988.
10
See Hölkeskamp 1987: 62–114 for the rise of the plebeians; 109–13; 142–7 for the Publilian laws and
the Ovinian law.
11
It is impossible to discuss here the theories about the origin and function of the mores in archaic
Rome. I refer especially to Volterra 1949 = 1999, who argues for a very early adoption of the mores
maiorum, the customs of the ancients, as the mores ciuitatis, the customs of the state; Flower 2011
208 guido clemente
Who were the ‘best’ at the end of the fourth century bc, and by what
criteria were they identified and selected? We know very little of the
workings of the censorship until the Ovinian law and the activity of
Appius Claudius in 312 bc. It is highly probable that the census was linked
from the beginning with some kind of cura morum.12 There are scattered
reports of censors intervening in matters related to the mores in the course
of the fifth century bc.13 From sources dating to the third century bc it is
possible to form a plausible idea of what the Romans thought at the time.
The eulogy of L. Scipio, the consul of 259 bc, stated that honc oino
ploirume cosentiont r[omane] duonoro optumo fuisse uiro (‘Most
Romans agree that this man was the best of all’).14 The whole group of
elogia of the Scipiones shows the relationship between family tradition,
emulation and the celebration of personal achievement.15 Scipio Nasica
was chosen by the Senate to receive the Magna Mater in 204 bc, since
adulescentem nondum quaestorium, iudicauerunt in tota ciuitate uirum
bonorum optimum esse (‘a young man, not yet a quaestor, they judged to
be the best man of all the good ones in the whole city’).16 The elogium of
Caecilius Metellus by his son in 221 bc lists a kind of Decalogue of the res
maximae et optimae (‘the greatest and best achievements’) that were sought
by the sapientes (‘wise men’) of the time.17 The lectio of 216 bc, although
conducted after Cannae, in a dramatic time of war, gives a fairly good idea
of who could be defined as optimus, worthy of the Senate.18 The dictator
exceptionally entrusted with the lectio, Fabius Buteo, famous for his strict-
ness, being aware that he could not act freely since he had no colleague, first
confirmed all the magistrates and the former magistrates, then selected the
curules magistrates (consuls, praetors, aediles curules) that had not yet entered
the Senate since the previous lectio, then the lower magistrates (quaestors,
tribunes of the plebs, plebeian aediles) and finally, to fill the vacancies up to
the number of 177 new members, chose those among the citizens who had
held no office to date but who had won some distinction in war. Although
extraordinary, the procedure followed by the dictator may well have been
argues for various phases in Republican history and underlines the selective nature of our evidence,
which obscures the changes that took place.
12
Tibiletti 1959; Lo Cascio 2001; Humm 2005: 229–439 discusses thoroughly the most relevant
theories on the census lists.
13
Suolahti 1963: 47; the most interesting case falls in 403 bc (probably authentic), concerning the
punishment of the caelibes (‘unmarried’), who were assigned to the class of the aerarii (people
inscribed in a special list and liable to pay a tax): Val. Max. 2.9.1; of course, the motive is topical.
14
CIL I²: 9.
15
CIL I²: 6–15; see Coarelli 1988 for the most accurate survey of the monument and the inscriptions.
16
Livy, 29.14.8; Per. 29. 17 Plin. HN 7.43.139–40. 18 Livy 23.22–3.
modelled on the customary procedure of the censors; the whole passage
clarifies the concern of Fabius not to depart from tradition, following
established priorities; he did not apply the cura morum only because he
lacked a colleague.
Between the last decades of the fourth century and the beginning of the
third century bc, the Romans had worked out a notion of the optimus ciuis
(the ‘best citizen’) that was the result of the emergence of the new aris-
tocracy but still kept the marks of the traditions formed inside the old
close-knit gentes (‘clans’), the ones who could claim an ancestry whose
emulation gave their members a place among the elite. Family tradition
worked in such a way that even a young man not yet quaestorius (holding
the quaestorship, the junior magistracy) could be considered optimus by his
fellow citizens and the Senate. At the same time, it was necessary to be able
to boast individual achievements and all that defined uirtus (‘virtue,
honour’) in a man: search for glory, courage in battle, respect for the
established institutions of the res publica, moderation and the ability to
pass on this moral and economic patrimony to descendants (which would
be the first time for a new men but in line with the behaviour of the
members of the old families).
There was, of course, a difference between the self-description of the
Scipiones and the claims of those who had gained their status for the first
time through the holding of magistracies. But both claimed to be worthy of
their achievements due to their adherence to the mores maiorum, which
were by then the mores ciuitatis. The emphasis Cato placed on the collective
achievement of the Roman people, to play down the pride of the old
aristocracy, did not make any difference in the individual competition for
office and the need to be recognized as a member of the elite.19
The lectio of Appius Claudius, the first after the plebiscite, regardless of
a number of excruciating doubts, makes it clear what was meant by the
notion of optimi. No reconstruction of his censorship can fully account for
the struggle that it generated, if we do not consider his opposition, as an old
patrician, to the ‘normalization’ of the Senate, now an expression of the
mixed nobility and not an instrument in the hands of the most powerful
consuls.20 It is difficult to imagine that even before the plebiscitum the
19
Blösel 2000: 53–9, underlining the evolution of the mores.
20
It is impossible here to list the enormous bibliography on Appius and the many theories that have
been advanced. Recently, Humm 2005 has discussed the relevant literature and offered the most
consistent interpretation of Appius as a reformer who adjusted institutions in response to the
expansion of the city-state. See Humm 2005: 185–226 for a discussion of the lectio senatus. The lectio,
however, does not fit easily into this general picture, and I offer a different interpretation.
210 guido clemente
Senate did not include members of the most important families or that
former magistrates were passed over easily. The opposition to the new law
came from a resistance to the new procedure, which made it virtually
impossible to ignore the new aristocracy, based not on old personal rela-
tions but on office-holding and on the consensus of the people, which could
be achieved by individuals outside the old patriciate. The lectio of Appius
was praua and infamis (‘perverted’ and ‘infamous’), as opposed to a good
one, because he had appointed even libertini (the ‘sons of freedmen’) while
passing over some who had held dignitates (‘honourable positions’). So the
first prerequisite was dignitas, given by office-holding; then status, defined
mainly by wealth and family. The new members had wealth and offices,
and they could compete with the old aristocrats since they were also
optimi.21
In fact, as we shall see, the relationship between office-holding and
membership of the Senate became more and more important, as was
bound to happen in a hierarchical society. The mores that the censors
enforced in the first century bc made Dionysius of Halicarnassus marvel:
the censors entered into the bedchamber of the citizens, unlike the Greek
magistrates, who considered the private space of the home to be sacred.22
We are on slippery ground because the work of the censors was quoted for
its exemplary character and was a popular subject in the works of Valerius
Maximus, Pliny the Elder and Aulus Gellius, although we should not
exaggerate the impression that this evidence forms but a random selec-
tion; the fact that the examples were used and repeated over and over
again lends them a more general value, setting precedents that could be
called upon when needed. The mores that the censors enforced following
the plebiscitum Ouinium at the end of the fourth century bc and the
beginning of the third, as already noted, were those that cared for the
needs of an agricultural society. The fact that these were still enforced
despite the deep changes which Roman society had undergone must not
make us forget that they may have been consistent with the functioning of
the society of the end of the fourth century bc and the beginning of the
third. The fact that the censors enforced these mores even in the first
century bc, when they appeared useless and inadequate for coping with
the problems of the time, produces a distortion in our perspective.
The persistence of the censorial action has more to do with the way the
Romans dealt with change than with the actual working of the lectio at the
time of its introduction.
21 22
Livy, 9.29.7, 30.1–2, 9.46.10–11; Diod. Sic. 20.36.3, 5. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 20.13.2–3.
In fact, at the end of the fourth century bc, the lectio senatus would
contribute to establishing, and strengthening, a code of behaviour for the
new patrician-plebeian aristocracy on which to build its identity as a ruling
group; by being adopted as a criterion to describe the senators, it became
a model for the ciuitas. Since the mos maiorum defined the best possible
society and its legitimacy lay in its antiquity, it could not be abandoned or
easily changed. This would prove to be a limitation, but it was also its
strength. The aristocracy of the first century bc indulged in thinking of
itself as the heir to the aristocracy of the fourth. Whether they truly
believed this is beside the point. It was important that the members of
the elite could still be identified by this ideology, going back to a distant,
good past, of which they were the inheritors and the interpreters.
The first censorial lectiones give an idea of the working of the plebiscitum;
at the time, and during the third century bc, the work of the censors must
have had a real impact, consonant with the prevailing needs of a rural
society that was expanding beyond its civic boundaries, incorporating new
people and witnessing the growth of new social groups outside the Roman
elite. In 307 bc, the censors removed a senator who had divorced his wife
without taking the advice of his friends.23 Then, in 275 bc, there was the
famous expulsion of Cornelius Rufinus, a consular of great prestige, for the
possession of ten pounds of silverware, an episode that our tradition loved
to quote.24
The Punic Wars placed a different emphasis on the activity of the
censors: the main problem became the control of behaviour in war, and
the elite were called upon to set the example for courage, sacrifice and
search for glory and were severely punished when they did not meet these
standards. As Valerius Maximus says, speaking of the censors of 209 bc, the
censorship ex foro in castra transcendit, quae nec timeri nec decipi uoluit
hostem (went from the Forum to the army camps, as it did not want the
enemy to be feared or deceived).25 There were mass punishments in 252 bc
and after Cannae.26
The situation changed dramatically with the rapid expansion of Rome’s
Empire. The history of the lectiones of the second century shows both the
23
Val. Max. 2.9.2. The problems of the caelibes (‘unmarried’) and of the lack of sons in a marriage were
crucial at the time and until the end of the Republic: see Giunti 2004: 85–141.
24
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 20.13.1; Livy, Per. 14; Val. Max. 2.9.4; Sen. Ep. 98.13; Plin. HN 18.39, 33.142,
153; Gell. NA 17.21.39; Flor. 1.13.22; Tert. Apol. 6; August. Ep. 104.6.
25
Val. Max 2.9.8.
26
Livy, Per. 18; the 400 equites in Val. Max. 2.9.7; Frontin. Str. 4.1.22; Livy, 24.18.1–9; also Livy,
22.53.4, 27.11.12–16.
212 guido clemente
inadequacy of the magistracy to cope with the quick changes and their
alignment with groups that wanted to stop the devastating consequences of
the new imperial society. We witness both successful censorships and
failures, as collegiality and the need for unanimous decisions often made
the censorship ineffective.
The lectiones of Scipio Africanus in 199 bc and Flamininus in 189 bc were
very mild: no expulsion of any relevance took place.27 In 184 bc, by contrast,
Cato used the magistracy and the lectio senatus to the utmost of its political
potential. He delivered speeches to justify his notae (‘adjustments to the
list’), and his oratio censoria (‘censorial speech’) became a model for any
censor who, in the second or first century bc, wanted to make a statement in
favour of the traditional values of Roman society.28 He was not alone; in the
first decades of the second century, laws against luxury, laws de ambitu (to
curb electoral malpractices and corruption) and others to same effect (e.g.
the lex Voconia regulating the inheritance of women) point to a reaction by
at least a cluster of the elite, a group worried about the damage that the new
wealth and new opportunities were doing to the traditional social fabric.
The lectiones after Cato’s censorship show how the cura morum could be
taken seriously but also that it was now more an instrument through which
the elite defined themselves and their legitimacy to rule than it was an
instrument to shape policies. These same aristocrats started writing history
books to glorify a past that belonged to them. At the end of the third
century, Fabius Pictor, a member of a powerful and ancient clan, started
a historical genre, the Annals, and was followed by other aristocrats.
Writing about how Rome had become great was the same as glorifying
one’s ancestors and values, providing a good reason for the elite’s con-
tinuity in power; aristocrats invented, or at least embellished, the archaic
and hitherto almost unknown history, which we read now in the monu-
mental Annals of Livy. The same Cato the Elder, a newcomer, wrote about
the origins of the Italian towns. Ennius, not an aristocrat himself but
a client and an interpreter of the views of the elite, wrote the first epic
poem on the history of Rome. All these men wrote with the aim of
describing how Rome had conquered the world, elaborating on a distant
past when all the mores that had made this possible had been formed.29
27
The sources in MRR I: 327, 360–1; see the exhaustive discussion in Willems 1878: 293–6; Suolahti
1963: 331–48.
28
On Cato, the best treatment is still Fraccaro 1910, 1911a, 1911b, 1934 (all now = Fraccaro 1956); Astin
1978.
29
A useful introduction on the subject can be found in Cornell 1995: 1–30; also, the essays conveniently
collected in Momigliano 1989; Gabba 2000; and Wiseman 2008b.
In 174 and 169 bc, the expulsions were, respectively, nine and seven, but
some were important persons: two Scipiones, including the son of Scipio
Africanus, and L. Fulvius, the brother of one of the censors in 174.30
In 142 bc, Scipio Aemilianus quoted Cato; in 131 bc, Metellus
Macedonicus, father of four consuls, made a speech against the caelibes
that was read by Augustus in the Senate when passing his own laws on
marriage. Whenever politicians wanted to make a statement of where they
stood, they had the cura morum of the senators as a suitable instrument.
It was more ideological than truly effective but still not replaceable as a tool
for the self-definition of the group.31
Personal enmities and factional struggles between groups allied to
compete for office and power account for many of the decisions taken by
the censors in the lectiones. Of course, all this is part of the game of
Republican politics; nonetheless, as an instrument to deal with factiones
and inimicitiae (‘factions’ and ‘ill will’) the lectio was almost completely
useless: no censor, not even Cato, could manipulate the composition of the
Senate in order to promote his friends and kick out his enemies. No censor
could declare a large number of his fellow senators unfit without destroying
in the process the system he was supposed to protect and to which he
belonged. In the course of the second century there were contradictory
signs: the censors met with opposition or refused to take action.
The electorate did not punish the notati. In the same period, it happened
fairly frequently that notati (the ‘condemned or disgraced’) were later
elected to high office or even to the censorship. It happened in 154 bc,
when M. Valerius Messalla, who had been notatus, became censor; it
happened again in 147 bc, with the election to the censorship of
L. Cornelius Lentulus Lupus, who had been condemned for the crimen
repetundarum (the ‘crime of extortion in the provinces’) in 154 bc but had
kept a seat in the Senate. Licinius Geta, consul in 116 bc but notatus in 115,
became censor in 108.32 Public opinion reacted to censorial excesses: in
30
Livy 41.27; 43.15. Suolahti 1963: 365–76.
31
Gell. NA 4.20; Val. Max 6.4.2 for a famous sentence of Scipio; Dio Cass. 22–9 F76; Metellus’ speech
in Livy, Per. 59; Suet. Aug. 89 (= ORF4 18 F4–7). He was probably the target of the satire of Lucilius,
who also attacked Lupus (see below): Clemente 1985.
32
Messalla: Val. Max. 2.9.9: item M. Valerius Messala censoria nota perstrictus censoriam postmodum
potestatem impetrauit. quorum ignominia uirtutem acuit: rubore enim eius excitati omnibus uiribus
incubuerunt, ut digni ciuibus uiderentur, quibus dari potius quam obici censura deberet
(‘also M. Valerius Messala, stricken with the nota of the censor, afterwards obtained the censorship.
Their dishonour increased their uirtus: indeed, driven by his blush [shame] they did their best with
all their strength to be considered worthy by the citizens, so that the censorship should be given to
them, not reproached’). Lupus: Val. Max. 6.9.10; Fest. p. 285.66L. Geta: Cic. Clu. 119; Val. Max.
2.9.9; Wiseman 2009: 33–58.
214 guido clemente
108 bc, Fabius Maximus condemned to death his son, who was found
guilty of luxuria (‘luxuriance’), but Maximus was forced to go into exile by
the popular reaction because he was judged censorium uirum nimis atrocem
(‘a man too cruel in the exercise of his censorial power’).33
A turning point came but was marked not by any change in the
principles of the mores as applied in the lectio. In fact, we still see these
principles at work even in the first century, during the censorship of Appius
Claudius (50 bc), who was not exactly a model citizen. In the middle of the
dramatic fight for power between Caesar and Pompey, Appius performed
what was to be the last Republican lectio, expelling many with the old
motives. Among these, he removed the sons of liberti, the historian Sallust
for immorality and another individual for falsifying the auspicia; he also
enquired about the legal possession of land and works of art, about debts
and immoral practices – all items that were out of step with the times and
that were completely useless from a practical point of view.34
The change took place through other developments, which have to do
mostly with the relationship between the populus (the ‘popular assembly’),
the magistracies and the Senate. The decisive cause was the dramatic split
in the aristocracy, which started with the Gracchi, and the outbreak of
violence and political assassinations. These events gave way to the struggle
between optimates and populares, groups that identified themselves on the
basis of certain issues that came to the fore of political debate: the senatus
consultum ultimum (the Senate’s ability to suspend the laws in a state of
emergency) and the right of the citizens to the prouocatio ad populum (the
right of appeal to the popular assembly in case of capital punishment), the
agrarian laws, the laws on the secret ballot, the laws for the distribution of
corn – in general, the idea of a res publica that was guided by the observance
of tradition and obedience to the aristocracy and the Senate, against the
popular leaders who based their action on the assemblies and the people.35
There has been a tendency to underestimate the consequences of this split,
33
Val. Max. 6.1.5–6.
34
Willems 1878: 561–2; MRR II: 247–8. The sons of liberti: Dio Cass. 40.63; Hor. Sat.1.6.20–1. Sallust:
Dio Cass. 40.63.4; [Cic.] Inv. in Sall. 16. Auspicia: Cic. Div. 1.29. Illegal possessions: Cic. Fam. 8.14.4
(SB 96). Immorality: Cic. Fam. 8.12.1–2 (SB 98), 8.14.4 (SB 97), with comments on Appius’ bad
reputation.
35
The debate on the nature of Late Republican politics has given way to radically different interpreta-
tions; for the view I propose here, Cic. Sest. 97–103 is fundamental; Clemente 1990b; Gabba 1990a,
1990b. See Lepore 1990a, 1990b for the characterization of the optimates and populares from different
perspectives but essentially emphasizing their role in the shaping of political programmes and issues.
Recent discussions, with important methodological implications, are in Millar 1998 and
Hölkeskamp 2010. Mouritsen 2001 and Morstein-Marx 2004 are good representatives of
a tendency to downplay the political relevance of the two groups, reducing their differences more
but in this case, as in others, it made a difference to the way these groups
looked at the functioning of their Republican institutions. That politicians
changed sides frequently, or were opportunistic, is not relevant to this
perspective; the issues were there, and the way a politician dealt with them
defined his standing and actions.
This change was made possible by a number of coinciding factors: the
extension of the ius sententiae dicendae (the right to a seat in the Senate) to
the lower magistrates, the lectio of Sulla and the establishment of the iudicia
publica (standing courts). In the end, as often in Rome, the old and the new
became inextricable.
The lex repetundarum of Gracchus, against malfeasance in public
office, was the first instance we know of in which the conviction of
a magistrate for a specific crime brought as a consequence exclusion
from the Senate and thence from the juries: queiue merc[edem ceperit
quaestioneue ioudicioque puplico condemnatus siet quod circa
eum in senatum legei non liceat (‘who may have received a payment
or may have been condemned in a quaestio and iudicium publicum in
relation to either of which it may not be lawful for him to be enrolled in
the Senate’).36 Up to that time there had been no direct relationship
between criminal offences and senatorial status: ignominia (‘shame’) did
not carry with it infamia (‘ignominy’). Thus, the actions of the censors in
time lost weight, being tied to the enforcement of the old mores, which
did not envisage the expulsion of senators condemned for criminal
offences. There is a famous episode to illustrate this point: Livy tells the
story of a senator, Livius Salinator, who had been condemned in
a iudicium populi (trial before the popular assembly) in 218 bc; he did
not lose his seat but, elected to the consulate in 207 bc, made a speech
reproaching the people who had condemned him and afterwards elected
him to the highest office; in 204 bc, he became censor.37 This episode is
inflated by Livy, who may have had in mind later developments. In 104 bc,
a Cassian plebiscite, about which we are poorly informed, stated that
a senator condemned in a iudicium populi lost his dignitas (‘dignity’), and
the same applied to a senator whose imperium (‘power to command’) had
been abrogated by a popular vote. These laws were carried, Asconius says, ad
minuendam nobilitatis potentiam (‘to diminish the power of the nobility’).38
to the level of linguistic norms and ideological representations of a substantially homogeneous view.
For a balanced account of these problems, see Arena 2012: 1–13 and passim.
36 37
Crawford 1996 I: 67 (text), 87 (translation), 100 (commentary). Livy, 27.34, 29.37.
38
Asc. 78C: altera Cassia lex quae populi iudicia firmauit quae sit potest quaeri. est autem haec: L. Cassius,
L. f. Longinus tribunus plebis C. Mario C. Flauio coss. plures leges ad minuendam nobilitatis potentiam
216 guido clemente
The tension between the magistrates and the populus became more and more
relevant. The iudicia publica, held before juries, now much more common
than the iudicia populi, sanctioned the connection between the conviction of
a senator and the loss of his status.
Many details of this process are poorly documented, but the general
trend is clear: at the end of the second century bc, the lex latina tabulae
Bantinae contained a provision for exclusion from the Senate. It may be
identified with the lex Apuleia de maiestate, which inflicted a serious blow
to the senators.39
The Tabula Heracleensis, in the age of Caesar, shows the last
Republican stage of this evolution. Here I do not wish to enter into
the complicated issue of the date and nature of the document, which
may contain norms from different periods.40 What we have is
a summary of the causes for exclusion from municipal offices, which
undoubtedly were applied to the senators, too. The enforcement of the
regimen morum and exclusion following convictions for a significant
number of crimes stand together.41
The control of the law, the notion of the infamia that is incompatible
with senatorial office, has now taken centre stage, diminishing the role of
the censor. At the same time, between the middle of the second century
and the Sullan dictatorship, the extension of the ius sententiae dicendae
(right of giving an opinion in meetings of the Senate) to aediles, tribunes
and quaestors made the work of the censors an impossible task: now there
was a huge number of former magistrates who sat in the Senate as a result
of popular election. Their expulsion, or even their praeteritio (being
passed over) in the lectio, on the grounds established by the plebiscitum
Ouinium, had as a consequence the declaration of ignominia. Already in
115 bc thirty-two senators were excluded from the assembly, an enormous
tulit, in quibus hanc etiam ut quem populus damnasset cuiue imperium abrogasset in senatu ne esset (‘one
may ask which is the other Cassian law that strengthened the popular trials. It is in fact this:
L. Cassius Longinus, son of Lucius, tribune of the plebs under the consulate of C. Marius and
C. Flavius, proposed many laws to diminish the power of the nobility, among them also this, stating
that whom the people had condemned and whose imperium had abrogated could not be in the
Senate’).
39
Lines 1–6: Crawford 1996 I: 193–208.
40
The theory of a unitary text, now almost unanimously abandoned, was based on the hypothesis of
the existence of a Caesarian general municipal law applied to all communities. Now there is general
agreement on the non-existence of such a statute; the text of the Tabula we have is not in fact
a statute, since it lacks some of the basic features. The single items, coming from official documents,
may be of different dates, and there is no agreement on who decided to put together this text in the
age of Caesar and for what specific purpose: a bibliography and history of the problem can be found
in Crawford 1996 I: 355–62.
41
Lines 108–25: Crawford 1996 I: 355–91.
number.42 After the massive change of the Sullan Senate, and the pro-
blem of granting citizenship to the Italici, it became more and more
difficult to exercise the censorship according to the established proce-
dures. There were no censors in 75 bc, and in 70 bc, the first lectio after
Sulla, there were sixty-four notati.43 The motives were the traditional
ones of respect for the mores. Many had been expelled in consequence of
condemnations in criminal trials; others with different motives: some for
immorality, another for being the son of a freedman. Among them were
a few important members of the good old families: an ex-quaestor,
Q. Curius, was expelled for his shameless conduct (probri gratia);
a member of a prestigious family, C. Antonius, the son of the
orator M. Antonius and uncle of the future Triumvir, was expelled for
various reasons including the pillaging of allies, refusal to stand trial and
the enormous debts that made him lose control of his property; the
consul of 71 bc, Cornelius Lentulus, also a descendant of a great family,
was expelled for his immorality.44 The anti-Sullan climate accounted
most probably for some of the expulsions, since the dictator had
appointed many of his partisans in his lectio. Personal and political
feuds, of course, played a role, even more evident than in the past,
owing to the numbers now enrolled in the Senate; but it is significant
that even faced with deep and dramatic changes, the censors could
propose a model of behaviour that was no longer consonant with public
opinion or with what was really happening in Roman society. It was not
merely a political game; it was the drama of a self-defined ruling group
that resorted to the established instruments to deal with developments
that it did not know how to control. The enormous increase in the
number of citizens, the problem of the inclusion of the Italians, the fact
that the census now had to be taken all over the Italian peninsula, and
that the cura morum, in practical terms, could only concern a small
fraction of the city of Rome, radically changed the function of the
censorship and the relevance of the lectio. This was the real change, not
the fact that the mores had gone out of fashion; in fact, the opposite is the
case, if we read the literature of the first century bc.
42
See Gell. NA. 14.8.2 for the Atinian plebiscite and the tribuni plebis; Develin 1978b: 141–4 dates it
around the middle of the second century; the aediles were admitted presumably around the same
years, and the quaestors by the time of Sulla, although the precise dates are uncertain. The lectio of
115 BC: Cic. Clu. 119, 121; Livy, Per. 62–3; Val. Max. 2.9.9; Plut. Mar. 5.3–4.
43
The lectio of 70 bc: Cic. Clu. 117–34; Sall. Hist. 4 F52M; Livy, Per. 98; Asc. 75.20–25C; Plut. Cic. 17.1;
Dio Cass. 37.30.4.
44
Cic. Clu. 119–21, 130–2; Sall. Cat. 23; App. B Civ. 2.3; Sall. Hist. 4 F52M; Livy, Per. 98; Asc. 84C.;
Plut. Cic. 17.1; Dio Cass. 37.30.4.
218 guido clemente
We have an exceptional testimony for the lectio of 70 bc: the defence of
Cluentius in 66 bc by Cicero, in which he had to defend the reputation of
some jurors who had been notati in that lectio. The orator, with a subtle
use of technical terminology, argued that there was a difference between
the nota censoria and conviction in a trial. The first was not permanent
and had very mild consequences, since the aim of the ancestors had been
to shame the senator, not to convict him. The procedure of the censors
was not based on a search for facts, in contrast to a quaestio, where there
were witnesses and the accused could defend himself. Cicero was talking
to the jurors of 66 bc who had been notati in 70 bc, and he was talking to
people who were listening.45 He would not have used these arguments if
he had not been fairly sure that he was saying what the public, and the
jurors, were prepared to receive sympathetically. The jurors were mostly
new men who had entered the Senate through the holding of the lower
offices, and they did not accept lightly a nota inflicted by the censors for
violations of mores that, in the eyes of the public, did not really matter.
Cicero was, of course, an expert lawyer: he showed that the power of the
censors would have been tyrannical if their nota had not been felt as
a reproach rather than a conviction without trial and that the infamia that
came with the turpe iudicium (‘verdict of shame’) was much more serious
than the nota. Cicero was giving voice to a sentiment that must have been
common among those individuals who had just become members of the
ruling class, and among the populus at large. The populus, which had also
changed dramatically in its composition and in the attendance of the
assemblies, had now acquired a new perception of its power to oppose the
arbitrary rule of a traditional aristocracy, which defended its own supre-
macy by applying old rules. The facts underlined the crisis: the censors of
65 and 64 BC resigned without performing the census and the lectio. This
is all the more significant because the censors of 65 bc were two of the
most influential politicians of the time, Lutatius Catulus and Licinius
Crassus.46 In 61 bc, the censors completed the lectio, but they did not
expel any senators and went beyond the traditional number of seats,
something not usually done.47
45
Cic. Clu. 73–6, 83–97, 103, 108, 119–36 gives some names and motives for the expulsion of the jurors
of the trial of 74 bc by the censors of 70 bc, who were accused of being corrupt. Most are otherwise
unknown.
46
Suolahti 1963: 463–72. The dispute between the two, about the extension of the citizenship to the
Transpadanians, and the proposal to make Egypt pay taxes (although an independent kingdom)
were very ambitious, and far beyond the capacity of the censors.
47
Dio Cass. 37.46.4.
It is ironic that Clodius was the best interpreter of the arguments of
Cicero. In 58 bc, among the four laws Clodius proposed perniciosas populo
Romano (‘harmful to the Roman people’):
quartam ne quem censores in senatu legendo praeterirent, neue qua igno-
minia efficerent, nisi qui apud eos accusatus et utriusque censoris sententia
damnatus esset.48 (Asc. 8C)
Cicero, in the speech against Piso, protested ac ergo eius lege censuram, quae
magistra pudoris et modestiae est, sublatam (‘and so by that law the censor-
ship, that had been the master of decency and modesty, was abolished’).
In fact, the lex Clodia made the lectio virtually impossible; at the same time,
we have hints in Cassius Dio that the Clodian law was not so unwelcome to
the same aristocrats: they were aware of the dangers inherent in holding an
office that had lost prestige in the eyes of the people and was no longer
appealing to the elite, since it meant assuming responsibility for the
performance of the lectio, meeting with unpopularity no matter what
course they took.49
Cicero, of course, attacked Clodius, yet without discussing the rationale
of the law. At the same time, away from the Forum and the trials, he tried
to find a solution that would save the censorship for what it represented to
a sound believer in the traditional res publica; in doing so, he took into
account the need to accept what was before his eyes, an evolution that
could not be checked or cancelled.
Already in the Pro Sestio, in 56 bc, he had stated a very important
principle:
magistratus annuos creauerunt [sc. maiores nostri], ut consilium senatus rei
publicae praeponerent sempiternum, deligerentur autem in id consilium ab
uniuerso populo aditusque in illum summum ordinem ciuium industriae ac
uirtuti pateret.50 (Cic. Sest. 137)
His argument was that the people would always choose the best, the
optimates, but this cannot hide the substance of what Cicero is saying.
Only a few years afterwards, he elaborated his position in the De re
48
‘The fourth forbade the censors to pass over anyone in reading the list of the senators, nor to strike
with dishonour anyone, who had not been submitted to a trial before them and condemned by
both.’ Cf. Cic. Sest. 55; Prov. cons. 46; Har. resp. 58; Dom. 130; Dio Cass. 38.13; Schol. Bob. p.132.
21–3St.; Clemente 2010.
49
See Dio Cass. 38.13.2, 40.57.1–3, discussing the Clodian law and its aftermath.
50
‘[Our ancestors] introduced annual magistrates, but in such a way that the deliberations of the
Senate would always give the lead, and the members for that council would be chosen by the whole
people and the entrance into that ordo, the greatest, would be open to the zeal and value of all the
citizens.’
220 guido clemente
publica and De legibus. In these theoretical works he made an effort,
not completely convincing, to give the censorship a new role while
defending its traditional prestige. He was clearly taking into account
what he had seen in the past few years, and he turned to the Greeks,
and particularly to Plato, for help in defining a possible new role for
the magistracy. In the now-fragmentary De re publica, Cicero came
back to the notion of ignominia affecting the nomen with no more
than a blush.51 In the De legibus, he developed a complicated and
difficult argument: in stating the tasks of the censors, he argued,
among other things, mores populi regunto, probrum in senatu ne relin-
quonto (‘they shall regulate the morals of the people, they shall allow
no one guilty of dishonourable conduct to remain in the Senate’).52
Then, in the following dialogue with Quintus and Atticus, he clarified
his thought:
ex iis autem, qui magistratus ceperunt, quod senatus efficitur, populare sane
neminem in summum locum nisi per populum uenire sublata cooptatione
censoria.53 (Cic. Leg. 3.12.27)
Contrasting the easy objections of Quintus, he had to specify is ordo uitio
careto, ceteris specimen esto (‘that order shall be free from dishonour, and
shall be a model for the rest of the citizens’), which, of course, did not
eliminate an unsolvable contradiction. Only by turning to the Greeks
could Cicero find an argument that lent some credibility to his position,
by introducing a discussion about the function of music in shaping the
character of the ciues – Plato’s idea that Cicero criticized – and substituting
it with the example of the aristocracy. What is more, he assigned the
censors a new function, the control of the magistrates after they left office.
Cicero was, as often, a pragmatic interpreter of his time, and an intellectual
looking for solutions, through a balance between a past he cherished and
a bleak but amendable present.
The mos maiorum remained at the core of the leading group’s self-
definition as the optimi, from the establishment of the new nobilitas,
through the transfer to the censors of the task of selecting the optimi at
the beginning of the fourth century, and into the political and social
upheaval of the first century bc. These mores, notionally unchanging,
continued to underpin the ciuitas; actual changes were disguised and
51
Cic. Rep. 4.6. 52 Cic. Leg. 3.3.7.
53
‘The law which provides that the Senate is to consist exclusively of ex-magistrates is certainly
a popular measure, as it ensures that no one shall enter that exalted order except by popular election,
the censors being deprived of the right of free choice.’
absorbed so that the idea of continuity could still be politically instru-
mental, allowing the institutions embedded in the res publica as established
by the ancestors to be perpetuated. This res publica was to be led by the
optimi who could now be found outside the nobilitas as often as they could
be found within it, provided that they shared the mores antiqui.
chapter 11
Private Knowledge and Public Image

in Roman Elections
The Case of the Pro Murena
Ayelet Haimson Lushkov
This chapter explores the intersection between the institutional form of

Roman elections and the way in which participants and other interested
parties spoke about and within the electoral process or, in other words, the
relationship between elections as an abstract phenomenon and the lived
experience of those who were really part of those electoral processes.
Although Roman elections are poorly described by the extant sources,
a particularly striking absence is the paucity of formal speeches made
during the canvass by the candidates themselves,1 who must have kept
their voices fresh for the myriad exchanges and innumerable promise-
makings that were the main preoccupation of the Roman candidate.2
This much, at least, is clear from Livy’s and other accounts of various
elections, though a considerable span of time – and intermediary sources –
often separates the narrative from the historical events themselves. For
a fuller and more vivid account of the relationship between process and
rhetoric – one stamped with the authority of a contemporary participant –
we must look elsewhere.
Against this background, Cicero’s Pro Murena, a defence of an elected
consul against charges of electoral bribery, stands out for its close engage-
ment with – even recapitulation of – the events and rhetoric of the disputed
Portions of this chapter have appeared, with some adaptation and towards a different argument, in
Haimson Lushkov 2015: 132–41. I am grateful to Michael Sharp and Cambridge University Press for
allowing me to reuse it here. Thanks also go to Catherine Steel and the organizers and participants of
the FRRO conference at UCL on which this volume is based and to Pramit Chaudhuri for his usual
eagle eye.
1
Cicero’s in toga candida is not an exception to this rule: it was delivered in the Senate to denounce the
pact made by his rivals Antonius and Catiline (Asc. 83c), not in front of the voters in the election.
2
Our best-described campaign is that of Gaius Marius in Sall. Iug. 63–5, with discussion in Yakobson
1999: 13–19 and passim for voting patterns in Roman elections more generally, and Haimson Lushkov
2015: 101–6. Tatum 2013 discusses electoral rhetoric, focusing on the absence of formal oratory in
campaigns and the prevalence of more informal communication.
222
Private Knowledge and Public Image in Roman Elections 223
election of 63 bc.3 The speech revisits various moments of the recently
ended campaign in an attempt to show that Murena won the election fairly
and legitimately, whereas his rival-turned-prosecutor Sulpicius Rufus lost
not because of any sharp practices on Murena’s part, but because of his
inability to adapt himself to the campaign and its demands. Cicero’s views
on the election are worthwhile exploring as a means, albeit limited, of
understanding the rhetorical strategies that underpinned electoral cam-
paigns in general, and this one in particular. The veteran of several
triumphant campaigns, Cicero was already in a position to comment on
how well or badly a campaign was run. The circumstances of the Pro
Murena, however, allow Cicero to exploit to the full his unique position: he
was not only the sitting consul but also a sponsor of Rufus during his
campaign and therefore had insider knowledge of one – but not, crucially,
of both – of the candidates’ campaigns.
As such, the Pro Murena promises a behind-the-scenes look at the
workings of an electoral campaign, as well as a view of the asymmetries
of knowledge with which the voters had to contend. Cicero’s purported
lack of knowledge of Murena’s campaign works in tandem with his
knowing too well the faults of Rufus’ campaign. The speech thus operates
by affecting in the reader/juror the ‘feel’ of an electoral season and by
presenting the candidates and the issues of the day in ways that must have
recalled and invoked the forms and ways used in the campaign. The Pro
Murena therefore offers a view, however refracted, of the rhetoric and
strategy of a Roman election and, more specifically, of the way in which the
voters, at least as encapsulated in the jury, experienced that campaign – as
a contest of rhetoric and image, topoi and privileged knowledge.4
The Pro Murena’s Mise-en-Scene

The trial of Lucius Murena must have been an awkward affair. Cicero,
appearing in defence of the consul-elect, was arguing his case against the
allegations of bribery brought by Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the man Cicero
3
Cicero deploys many of the same strategies in the later Pro Plancio, where he defends Plancius,
a newly elected aedile, from charges of bribery brought by one of Plancius’ competitors. On the two
speeches, see Adamietz 1986; May 1998: 58–69, 116–27; Riggsby 1999: 21–49. Other speeches on
electoral issues include the Diuinatio in Caecilium and the In Toga Candida; on both as ‘campaign
rhetoric’, see Tatum 2013. On bribery in Roman politics more broadly, see Lintott 1990 and
Yakobson 1992.
4
In this respect, the chapter builds on the argument in Morstein-Marx 2004 that contional speech
shows an ideological monotony and that political choice was therefore about who better fitted
a predetermined ideological mould.
224 ayelet haimson lushkov
had initially preferred for the top job.5 Further, by taking on the case,
Cicero found himself arguing both against his own law, the lex Tullia de
ambitu, under which Murena was brought to trial, and against his own
principles: clearing Murena’s name would involve Cicero in arguing for the
superiority of the military man, Murena, to the Forum dweller, Sulpicius –
in other words, Murena’s superiority to men like Cicero himself.6 This
tangle of circumstances makes for an especially interesting court case, but
Cicero’s shifting allegiance also puts him in a unique position to comment
on the consular candidacies of both men present, not least because the only
tie binding him to Murena was the fact that they had both been elected
consul – in other words, consularity itself: the vague idea of what it meant
to be a Roman consul, as well as the reassurance that it takes one to know
one, underscores much of Cicero’s rhetoric.
In consequence, the Pro Murena offers the jurors images of not one but
two electoral campaigns: that of Murena and that of Sulpicius Rufus. For
each of those campaigns Cicero plays out a different role: regarding
Murena’s campaign, he is, by and large, a disinterested observer, or at
least disinterested now that the votes had already been cast. For Sulpicius,
however, Cicero appears as a wise and experienced campaign advisor,
indeed an active participant in the effort to make Sulpicius consul. These
two frames alone already send a powerful message: when it comes to
Sulpicius, Cicero knows whereof he speaks; when it comes to Murena,
however, Cicero has experienced Murena’s campaign in the same way as
the jury had, which is to say from the outside. But his choice to defend
Murena and his espousal of the outsider’s view of his campaign, to which
I return in the next section, suggest also that Cicero had not changed his
mind after joining Murena’s circle. In other words, Murena is the same to
those on the inside as he is to those on the outside, and the jurors can
therefore rely on the ‘knowledge’ Cicero gives them about Murena’s
campaign as a true reflection of the campaign that actually happened.7
5
Cicero explains his motivations in Mur. 4–5: the dangers posed by the Catilinarian conspiracy, his
personal friendship with Murena and his responsibility as a consul to defend the Republic. Whether
other reasons existed is impossible to know, and to some extent Cicero’s justifications are aimed at
dissuading the jurors from seeing him as a poor amicus to Rufus.
6
On the importance of speeches to Cicero’s own electoral fortunes, see the constant refrain of the
Commentariolum Petitionis, e.g. in [Q. Cic.] Pet. 2: non potest qui dignus habetur patronus consularium
indignus consulatu putari (‘it’s impossible that anyone worthy of defending former consuls in court
should be unworthy of the consulship’). May 1998 argues for the connection between Cicero’s
rhetorical ethos and his political success. On the lex Tullia, see Rotondi 1912: 379; Berger RE s.v. lex
Tullia de ambitu.
7
Here I build on the argument in Morstein-Marx 2004: 241–78 that contional rhetoric aimed to
unveil false ‘friends of the people’ and to reassert the speaker’s own ‘true’ leanings.
In order to accomplish this, Cicero must first establish that his speech is
a repetition of the campaign, not only in the result but also in the
substance. This Cicero sets out to do from the first word:
quae precatus a dis immortalibus sum, iudices, more institutoque maiorum
illo die quo auspicato comitiis centuriatis L. Murenam consulem renun-
tiaui, ut ea res mihi fidei magistratuique meo, populo plebique Romanae
bene atque feliciter eueniret, eadem precor ab isdem dis immortalibus ob
eiusdem hominis consulatum una cum salute obtinendum, et ut uestrae
mentes atque sententiae cum populi Romani uoluntatibus suffragiisque
consentiant, eaque res uobis populoque Romano pacem, tranquillitatem,
otium concordiamque adferat.8 (Cic. Mur. 1)
The two halves of this periodic sentence match each other in content and
structure. Cicero offers the same prayer, to the same gods, for the same
purpose, that the matter – Murena’s election – should turn out well for the
Roman people. Cicero then rounds out his opening by offering a slight
variation of the same theme:
idem consulem uestrae fidei commendat qui antea dis immortalibus com-
mendauit, ut eiusdem hominis uoce et declaratus consul et defensus bene-
ficium populi Romani cum uestra atque omnium ciuium salute tueatur.9
(Cic. Mur. 2)
With the emphasis on similarity bolstered by polyptotonic idem and consul,
Cicero and Murena are equal, ceremonially and verbally. Whether or not
Cicero perceived of the trial as part of the electoral process, he certainly invests
rhetorical energy in drawing the jurors into the voting mind-set, recalling and
invoking the campaign as a guiding determinant for whatever decisions the
jurors make.10 The dense repetition sets up a sequence of parallels between the
events of the trial and the consular elections, as well as among the jurors, the
gods, the voting people, Murena, and finally, Cicero himself. This rhetorical
move, which plays on the unspoken identity between the jurors qua jurors
8
‘On that day when I took the auspices and pronounced L. Murena consul in the Comitia Centuriata,
I prayed to the immortal gods, judges, in accordance with ancestral habit and custom, that this
matter should turn out well and prosperously, for me, my good faith, my magistracy, the people and
the Roman plebs. That same prayer I offer to the same immortal gods, that the consulship should be
retained by the same man, along with his well-being, that your minds and feelings should agree with
the wishes and votes of the Roman people, and that this matter should bring to you and to the
Roman people calm, tranquillity, peace and harmony.’
9
‘The same man now commends a consul to your trust, who commended him before to the immortal
gods, so that he, being declared consul and defended by the voice of the same man, may keep the gift
of the Roman people along with your well-being and that of all citizens.’
10
On the relationship of the trial to the campaign, see Adamietz 1986, with the critique of Riggsby
1999: 47–9, and Tatum 2013: 139–40. On the rhetoric of the exordium, see Fantham 2013: 83–6.
and the jurors qua citizen voters, allows Cicero to request explicitly
a repetition of the electoral result. The jurors are meant to have the same
feelings as the voting people not only in their sentiments about the candidates
but also in their actual votes, and they are meant to be guided, in this as in all
things, by Cicero’s quasi-divine wisdom. The consequences for the speech are
not slight, since Cicero has presented his persona in such a way that he can
both make use of the thing that distinguishes him from the crowd – his
consular status and expert knowledge – and cast himself as identical with
them: he knows what they know, and vice versa.
Murena and the Consular Template

At the risk of gross over-simplification, modern political science now tends
to hold that the average person ‘neither thinks nor knows all that much
about politics’ and is therefore ‘prone to seek ways to simplify political
choices, including the voting decision’.11 What holds in the modern world
must have been doubly so in the ancient, where many voters might have
been illiterate, easily coerced or under any number of misconceptions
about what their elected officers would do, where, and against whom.
Further, voters were often uninformed about how Roman politics were
conducted, whether because they lived elsewhere than Rome or because
they were barred from the Senate House or failed to make the best of the
contio. In consequence, voters, both ancient and modern, rely on a number
of heuristics, or shorthands, to simplify the voting decision. Voters might
rely on affective decisions – whether or not they like the candidate; they
might rely on images, or assess candidates on a number of traits they find
agreeable or important, such as courage (uirtus), affability (comitas) or
generosity (liberalitas).12 They might, finally, rely on partisan feeling,
which in the modern world translates to party affiliation but might in
the ancient world have sprung from local identity, ties of clientela or a like-
mindedness on political issues.13
11
Denver, Carman and Johns 2012: 139.
12
These traits could be even more situation specific, as e.g. in 215 bc, when Fabius Maximus insisted on
‘parity with Hannibal’ as the only viable criterion for electoral suitability (Livy, 24.7–8, with
Patterson 1942 and Haimson Lushkov 2015: 96–127).
13
The bibliography on party politics (or, more precisely, partisan politics) in Rome is vast. Useful
starting points are Brunt 1988: 32–45 and 443–502; Mackie 1992; Millar 1998, 2002a; Robb 2010. One
potentially significant factor is the distribution of Roman voters into tribus (originally on
a geographic basis) and centuriae (coordinated with the tribus): see Taylor 1960, 1966, and cf.
Yakobson 1999: 48–54 and 133–6 for some of the implications that cannot be discussed in this
chapter.
All these heuristics are a kind of cognitive easing, the process by which
the brain simplifies complex phenomena by making them more similar to
what the brain already knows, and successful electioneering therefore must
make the candidate conform as closely as possible to what the voters expect
a successful candidate to look like.14 This is, in part, what drives Cicero’s
assimilation of the Pro Murena with the elections it describes: as a model of
a successful candidate, Murena can be ‘re-elected’, that is, acquitted,
almost by association and analogy with Cicero himself. In this sense, at
least, Cicero is simply ‘endorsing’ Murena as consul, just as he himself
wished to be ‘endorsed’ by Pompey, and just as candidates in the Pompeian
electoral graffiti (programmata) were endorsed by friends, neighbours and
other local notables.15
Murena is approved of by many according to Cicero’s speech, but the
two main endorsements he received share an important feature: they are
both collective actions by a crowd, one of citizens gathered to greet Murena
upon his return from his province and the other by his own former soldiers.
Between them, the two crowds comprise the two aspects of Roman society
that mattered in electoral contexts. The two instances are also in a sense
symmetrical, since Murena is greeted upon his return from governorship of
his province, that is, as a general in possession of imperium. But whereas the
citizen-greeters are expressing their support of Murena by their presence,
the soldiers are heard (or, rather, ventriloquized) in direct speech:
me saucium recreauit, me praeda donauit; hoc duce castra cepimus, signa
contulimus; numquam iste plus militi laboris imposuit quam sibi sumpsit,
ipse cum fortis tum etiam felix.16 (Cic. Mur. 38)
The sermo castrensis (‘soldier-speak’), in its appearance of honesty and
paratactic simplicity, stands in marked opposition to the elaborate and
obscurantist language of the jurists, which serves only to confound.17
It functions as a clear proof of Murena’s abilities, advertising achievements
of the past in the service of the present moment, relying on the Roman
14
On modern ‘branding’ of candidates, see e.g. Busby 2006 on class rhetoric in the United States and
the United Kingdom; on magistracy, and especially the consulship, as exemplary paradigms, see
Haimson Lushkov 2015.
15
Cicero endorsed by Pompey: [Q. Cic.] Pet. 13: efficiendum etiam illud est ut sciant omnes Cn. Pompei
summam esse erga te uoluntatem (‘see to it that everybody knows that Pompey has the highest goodwill
towards you’). On the programmata, see Franklin 1980, 2001, and now Milnor 2014: 97–136.
16
‘He took care of me when I was wounded, he gave me spoils; we captured the camp under his
leadership, we gave battle; he never assigned more labour to a soldier than he took on himself, and he
is not only brave, but also lucky.’
17
On obscurantist juridical speech, see Mur. 25–8. On sermo castrensis, see Pérez Castro 2005. On the
introjection of sub-literary orality into a text, see Oesterreicher 1997.
penchant for precedent, exemplarity and topical composition, familiar to
us from every branch of Roman literary and rhetorical composition.18
Indeed, the content of this sermo castrensis sounds remarkably like
shorthand for a Roman res gestae narrative, and more importantly, it
evokes two familiar types of representation of generalship. The first type
includes the famous vignettes on Catiline’s and Hannibal’s character
and military diligence in Sallust and Livy, respectively.19 Both passages
postdate Cicero, of course, and there are no clear verbal echoes – but all
three passages share a fundamental appreciation of the general’s partici-
pation in the life of the camp and his sharing in and understanding of
the various hardships of a soldier’s life. The other discourse of general-
ship operates at a vaguer level: the list of Murena’s qualities closes with
a phrase – not only brave but also lucky – which echoes the generic set of
qualities, especially uirtus and felicitas, possessed by a successful general.
The most famous enumeration is Cicero’s own praise of Pompey in the
De lege Manilia, but fortitudo, uirtus, felicitas and their like were not just
qualities of character but also the core principles of exemplary discourse
in Rome.20
What the sermo castrensis establishes, therefore, is an image of
Murena as conforming to a topos of generalship. And he is generic
not only in his generalship but also in his candidacy, as his arrival in
the city demonstrates, allowing Cicero to refute one of the bribery
allegations made by Cato the Younger, serving on Sulpicius’ legal team,
that Murena paid for a crowd of well-wishers to greet him on his arrival
to the city:
‘multi obuiam prodierunt de prouincia decedenti.’ consulatum petenti solet
fieri; eccui autem non proditur reuertenti? ‘quae fuit ista multitudo?’
primum, si tibi istam rationem non possim reddere, quid habet admirationis
18
On careers furnishing electoral documenta (‘proofs, testimonials’), cf. Fabius’ rhetoric in Livy,
24.8.14, haud sane cur ad maiora tibi fidamus documenti quicquam dedisti (‘you’ve hardly given us
reason to trust you with greater things’), and the tribunes in 32.7.8, per honorum gradus documentum
sui dantes (‘giving proof of themselves through the progression of honours’). On Cicero’s use of
exempla, see note 20.
19
Catiline: Sal. Cat. 5.1–5; Hannibal: Livy, 21.4. On the historiographical intertext, see Clauss 1997;
O’Gorman 2009: 238–9.
20
On the qualities of the successful general, see Cicero himself on Pompey the Great in the Pro Lege
Manilia 28: ego enim sic existimo, in summo imperatore quattuor has res inesse oportere – scientiam rei
militaris, uirtutem, auctoritatem, felicitatem (‘for I think that the best general ought to have within
him these four things: knowledge of military matters, prowess, authority, good fortune’). On the
speech, see Steel 2001: 140–54 and Lintott 2008: 427–30. On exemplary discourse at Rome, see
Hölkeskamp 2003 and Roller 2004; on Cicero’s use of exemplarity in the speeches, see Bücher 2006:
228–55 and van der Blom 2010: 129–36, 2011b. Cf. also Chapter 15.
tali uiro aduenienti, candidato consulari, obuiam prodisse multos? quod nisi
esset factum, magis mirandum uideretur.21 (Cic. Mur. 68)
The argument Cicero makes here might well be summed up in the phrase
solet fieri (‘it’s what normally happens’), and it suggests, albeit obliquely,
that a scene which Cicero, a veteran consul backed by other political
heavyweights, takes for granted is suspicious to his opposition chiefly
because they are unaccustomed to it, lacking as they do the requisite
experience of being loved by the people. Here, too, we find some assimila-
tion of speech and electoral campaign: rationem reddere, for instance,
which alludes to the electoral term rationem habere, also suggests that
Cicero has access to such privileged knowledge as the identities of the
men in the crowd, from which he might indeed produce a ratio.22
The important point, however, is that the picture Cicero paints is both
consular and highly generic. Because of Murena’s quality as a man and his
status as a candidate (tali uiro . . . candidato consulari), Cicero relegates any
putative surprise at the welcome given by the crowds to the realm of
rhetorical questions (quid habet admirationis?) and counterfactual condi-
tionals (magis mirandum uideretur). The repeated diction expressing won-
der in fact works in two opposing ways: at a superficial level, it operates
ironically to highlight the normality of the crowds’ reaction and to punc-
ture the apparent surprise and scepticism felt by the prosecution; at
a subtler level, however, the repetition highlights the real object of admira-
tion – Murena himself.
Murena’s motion, further, is steady, linear and purposeful. He
approaches Rome, meets with the adoring crowd and thus fulfils exactly
what was expected of him. The standard image of a returning general
(recall that Murena is returning from his province) is effective precisely
because it fits the bill of consular behaviour so well. Indeed, Murena’s
homecoming is blandly generic, a shorthand sketch of an adoring aduentus
(‘arrival’), and precisely what one would expect both from a consular
candidate coming home and from someone like Cicero, standing in the
crowd or hearing about it afterwards, but without any prior or specialized
21
‘“Many people came out to meet him when he came back from his province.” This is what normally
happens when someone seeks the consulship, and anyway, doesn’t this happen whenever someone
comes home? “What was this crowd?” First, if I were not able to answer you on this score, why
should it be odd that many came out to meet such man on his return, a consular candidate? It would
have been odder still if it hadn’t happened.’
22
For rationem habere (‘to take official account of [a candidacy]’), see OLD s.v. ratio 8c, esp. Cicero,
Att. 7.1.4 and 7.9.4 (SB 124 and 132), where ratio simply means ‘candidacy’, and Hellegouarc’h 1972:
421–4.
knowledge. This is, in other words, the functional equivalent of media
coverage of a politician working the ropes: nothing of substance but
everything of form. And this generic adherence is an important part of
what makes it powerful, not just to deflect the bribery charges but also to
show Murena as fitting the bill. He acts like consular candidates always do,
which lends a certain aptness, if not predictability, to his in fact becoming
consul.
Sulpicius Rufus: Spin and Flight

Shared knowledge and shared sentiment are both important themes in this
speech. In contrast to Murena, whom Cicero presents not only as a nouus
homo but also as conducting himself openly and transparently in the public
eye, Sulpicius embodies the nastier side of privilege. He comes from an
aristocratic family whose lineage hardly anybody knows anymore and is
further a consummate jurist, dealing in elaborate legal language that no one
understands and nobody requires.23 Indeed, as a jurist, Sulpicius by defini-
tion knows more than the audience, and Cicero uses this hauteur not only
to distance himself from his former protégé but also to highlight the
difference between Sulpicius and Murena and finally to bolster his own
position with the jurors. Cicero, too, after all, knows more than the jurors.
Unlike Sulpicius, however, he intends to share that knowledge, thus
unmasking Sulpicius as a sore loser and ill fitted for the consulship.
A jurist to the last, Sulpicius looks to the trial even in the midst of the
campaign and shows himself to fall squarely outside the expected image
and behaviour required of a candidate:
itaque sic statuo fieri nullo modo posse ut idem accusationem et petitionem
consulatus diligenter adornet atque instruat. unum sustinere pauci possunt,
utrumque nemo. tu cum te de curriculo petitionis deflexisses animumque ad
accusandum transtulisses, existimasti te utrique negotio satis facere posse.
uehementer errasti.24 (Cic. Mur. 46)
Not only can Sulpicius be mocked for his use of the entitlement of his birth
and juristic expertise, as Cicero had argued earlier, but he also committed
23
Sulpicius the Obscure: Mur. 7. Legal language: Mur. 26. Compare here the conduct of Aemilius
Scaurus, who kept himself busy and in public view like a nouus homo (Asc. 23c).
24
‘And so I think it simply isn’t possible that the same person should diligently draw up and prepare
both a legal charge and a campaign for the consulship. Few can sustain even the one, and nobody
can do both. When you turned yourself away from the business of canvassing, and transferred your
attention to legal charges, you thought you would be able to do enough for both. How grievously
off-course you were.’
the cardinal error of not devoting his every resource to the campaign.25
Cicero’s language accordingly makes Sulpicius out to be radically off-course
in his calculations (note errasti), physically turning away from the canvass
towards the trial. Cicero’s choice of verbs, however, especially deflexisses and
transtulisses, paints Sulpicius as not only distracted from the campaign but
also deliberate in his attempt to obstruct and pre-empt the vote; Murena,
meanwhile, moves deliberately through the landscape towards victory (note
e.g. aduenienti used of Murena in 68). Thus, in his tactical miscalculation,
Sulpicius shows himself not only as a generally incompetent candidate (who
would therefore make for an incompetent consul) but also, more specifically,
as one who is unable to recognize and pursue the correct course. There is
a further irony here: Sulpicius accuses Murena of bribery, that is, of
decoupling the voters’ intention from the vote itself; but his substitution
of trial for canvass achieves the same effect and, in fact, worse, if Murena is in
fact innocent. How does Cicero know this? Because he was there to see it
happen and consult against it, just as he is now here to reveal this informa-
tion to the jurors. Thus, the same authorial position that works to recom-
mend Murena in all his generic glory does double duty in revealing the dirty
secrets of Sulpicius’ backroom dealings, confirming and building on shared
stereotypes: lawyers are shifty, and Sulpicius is true to type.
What we are left with are, fundamentally, two competing topoi: Murena
the general, lucky, brave and charismatic, and Sulpicius the jurist, obscure
and obscurantist. Both are reduced to a clichéd caricature of their respective
roles. The ‘generic candidate’ gambit therefore works in the speech in three
distinct but related ways. The first is as reassurance: Murena’s looking like
a future consul simplifies the voting decision because it advertised a necessary
resemblance between ‘ought’ and ‘is’, between candidate and consul.
The second way the gambit works is by developing a contrast between
Murena and Sulpicius, both of whom are treated very differently by
Cicero. And third, the generic argument works best if Cicero and the
audience are all in it together, that is, if Cicero and the audience have the
same, or roughly similar, horizons of expectation. So it helps, therefore, that
Cicero has no insider knowledge of Murena’s canvass but that he is, at the
same time, far from an innocent observer – indeed, he is the most expert of
expert witnesses because he, too, is a consul and is therefore in a privileged
position to know one when he sees one.26
25
For the expectation that candidates devote every resource to the campaign, see Tatum 2013: 150 and
e.g. [Q. Cic.] Pet. 4: omni ratione efficiendo; 20, omnino . . . fac.
26
On the importance of privileged ‘behind-the-scenes’ knowledge in Roman political rhetoric, see
Morstein-Marx 2004: 207.
But, of course, both Murena and Sulpicius are generic candidates in
a very specific sense, and one that can be plotted along a simple binary
opposition between military prowess and its absence. This organization is
typical of Roman politics tout court, but in the electoral context in parti-
cular it is an example of what political scientists call ‘valence issues’.27
These are sets of issues on which, by and large, there is minimal division
among voters, and where the main issue is not whether something ought to
be done, but rather to what degree.28 As it happens, valence issues tend to
cluster around security issues, but Roman politics likewise shows that the
outcomes of elections are susceptible to manipulation based on military
outcomes.29 The Pro Murena, too, showcases valence issues in two separate
but related ways: the generic templates of both candidates markedly veer
towards favouring military men. But Cicero also has a more topical valence
issue in mind, and that is the gathering threat of the Catilinarian con-
spiracy, an issue that Cicero, at the time of the speech, still saw as
continuing from his own consulship to Murena’s, and which he deploys
further (and without apparent irony) to showcase the similarities between
himself and Murena, in contrast to Sulpicius.
Thus, for example, in refuting the prosecution’s reasoning that Murena
must have bribed the voters, since Sulpicius came first in the polls when
both he and Murena ran against each other for the aedileship, Cicero says:
nihil est incertius uolgo, nihil obscurius uoluntate hominum, nihil fallacius
ratione tota comitiorum . . . nam, ut tempestates saepe certo aliquo caeli
signo commouentur, saepe improuiso nulla ex certa ratione obscura aliqua
ex causa concitantur, sic in hac comitiorum tempestate populari saepe
intellegas quo signo commota sit, saepe ita obscura causa est ut casu excitata
esse uideatur.30 (Cic. Mur. 36)
This criticism of the people’s uoluntas as fickle and unpredictable is strik-
ing, especially in a speech which aims to replicate that will in the jurors.
Rhetorically, Cicero is attempting to smooth Sulpicius’ ruffled feathers,
27
On valence issues, I have benefitted especially from Clarke et al. 2009; Denver, Carman and Johns
2012: 104–8. I plan to expand on the application of valence theory to Roman Republican politics in
a future article.
28
The classic example is the economy; see Clarke et al. 2009: 15.
29
The modern tendency is the result of a prolonged shift in voter priorities; see Clarke et al. 2009:
55–64.
30
‘For nothing is more uncertain than a crowd, nothing more impenetrable than the wishes of men,
nothing more deceptive than the whole business of elections . . . for, just as storms often rise at some
sure sign of the heavens, and often they stir for no obvious reason or discernible cause, so in this
electoral storm of the people you might sometimes know what caused it, but often the cause would
be so obscure that the storm would almost seem to have risen by chance.’
pinning the reason for his defeat on the ineluctable mysteries of the
people’s uoluntas. The difference between the two tempestates, further, is
keyed exactly to the two types of candidate: Sulpicius’ origins, though
noble, are obscure and academic, whereas Murena’s career furnishes a sure
sign of his suitability for office. Indeed, very shortly after this metaphor of
stormy seas, Cicero will specify Murena’s good reputation among the
soldiery as the reason for his electoral success. Murena’s conduct brings
out the uoluntas militum, and the soldiers’ good report induces, in turn, the
favour of the people: hoc quanti putas esse ad famam hominum ac uolunta-
tem? (Mur. 38, ‘how much impact do you think it has on reputation and
inclination?’). If the contional atmosphere can be likened to a rising storm,
the proof of a military career is by analogy the ‘sure sign’ in the heavens, not
the cause of the storm but the indication that provides foreknowledge for
those who can read it. Further, despite Cicero’s coyness, there can be no
doubt that he knows how to master such electoral storms and what might
be their cause or effect. The theme of unexpected tempestates brackets the
speech in Mur. 4 and 81 and constructs a continuity between Cicero’s year
in office and the incoming consul’s task: quo tandem me esse animo oportet
prope iam ex magna iactatione terram uidentem in hunc cui uideo maximas
rei publicae tempestates esse subeundas? (Mur. 4, ‘how, then, am I to feel
towards this man, whom I see must undergo these great storms of the state,
when I am just within sight of land after being cast about myself?’). In this,
too, Cicero and Murena share an important consular quality: they possess
a measure of agency over the unpredictable events of popular assemblies,
whereas Sulpicius, lacking such consular qualities, is left to wonder at the
seemingly inscrutable result. Indeed, the descriptive terms Cicero uses –
incertius, obscurius, fallacius – hammer home the point: Murena makes up
for his lack of ancestry by discharging his duty in the public eye, and his
military identity remains consistent and emphatic in the speech; Sulpicius,
by contrast, is uncertain of victory, obscure of reputation and fallacious by
profession. It’s clear who makes the better politician and who the better
consul.
Conclusion: The Sound and the Fury

The Pro Murena is not an electoral speech, of course, but it is worthwhile to
ask in conclusion what it might tell us about the rhetoric, and the rhetorical
practices, of Roman elections more generally. This chapter has argued that
the speech employs a number of frameworks and heuristics all aimed at
simplifying the decision made by the voters or, in this case, the voters as
jurors. This generic simplification stands out not least because the speech
itself, especially if it was edited afterwards for circulation, already faces
a more simple challenge than any electoral speech: the forum is small and
set, the aim clear and defined and the scope ample and formal. A candidate,
by contrast, would have spoken informally, ex tempore, and often by proxy,
to fluid and changing audiences, each with their own interests, agendas and
demands.31 Cicero’s use of simplifying tropes, therefore, does more than
just break down the voting choice for the jurors but also mimics, indeed re-
creates, a campaign atmosphere for them. Is that re-creation, however,
telling of real electoral practices?
The answer must be, I suggest, a severely qualified affirmative. In as
much as Roman voters subscribed to the same cognitive tendencies as their
modern counterparts, an assumption that is defensible if far from provable,
the Pro Murena mimics for us the kinds of things a candidate might say and
the range of ways he might present himself: as a military man, popular,
courageous and so on. The Pro Murena suggests also that some elections
were won or lost on a single issue, often security related, as in Marius’
victory of 105 BC for the war against Jugurtha, or earlier elections during
the Second Punic War.32 These issues, however, tended to be universal and
relatively easy to rally around, and as such are of a different hue to the more
complex issues – the economy, immigration, legal rights – we often
imagine modern elections turning on.
Ultimately, however, the Pro Murena suggests, not surprisingly, that the
best consul is in fact Cicero himself. What emerges from the speech as
a whole are three distinct images of what a consular candidate – and
thereby potential consul – might be, each represented by one of the parties,
and in ascending order: a legal authority (Sulpicius – worse), a military
leader (Murena – better), and implicitly and best of all, Cicero the orator,
who guides the jurors/voters through the maze of rhetoric with lordly
wisdom.33 But, of course, Cicero is playing two games here, and his use of
cliché allows him to marry strategy and ideology. In the short term, cliché
provides the fuzziness required to allow Cicero to escape a personal bind –
jurists are bad, consuls are good; Cicero is a consul, not a jurist, therefore
good. The longer game, however, relies on cliché to reconstruct an ideol-
ogy of what it means to be consul: valiant, resilient, militarily able,
31
Tatum 2013: 136–40.
32
For Marius’ campaign, see note 2. For the Second Punic War, see note 12. This emphasis on security
supports Cicero’s argument that as a consul Murena will keep Rome safe.
33
On the creative power of Cicero’s rhetoric, see Gildenhard 2011: 146–59, and especially 156–9 on the
importance of consuls having a consular attitude.
certainly, but also reliant on Cicero’s skill and committed to Cicero’s
political exigencies in the Catilinarian conspiracy. Above all, however,
the Pro Murena shows us a battle of rhetoric, image and public relations.
If it gives us a sense of Roman electioneering, it is a fairly generic one, the
functional equivalent of watching the evening news: engaging, full of
sound and fury but in the end, perhaps, signifying nothing – and yet
precisely in that empty ventriloquizing lies the real significance of political
cliché.
chapter 12
The ‘Wrong’ Meetings?

Some Notes on the Linked Usage of the Terms Coetus and
Contiones in the Political Language of the Roman Republic
Roman M. Frolov
Literary sources, often inescapably one-sided, can problematise our grasp

of the mechanics of Roman Republican politics. However, these very biases
may be helpful for better understanding the strategies and ideologies of the
political factions whose stances are reflected in the ancient texts. To that
end, a close look at diction in our literary sources is especially useful. This
chapter focuses on some observations on the usage of the two terms for
describing Roman political meetings: coetus and contio.
Since both labels are used for what we can call non-decision-making
gatherings, not surprisingly, scholars often contrast one against the other.
However, in my view, it sometimes escapes scholars’ attention that coetus
and contio are not opposites on a spectrum but have entirely different
qualities. While contio implies a political meeting with a more-or-less clear
set of specific characteristics (non-decision-making, most often legal and
legitimate, public and official), a coetus is not even necessarily a meeting, let
alone a political one with defined attributes. This leads to two further
considerations.
First, even when coetus is used for political gatherings, it is applied each
time in significantly different ways. While it can serve as an opposite of
contio, denoting a gathering that is restricted, unofficial, illegitimate or
illegal, it may also be employed as a more vague, general term for
This study was partially supported by the Russian Presidential Grants Council (Project No. МК-
2810.2015.6), Russian Foundation for Humanities (Project No. 15–31-01205) and the country’s Ministry
of Education and Science (Project No. 91, state assignment for research in P. G. Demidov Yaroslavl
State University). I am grateful to the classicists from Yaroslavl, especially to Vera V. Dement’eva, for
their encouragement and help. I express my deep gratitude to the audience at the colloquium ‘People,
Politics and Res Publica: Strategy and Ideology in Republican Rome’, organised by Catherine Steel,
Christa Gray and Henriette van der Blom, for invaluable responses. I thank Jennifer Dwyer, who did
enormous work to improve the English text of the original paper. Of course, all errors and omissions
remain my sole responsibility.
236
The ‘Wrong’ Meetings? 237
a gathering, encompassing the more specific contio within it, or even as
a pejorative, yet precise, equivalent of contio. So, when we see coetus used
for a political gathering, in itself this does not (unlike contio) provide much
specific information, unless we have a broader informative context.1
Secondly, since contio is a more precise term, its application to
a meeting, even if we know from context that it does not look like
a typical contio,2 may imply that the author thought the gathering had at
least some of the specific features of a contio. The cases analysed here
demonstrate, I believe, that this use of contio first of all highlights,
whether in a positive or negative way, the significant political ramifica-
tions of a meeting.
In scholarship, an assemblage called coetus is usually considered unoffi-
cial and unauthorised, brought together by private citizens (priuati),
whereas one labelled contio is characterised as an official institution,
a meeting called exclusively by magistrates or, in the case of a military
contio, summoned by military officers in command.3
At the same time, even when contrasting coetus and contio, research-
ers mention important similarities between the realities behind them.
For example, Mueller notes that coetus is a ‘word less formal than other
Latin terms for assembly’; ‘in fact, [it] carries decidedly negative con-
notations, and is often specifically applied to unauthorised gatherings’.4
Mueller claims that a coetus ‘lacked official state sanction (which
included both legal and religious elements)’.5 Nevertheless, he also
points out that ‘whether or not a particular coetus was illegal depended
1
The term coetus without further specification most consistently indicates illicit meetings in later legal
texts (lex Irnitana 74; cf. lex Col. Gen. Iul. 106), but even in legal contexts, cases when coetus needs to
be clarified by such words as illicitus are not lacking (Dig. 47.11.2; Plin. Ep. 10.93). As to earlier
regulations, the Declamatio in Catilinam 19 (65 Kristoferson) – whatever its precise value in
reconstructing the Twelve Tables’ provisions – indicates that the Twelve Tables prohibited not
just any coetus but specifically nocturnal coetus in the city. For general scholarly assessments of the
legality of coetus, see below.
2
In such cases, we anticipate that it should be designated coetus (in the sense of an unofficial, illegal
gathering) or something else, but not contio.
3
On contiones in general, see Pina Polo 1989: 41–3 (cf. Frolov 2013); on military contiones, see Pina Polo
1989: 199, 240. Francisco Pina Polo, when discussing passages describing unauthorised political
gatherings, states that the word contio designates a meeting with institutional organisation, whereas
the term coetus indicates any gathering of individuals. Coetus, unlike contiones, were illegal, private,
restricted and conducted without the presidency of magistrates (see Pina Polo 1989: 6–7). Dominique
Hiebel suggests that the word acquired a negative meaning in political discourse and was often
associated with the terms coniuratio and seditio. Coetus, as well as coitio, designates unofficial
gatherings, prohibited by the mos maiorum (Hiebel 2009: 69–70; see also O’Neill 2001: 152, n. 279).
4
Mueller 2004: 82–3.
5
Mueller 2004: 83, discussing the meetings reportedly held in 494 bc (Livy 2.27–8), on which see
below.
238 roman m. frolov
on circumstances’.6 According to Nicolet, aside from contiones, ‘all
meetings of the people or even of a handful of citizens were considered
an invitation to sedition’, but ‘they were neither forbidden nor
repressed’.7 Thus, both Mueller and Nicolet suggest that despite
a negative attitude on the part of the Roman elite towards gatherings
called coetus, a political act designated by this label was not necessarily
of an illicit nature. Moreover, it seems to me that one cannot consis-
tently observe certain other important features which have been alleged
to constitute a sharp contrast between the terms coetus and contio in
political contexts.
Let us start with Cicero’s texts. Here the word coetus is used more than
three dozen times.8 Mostly it is employed for describing public life and
politics. However, in such cases Cicero not infrequently uses the expression
in its most unspecified meaning, to indicate not a meeting but rather an
association or community of men, as in his famous definition of populus
(Rep. 1.39, 41, 3.43). In theoretical treatises, the label is also used for political
meetings, again of any kind, without further specification. For example,
Cicero, when contrasting solitude to public activity in the De officiis,
connects this activity to ‘gatherings and crowds of men’ (coetus hominum
frequentiaque). It is quite possible that political gatherings, maybe both
magisterial and unauthorised, are referred to here, taking into account that
Cicero links coetus with the curia and forum.9
Contrary to some scholarly expectations, in only a few of Cicero’s
passages does the term certainly designate gatherings organised by priuati,
including the assembly of Catiline’s supporters, reportedly called in
a private house on the night of 6–7 November 63 bc.10 The number of
6 7 8
Mueller 2004: 83. Nicolet 1993: 42–3. See particularly TLL s.v. coetus.
9
Cic. Off. 3.2: ille enim requiescens a rei publicae pulcherrimis muneribus otium sibi sumebat aliquando
et coetu hominum frequentiaque interdum tamquam in portum se in solitudinem recipiebat, nostrum
autem otium negotii inopia, non requiescendi studio constitutum est. extincto enim senatu deletisque
iudiciis quid est, quod dignum nobis aut in curia aut in foro agere possimus? (‘For he, resting from his
excellent services to the Republic, sometimes took a vacation and withdrew from the gatherings and
crowds of men into solitude as if it were an asylum, while my leisure is caused by the lack of
occupation, not by a desire for rest. Indeed, what is there suitable for me that I can do either in the
Senate House or in the Forum when the Senate has been weakened and the courts have been
destroyed?’). See also Cic. De or. 1.30, 3.65; Fin. 2.77. Cf. Cornelius Severus’ famous description of
Cicero’s death (ap. Sen. Suas. 6.26): quid fauor aut coetus, pleni quid honoribus anni profuerant? sacris
exculta quid artibus aetas? (‘What good had popular favour or gatherings done, or years full of
honours? What good had a life ennobled by sacred arts done?’).
10
Cic. Cat. 1.6: etenim quid est, Catilina, quod iam amplius exspectes, si neque nox tenebris obscurare
coetus nefarios nec priuata domus parietibus continere uoces coniurationis tuae potest, si illustrantur, si
erumpunt omnia? (‘And indeed, what is this, Catiline, you are still waiting for, if neither night can
hide nefarious gatherings in darkness, nor private houses conceal the voices of your conspirators
such occurrences, in the case of Cicero at least, is simply not sufficient
to believe that this was the primary meaning of the term. In fact, coetus
might no less frequently indicate meetings and consultations organised
by public officials. Cicero applies this term to the secret nocturnal
gatherings of plebeian tribunes-elect in 64 bc, at which Servilius
Rullus, his colleagues and ‘certain private individuals’ discussed the
drafting of the new agrarian law.11 In strictly legal terms, magistrates-
designate were also priuati, but it is of more importance here that Cicero
seeks to show them as already responsible for the whole res publica;
therefore, being in this respect distinguished from other priuati, ‘they
continued . . . to invite certain private individuals’. In his speech against
Piso, Cicero also calls the senators who were listening to him a coetus of
‘the most learned and highly accomplished men possible’ (Pis. 68).
Finally, it may be suspected that the word is applied as an analogue of
contio in the Second Philippic.12 The phrase ‘in a proper assembly of the
Roman people’ (in coetu uero populi Romani) is here a synonym of ‘in
the eye of the Roman people’ (in populi Romani conspectu), which, in
turn, is usually used in the sources as a substitute for ‘in a public
meeting of the people’ (in contione populi). It is also noteworthy that
in these passages (Pis. 68 and Phil. 2.63) coetus does not carry
a pejorative meaning.13
within their walls, if everything is elucidated and disclosed?’); 1.10: haec ego omnia uixdum etiam coetu
uestro dimisso comperi (‘Your gathering had barely broken up, when I learned all this’). Besides that,
Cicero mentions ‘meeting with friends’ (coetus amicorum) and ‘conversations’ (sermones) during the
feasts of the members of religious associations (sodalitates) established in 205 bc (Sen. 45).
The political nature of these coetus is not specifically stressed, though it is well known that sodalitates
held political influence, particularly with respect to elections, in Cicero’s time (see e.g. [Q. Cic.] Pet.
19; Gruen 1995: 228–9).
11
Cic. Leg. agr. 2.12: interea non desistebant clam inter se conuenire, priuatos quosdam adhibere, ad suos
coetus occultos noctem adiungere et solitudinem (‘Meanwhile they continued to assemble secretly, to
invite certain private individuals and to use night and darkness for their concealed gatherings’).
12
Cic. Phil. 2.63: tantum uini in Hippiae nuptiis exhauseras ut tibi necesse esset in populi Romani
conspectu uomere postridie. . . . in coetu uero populi Romani negotium publicum gerens, magister
equitum . . . is uomens . . . gremium suum et totum tribunal inpleuit (‘You drank so much wine at
the marriage of Hippia that the next day it became necessary for you to vomit in the eye of the
Roman people . . . In a proper assembly of the Roman people, a man conducting public business,
a master of the horse . . . he vomited . . . filling his own bosom and the whole platform’).
The mention of the tribunal may indicate the execution of judicial responsibilities by a magistrate
in the Forum, but the tribunal not infrequently is associated specifically with the conducting of
contiones. Cf. e.g. Livy, 3.19.4, 26.15.9; Sen. Dial. 3.16. See also Pina Polo 1989: 19–20, 187.
13
Hellegouarc’h 1972: 92–3 claims that coetus is itself neutral and serves as a general designation of
political gatherings. He believes, though, that in practice the word is often exploited pejoratively: its
meaning is specified by means of modifiers with deteriorative colouring. Nevertheless, even such
terms as contio easily acquire that sort of colouring (though not as frequently, of course, as coetus)
when accompanied by suitable attributes.
240 roman m. frolov
The use of coetus for official gatherings was not at all unique to Cicero.
Even though some other authors (Livy, for instance) do employ it most
frequently to denote not magisterial but rather unauthorised gatherings, it
is important always to keep in mind the possibility that the term may be
applied to meetings presided over by the magistrates: to official contiones.
Thus, in his third book (3.38.11), Livy recalls an incident during the Sabine
wars in which the term of office of the decemuiri had expired, but the
decemuiri continued to wield power.14 However, when they attempted to
call a meeting of the Senate, the senators ignored them, avoiding ‘a meeting
and an encounter’ (coetus congressusque) with the decemuiri. As Livy puts it,
the senators doubted the legal right of the illegitimate decemuiri, ‘despotic
rulers’ (impotentes domini), to convoke the Senate. Therefore, the meetings
were not ‘proper’ ones, and consequently, they were called not senatus but
coetus congressusque.15 Even though this time coetus is used pejoratively
(perhaps to show concerns about the legitimacy of the actions of the
decemuiri), it definitely indicates technically official meetings. According
to Livy, the decemuiri at that time had not yet formally abdicated their
power in contione, as they were to do later (see 3.54.6).
Asconius’ account of the dispersal of a gathering of the supporters of the
tribune of the plebs Gaius Manilius in 67 bc may serve as a good argument
that the term coetus sometimes can hardly be opposed to contio.16 Asconius
14
The legal consequences of the usurpation of power by the decemuiri are well stressed in Dement’eva
2003: 77–84.
15
Livy, 3.38.11: patrum haud fere quisquam in foro, in urbe rari erant. indignitate rerum cesserant in agros,
suarumque rerum erant amissa publica, tantum ab iniuria se abesse rati, quantum a coetu congressuque
impotentium dominorum se amouissent (‘There was almost no one of senators in the Forum, and a few
remained in the city. Because of their indignation with the situation, they departed to their farms
and were totally consumed in their private affairs, abandoning those of the state. They believed that
they would be protected from injustice so far as they withdrew from a meeting and an encounter
with the despotic rulers’). Cf. also 4.25.9: coetus indicere in domos tribunorum plebis (‘they appointed
gatherings in the houses of plebeian tribunes’) and 4.6.6: consules . . . concilia principum domi
habebant (‘the consuls . . . convened the meetings of the leading citizens at home’).
16
Asc. 45C: dederas enim quam contemneres populares insanias iam ab adulescentia documenta maxima.
constantiam L. Domiti quam in quaestura praestitit significat. nam eo tempore cum C. Manilius
tribunus plebis subnixus libertinorum et seruorum manu perditissimam legem ferret ut libertinis in
omnibus tribubus suffragium esset, idque per tumultum ageret et cliuum Capitolinum obsideret,
discusserat perruperatque coetum Domitius ita ut multi Manilianorum occiderentur. quo facto et plebem
infimam offenderat et senatus magnam gratiam inierat (‘For ever since the time of your youth you have
given much evidence of how greatly you despised the follies of populares. He means Domitius’
constancy, which he showed during his quaestorship. When the plebeian tribune Gaius Manilius,
supported by a number of freedmen and slaves, proposed the most corrupted bill to distribute
freedmen’s votes throughout the tribes, acted by means of a tumult and occupied the Capitoline
Hill, Domitius broke up and stopped the gathering in such a way that many of Manilius’ supporters
were killed. By doing this, he both offended the lower sections of the plebs and earned great favour
from the Senate’). Cf. Schol. Bob. p. 119.14–17St: nam cum C. Manilius post annum tribunatus sui,
reports that Manilius had proposed a controversial law to distribute freed-
men’s votes throughout the tribes. This caused some dispute. Manilius was
said to have ‘acted by means of a tumult’ and occupied the Capitol.
The quaestor Domitius broke up this coetus of Manilius’ partisans by
force and, as a result, many of them were killed. Nevertheless, the law
ended up being passed in the assembly.
According to Cicero, in general, a presiding magistrate was responsible
for any violence that occurred in his meeting (Cic. Leg. 3.42–3), and we do
know that this coetus ended in bloodshed. However, Asconius tells us that
it was Domitius who interrupted the coetus of Manilius with an assault that
led to casualties in a clear violation of the law. There are no precise details
of Manilius’ possible illegalities or, in other words, what kind of violence
took place before Domitius interfered.
E. J. Phillips assumes that after his tribunate, ‘it would have been easy to
prosecute Manilius for uis (violence)’ and finds it ‘strange that the prosecu-
tion should have dug up an old charge (peculation)’.17 Phillips suggests that
the likely reason why the accusation of violence did not take place was that
Domitius would in that case also have been accused, for he too had resorted
to uis.18 However, a more straightforward explanation may be that
Manilius simply never used violence to pass his bill concerning freedmen.
As Phillips himself rightly points out, ‘Manilius is not known to have used
force again while he was a tribune, and the generalisations of Cicero and
the Scholia Bobiensis appear to be based on this one instance alone.’19 This
evidence, as I am arguing here, is not enough. Thus, Nippel, for example,
implies that Domitius interfered on the grounds of Manilius’ inability or
unwillingness to stop the riotous meeting for which he was responsible.20
However, even if it was turbulent, all we know for certain is that it became
such only after Domitius’ intervention. There is no clear evidence that
before this the meeting was accompanied by any kind of violence, nor is it
easy to see why, indeed, it should be.
Of course, taking into account previous well-known attempts to pass
legislative proposals similar to that of Manilius with the help of violence,
quem turbulentissime gesserat, causam de maiestate dicturus esset accusante Cn. Minucio, id egit, ut per
multitudinem conspiratam obsideret eundem Cn. Minucium accusatorem suum (‘For, since Gaius
Manilius, after the year of his tribunate, which he performed in a very turbulent manner, would have
had to defend himself against the charge of maiestas brought by Gnaeus Minucius, he acted in order
to besiege the very same Minucius, his accuser, with the mob working in concert with him’). See also
Dio Cass. 36.42.1–4.
17
Phillips 1970: 597. On the question of whether quaestiones de ui existed at this time, see Lintott
1999a: 109–24.
18
Phillips 1970: 597. 19 Phillips 1970: 597. 20 Nippel 1995: 51.
242 roman m. frolov
and Manilius’ later willingness to defend himself by any and all means,
including illegal ones, we might anticipate the same in our case too.
Nevertheless, at first sight, the only detailed information we have about
the tribune’s ‘tumult’ is that it involved his ‘occupation’ of the Capitol, an
act which, in itself, was in no way illegal.21 As a tribune, Manilius had and
could have used full authority to conduct both contiones and decision-
making assemblies (comitia) and would not have needed to rely on physical
force if he wanted simply to occupy the Capitol with his supporters.
Nobody, especially not a quaestor, could legally prevent a tribune from
conducting a public meeting.22
Thus, we do not know of any attempts to deal with Manilius by
constitutional means. The only fact we have is that Domitius instead
resorted to violence and violated the law. Even though Asconius and/or
his sources imply that it was Manilius who initially took up arms, the actual
facts they provide are more important than the labels (such as tumultus)
used for describing the situation. It seems that this is a case of using the
terms tumultus and coetus to refer to a legitimate meeting. By calling
Manilius’ meeting a coetus, it was perhaps easier to explain why
Domitius’ violent intervention was appropriate. If an armed rebellion
had really taken place, however, and not just a contio controlled by
Manilius’ supporters, then it would not be quite clear why such
a provocative law was enacted in comitia under the presidency of the leader
of the rebels just recently defeated.23
It is even less reasonable to believe that Manilius was the first to resort to
violence, if Bert Lott and other scholars are right in stating that the tribune
made the best use of the festival of Compitalia (the day when the coetus of
his supporters was gathered). This festival was ‘primarily organized and
celebrated by Rome’s lowest classes, slaves and freedmen’.24
‘On Compitalia, the people who were most likely to support Manilius’
law were already out in the streets.’25 Such overwhelming support would
21
Cf. the somewhat similar situation in the case of Gaius Gracchus. It is noteworthy that a late author
even called his meeting on the Capitoline a contio (Oros. 5.12.5; see also App. B Civ. 1.24–5; De vir. ill.
65.5; Flor. 2.3; Plut. C. Gracch. 13–15).
22
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 7.17.4–5; Livy, 43.16.9; De vir. ill. 65.5, 73.2; Val. Max. 9.5.2.
23
See Asc. 65C. Dio Cassius (36.42) does not mention any disturbance immediately before the passing
of Manilius’ law. The notes in Dio that Manilius ‘had won over some of the populace’
(παρασκευάσας τινὰς ἐκ τοῦ ὁμίλου) and in Asc. 45C that he was ‘supported by a multitude of
freedmen and slaves’ (subnixus libertinorum et seruorum manu) should not be seen in itself as
a reliable indication of illegal actions and violence (cf. O’Neill 2001: 146; see also: Lintott 1999a:
134; Gruen 1995: 407–8; 439–40).
24
Lott 2004: 35. 25 Lott 2004: 49–50; O’Neill 2001: 146–8.
have both made it initially unnecessary for Manilius to resort to violence
and compelled his enemies to use armed gangs.26
Earlier in 67 bc, according to Asconius and Dio Cassius, the tribune
Gaius Cornelius was forced to dismiss a pre-comitial contio because of the
attempts of another tribune, P. Servilius Globulus, and of the consul Piso
to prevent the passage of Cornelius’ law.27 In this instance, Cornelius
himself certainly did not use force, for he had dismissed the contio (termed
here also as ‘people’s assembly’, concilium) as soon as the threat of escala-
tion appeared, even though his contio strongly supported him when the bill
was read out immediately before the voting.28 Manilius likewise held a very
similar meeting of reliable partisans, but there are a couple of important
differences. Firstly, Cicero’s attitude towards these two situations is not the
same.29 Secondly, in Manilius’ case, his enemies did not try to impede the
legislative process by having their own tribune work within the pre-
comitial gathering, but instead they acted from the outside and resorted
to violence against the whole meeting, which they cannot, therefore, have
even hoped to win over.30
If the accusations against Manilius were really only the invention of his
opponents, who themselves used force illegally, then coetus is here a label
for a contio, lawfully convened by a tribune. Indeed, what else could this
coetus be other than an official pre-comitial meeting? It is unnecessary to
view coetus here as merely some group of troublemakers when Manilius was
capable of conducting his own contio to prepare for the vote on his
proposed law. If this is the case, then the bare fact of the use of the term
26
Having said this, Cicero, who was probably trying to put Manilius ‘in the best light possible’
(Crawford 1994: 109), still acknowledges that many (multa) of Manilius’ deeds occasioned reproach.
However, it is noteworthy that according to Cicero, the most important of them all (imprimis) was
the ‘swiftness of his action’ (celeritas actionis): Cic. ap. Asc. 65C. That is, violating the requirements
of the lex Caecilia Didia or, perhaps, the holding of comitia on an inappropriate day (on the
Compitalia, see Crawford 1994: 106–9), but not the alleged use of violence.
27
Asc. 58C: fracti eius fasces sunt lapidesque etiam ex ultima contione in consulem iacti: quo tumultu
Cornelius perturbatus concilium dimisit actutum (‘his [Piso’s] rods of office were broken in pieces, and
stones were thrown at the consul from the furthest fringes of the meeting. Confused by the tumult,
Cornelius immediately dismissed the assembly’). Dio Cass. 36.39–40: ἰδών οὖν τὴν ὁρμὴν αὐτῶν ὁ
Κορνήλιος, τότε μέν, πρὶν ἐπιψηφίσαι τι, διαφῆκε τὸν σύλλογον (‘So Cornelius, seeing their onrush,
then dismissed the meeting before putting a question to the vote’).
28
Cic. Vat. 5: num armatis hominibus templum tenuerit, num intercessorem ui deiecerit . . . constabat
tamen Cornelium concilium illo die dimisisse (‘Did he occupy any temple with armed men? Did he
drive out any opposing public official by violence? . . . It is, however, evident that Cornelius
dismissed the assembly that day’).
29
Cicero explained Cornelius’ actions in order to defend him, while he denounced Manilius in this
case. Asconius’ word usage might have been influenced by this assessment.
30
On the employment of a somewhat similar strategy by Publius Clodius, see Tan 2013.
244 roman m. frolov
coetus on similar occasions cannot be immediately regarded as a secure and
sufficient indication of the absence of a legally convoked contio.
The suggestion that coetus might sometimes serve as a striking, pejora-
tive synonym for nothing other than a contio sheds light on an interesting
passage of Tacitus’ Annales.31 The meeting at which Germanicus speaks
to the mutinous legions (in ad 14) is still designated a contio, even though
it was not initially arranged according to maniples as would be expected
(permixta uidebatur: Tac. Ann. 1.34). In the following passage, the meet-
ing in question is also undoubtedly a contio, as it was convened by
Germanicus himself. However, Tacitus has the general ask his rebellious
soldiers: quod nomen huic coetui dabo?32 That the label coetus is not here
a general or neutral term but a pejorative word specifically for contio is
shown by Tacitus’ phrasing several lines earlier, in which he refers to
unauthorised gatherings of legionaries in the same way – coetus (Tac.
Ann. 1.16–20). Furthermore, Tacitus includes in this speech of
Germanicus a reference to Julius Caesar’s successful attempt to suppress
his mutinous legions by appealing to them as Quirites rather than
milites.33 In Tacitus’ account, Germanicus shames his soldiers into sub-
mission through an even more powerful treatment: he is uncertain how
he should define ‘that coetus’, questioning not only the status of the
audience but also, as a result, the meeting itself. In the process,
Germanicus denies the contio, which he himself convoked, of the right
to be called a contio.
Thus, not only was it the case that ‘whether or not a particular coetus was
illegal depended on circumstances’, as Mueller rightly states, but it also
depended on circumstances, as it seems, whether or not a particular coetus
was an unauthorised gathering. The upshot of this is that use of this term
alone, if other details are unknown, hardly says anything about the char-
acter of the meeting described.
This conclusion does not contradict the observation that in some
particular cases coetus indicates a meeting that otherwise, judged by its
31
It is appropriate to mention this occurrence even though it concerns military contiones, since they
definitely have political significance here.
32
Tac. Ann. 1.42–3: quod nomen huic coetui dabo? militesne appellem, qui filium imperatoris uestri uallo
et armis circumsedistis? an ciuis, quibus tam proiecta senatus auctoritas? . . . diuus Iulius seditionem
exercitus uerbo uno compescuit, Quirites uocando qui sacramentum eius detrectabant (‘How shall
I name this assemblage? Should I call you soldiers, you, who have surrounded the son of your
general with rampart and arms? Should I address you as citizens, despite your having rejected the
authority of the Senate? . . . The Divine Julius once restrained a mutiny of an army with a single
word by naming those who were breaking their military oath ‘citizens’’).
33
See Hölkeskamp 2013.
characteristics, could be called a contio. In such instances, coetus is not
a more general (in comparison to contio) or generic expression for any
political meeting,34 nor is it a word for an illegal gathering. In passages
such as the Manilius example, it seems that coetus is deliberately
employed in place of the term contio to designate specifically an official
and magisterial public meeting and that – since in this instance it does
bear pejorative colouring – coetus is used to demonstrate the author’s or
speaker’s negative assessment of a particular contio. This does not lead to
the conclusion that coetus is a formal expression for contio. However, this
label, even if it is not a ‘technical’ one, may nevertheless occasionally refer
to meetings that are the usual referent of the term contio. This possibility
is sometimes rejected too readily. Taking this into account may allow us
to notice important evidence regarding the perceptions of reported events
by political agents.
The reverse situation is possible as well. In some passages, gatherings
that usually are not considered by scholars as contiones, because they were
organised by priuati, are either directly called contiones or are likened to
them. Especially interesting are the instances in which the terms coetus and
contio both indicate the same meeting.
Let us again start with Cicero. He terms a meeting held by Catiline
during his campaign for the consulship a contio domestica, despite
Catiline being only a priuatus.35 According to Tatum, this expression is
‘a striking oxymoron’. He argues: ‘It plainly does not evoke a sequence of
private conversations but instead a performance before an audience,
albeit a private one.’ Tatum suggests that what Cicero called a contio
domestica might actually be a ceremonial visit (salutatio) in the context of
Catiline’s electioneering. Cicero ‘hoped his hearers would instead associ-
ate this assembly with Catiline’s sinister nocturnal sessions’ (which in fact
he organised only later).36 I would agree with Tatum that by using the
term contio, Cicero tried to underline the specific character of that
gathering, not only its organisation, but also its political ramifications,
which were uncommon for a salutatio held in the home of a private
individual. Even though this meeting, unlike the unauthorised plebeian
gatherings described by Livy (see below), might not actually be that
serious, Cicero was interested in making it appear incredibly dangerous.
34
As it is used, for instance, in a definition of contio: Gell. NA. 18.7.3.
35
Cic. Mur. 50: meministis enim, cum illius nefarii gladiatoris uoces percrebruissent quas habuisse in
contione domestica dicebatur (‘You certainly remember, how the words of that nefarious gladiator,
which he was said to have used at a domestic meeting, went public’).
36
Tatum 2013: 146–7. See also Fantham 2013: 154.
246 roman m. frolov
To give this impression, alongside the word coetus, he uses the term
contio.37
In this context, Sallust’s report about a meeting of armed Catilinarians
in Etruria in 62 bc before the decisive battle is particularly interesting (Cat.
57). When Catiline left Rome, he still remained a priuatus.38 Nonetheless,
the meeting in Etruria was explicitly called a contio.39 No pejorative form or
any other specialising words were used that could have indicated
a gathering in a format different from that of magisterial contiones.
Though scholars usually admit the possibility of the convocation of mili-
tary contiones by private individuals (military commanders and officers), in
this case a leader of armed rebels is in question.40 Catiline was not officially
appointed a commander. Moreover, he not only called the troops together
without permission, but he also openly opposed legally elected magistrates
and the Senate with armed forces.41
If so, why does Sallust use the term contio in this case, and not a less clear
expression such as ‘in the manner of a public meeting’ (in contionis
modum)? Note that the meeting in Etruria took place in daylight and
was not held in secret. Catiline was at the head of an army that recognised
his leadership, including, therefore, his right to conduct meetings. Since
the gathering was not only open and public but also consisted of armed
men, at the very least (if the question of its legality is put aside), it bore
a strong resemblance to military contiones. It seems that this term once
more helped to express the fundamental likeness of one particular
unauthorised gathering to a magisterial (here: military) contio, definitely
37
Sallust, by contrast, uses a more general term conuentus (Cat. 20–1). In 64 bc, Cicero himself
described a gathering in a private residence during electioneering such as Catiline’s differently,
saying only: domum Catilinam et Antonium cum sequestribus suis conuenisse (‘Catiline and Antonius
met with their followers in the house’; ap. Asc. 83C). Perhaps the formula ‘domestic contio’ was an
‘invention’ of Cicero, later borrowed by Livy (see also Tatum 2013: 147, n. 56, and below). Cicero,
describing the 63 bc gathering of the Catilinarians, termed it ‘nefarious assemblage’ (coetus nefarius;
Cat. 1.6, 10). Here the absence of the label contio might be a result of the self-evident political threat
(explained so vividly by Cicero) posed by a meeting of conspirators, especially in comparison to the
previous year’s gathering, which, as Tatum suggests, may in fact have merely been regular
salutationes.
38
Though according to Appian (B Civ. 2.3) Catiline had some of his supporters precede him with
fasces as if he were a proconsul (see also Sall. Cat. 36.1). As reported by Dio Cassius, Catiline styled
himself a consul (37.33).
39
Sall. Cat. 57.6: itaque contione aduocata huiusce modi orationem habuit (‘Thus, after he convened
a meeting, he made a speech like this’).
40
Concerning this example, see Pina Polo 1989: 200, 335, n. 81 (the meeting of Catiline is listed among
the military contiones).
41
Cf. the occurrence of 212 bc, when, after the death of their commanders in Hispania, the remnant of
the Roman army was led by L. Marcius Septimus, eques Romanus, who (according to Livy, 25.37–9)
repeatedly summoned contiones.
not to indicate sarcasm or ironical comparison. The threat from the
conspirators was too serious and recent for facetiousness. It is remarkable
that despite our sources’ hostility to Catiline, and despite, more impor-
tantly, his defeat, Sallust does not use any pejorative constructions to
describe the meeting of the Catilinarians. Perhaps this helps the historian
to assess positively Catiline’s capabilities as a military leader; even the
apparent illegality of his actions was not an obstacle here. In my view,
this case again demonstrates that the aim of ancient authors when referring
to such gatherings by ‘legitimising terms’ was, first of all, to stress their
significance (and dangerous nature) and some organisational specificity,
and only after those to hint that the assemblages did not meet certain rules
or standards. A contrasting example from Tacitus’ Annales demonstrates
this perfectly. On the one hand, unauthorised, night-time and restricted
gatherings of soldiers were called coetus and, specifically, ‘night-time con-
versations’ (nocturna conloquia). This description makes their illegality
already evident enough for a reader. On the other hand, the organiser of
gatherings that resulted in apparently more significant and dangerous mass
public assemblies was described not just as an instigator of coetus and
nocturna conloquia but as a ringleader delivering a speech ‘as though
holding a public meeting’ (uelut contionabundus: Tac. Ann. 1.16–20).
Such a direct linkage between contio and coetus can also be found in
Livy’s account. Thus, Livy (2.27–8) narrates the conducting of coetus
nocturni by the plebeians, whose aim was to coordinate their subsequent
joint actions in the Forum in the daytime.42 According to the annalistic
tradition, by this time – not long after the foundation of the Republic (495/
494 bc) – there was already talk among the plebeians of secession. Even
more pernicious, according to Livy, were the secret meetings they held
(occulta conloquia and coetus nocturni). Livy tells us that the senators
blamed the consuls for their inability to prevent these meetings from
occurring, lamenting that ‘the Republic had been scattered and dissipated
into a thousand curiae and contiones’, thereby likening these coetus to
officially sanctioned contiones.43 Why would Livy do this?
42
There is no opportunity here to discuss the historicity of the event or the problem of the legality of
those assemblages, although already the terminology is revealing.
43
Livy, 2.27.13–28.3: crescere inde malum in dies, non clamoribus modo apertis sed, quod multo pernicio-
sius erat, secessione occultisque conloquiis . . . tum uero plebs incerta quales habitura consules esset, coetus
nocturnos, pars Esquiliis, pars in Auentino facere, ne in foro subitis trepidaret consiliis et omnia temere ac
fortuito ageret. eam rem consules rati, ut erat, perniciosam ad patres deferunt, sed delatam consulere
ordine non licuit; adeo tumultuose excepta est clamoribus undique et indignatione patrum, si quod
imperio consulari exsequendum esset, inuidiam eius consules ad senatum reicerent: profecto si essent in re
248 roman m. frolov
Mueller believes that the term contiones is used here instead of coetus, the
label employed for the same gatherings in the preceding and subsequent
passages. The ‘vocabulary of legitimate assembly’ is applied ‘by way of
disparaging sarcasm’.44 O’Neill, too, sees in this instance the figure of
sarcasm or irony, though he suggests that under cover of the term contiones
Livy actually meant circuli, in this case referring to small ‘circles’ of men
chatting about politics.45
However, sarcasm does not fit with the overall panic mood of the
passage. What if, instead of ‘disparaging sarcasm’, we detect here
a straightforward likening of plebeian coetus to official contiones, the
resemblance being based on their actual similarity in terms of political
significance and non-decision-making nature? Even if we assumed the
possibility of sarcasm or at least some kind of irony in this passage, Livy’s
most important message would not be that these night-time plebeian
gatherings were actually unauthorised (this is so by definition) but that
they were so dangerous and influenced the res publica to such an extent that
they became commensurable with magisterial contiones and threatened to
become a substitute for the public meeting (publicum concilium) and so
a challenge to the power of the Senate and to the existence of the Republic
itself.46 The use of the word contio in this context immediately signals to
the reader the destructive capabilities of plebeian assemblages uncontrolled
by patrician magistrates.
The idea that Livy compares unauthorised coetus and official contiones
seriously rather than ironically may be confirmed further by another
example of the linked usage of both terms in Livy’s fourth book. Spurius
publica magistratus, nullum futurum fuisse Romae nisi publicum concilium; nunc in mille curias
contionesque dispersam et dissipatam esse rem publicam (‘From that time the trouble grew with
every passing day, not only by open clamours, but also by secession and by secret assemblages,
which was much more destructive . . . Under such circumstances, the plebs, uncertain what kind of
consuls they would be, conducted nocturnal assemblages, some on the Esquiline and others on the
Aventine, in order not to be confused in the Forum by hasty judgements or do everything at random
and accidentally. The consuls considered this dangerous, as it was indeed, and reported the affair to
the Senate. However, it was impossible to discuss it properly, so disorderly was it received, with
shouts from everywhere and with the senators’ indignation, that even though this affair ought to
have been accomplished by consular authority, the consuls brought on the Senate the hostility,
displayed towards themselves. It was certain that if only there were true magistrates in the state, there
would have been no meeting but the public meeting, but now the Republic was scattered and
dissipated into a thousand curias and meetings’).
44
Mueller 2004: 82–3. 45 O’Neill 2001: 100–2, 271–2.
46
Cf. O’Neill 2001: 101–2. Ironically, according to the logic of Livy’s subsequent account, eventually it
was these plebeian assemblages that led to a fundamental change in the constitution – the establish-
ment of the plebeian tribunate. Without mentioning night-time gatherings, it would be completely
unclear why this change had even happened.
Maelius is said to have hosted gatherings of plebeians, at which they
discussed the seizure of power, in his own house.47 Livy refers to these
meetings as both ‘plebeian coetus in a private house’ (coetus plebis in priuata
domo) and ‘domestic contiones’ (contiones domi) within the same chapter.
In my view, this is simply because the gatherings described here had such
significant political ramifications that they seemed perfectly comparable
with magisterial contiones, despite their being reportedly conducted in
a private residence.48 One can hardly imagine a situation less appropriate
for ironic or ambiguous remarks.
Thus, whatever were the organisational or institutional differences
between these domestic contiones/coetus and magisterial public meetings,
there should be the above-mentioned similarities between them, which in
this particular case made Livy use not one of the numerous vague expres-
sions for political gatherings but rather the precise term contio.
Finally, Livy’s account of the Bacchanalian affair of 186 bc is even more
revealing. Though the nocturni coetus of the Bacchanals certainly were not
(yet?) political meetings, they threatened the whole socio-political order.
This is why Livy puts a menacing warning into the consul’s mouth: ‘this
contio legally convened by a consul in the daylight will be confronted by
a night-time contio’.49 In this statement, the reason for the comparison of
Bacchanalian coetus with official contiones is expressed in the clearest way.
To paraphrase Livy’s own words: these coetus might attain such massive
political importance that they would replace legal assemblies. The fact that
they had nothing to do with ‘proper’ meetings at this point is already
obvious for Livy’s readers and should be taken for granted by them.
Consequently, the ‘legitimising vocabulary’ is aimed not at stressing the
meetings’ illegality ironically, nor at differentiating them from official
assemblies, but, on the contrary, is intended to show that nocturni coetus
47
Livy, 4.13.8–10 (440–438 bc): hic Minucius . . . ad senatum defert: tela in domum Maeli conferri,
eumque contiones domi habere, ac non dubia regni consilia esse . . . quae postquam sunt audita, cum
undique primores patrum et prioris anni consules increparent quod eas largitiones coetusque plebis in
priuata domo passi essent fieri, et nouos consules (‘This Minucius . . . reported to the Senate that
weapons were gathered at Maelius’ house, that he convened meetings there, and that there certainly
were consultations about kingship . . . On hearing this the leading senators reproved the consuls of
the previous year, since they allowed distributions and plebeian assemblages in a private house, and
the new consuls’). Cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 12.1–4.
48
This peculiarity was already enough to show their potential ‘wrongness’. However, Orosius uses the
very same phrase, contio domi (perhaps borrowing this peculiar expression from one of the earlier
writers), to describe a domestic meeting called by a public official, the seditious plebeian tribune
Saturninus (Oros. 5.17.6; cf. Flor. 2.4.4). Thus, contio domi serves as a ready pattern for the
description of rebellious preparations made by whomever, officials or private individuals.
49
Livy, 39.16.4: huic diurnae, legitime ab consule uocatae, par nocturna contio esse poterit.
250 roman m. frolov
were so similar to magisterial contiones in terms of their political signifi-
cance and mechanics that they sometimes deserved the same label.
In the Roman narrative tradition, descriptions of two types of political
non-decision-making meetings may be marked out: ‘proper’ and ‘legiti-
mate’ (uerus, legitimus) versus ‘wrong’ and ‘pernicious’ (nefarius, pernicio-
sus, etc.). The boundary between these was largely defined by the biased
appraisal of ancient authors. The point is that among the ‘wrong’ we see
both unauthorised meetings organised by priuati (as in the narrative about
Catiline) and contiones summoned by public officials (as, probably, was the
case of Manilius and, certainly, from Cicero’s point of view, of many other
tribunes). Unofficial gatherings were evaluated negatively (when an author
was interested in doing this) merely perhaps on the pretext that priuati
interfered in politics, assuming the role of independent, active organisers of
political communication in a form at the very least strikingly similar to that
of magisterial contiones. However, even some of the latter could at times be
denounced if a magistrate implemented his power to conduct contiones
without impediment (potestas contionandi) ‘in the wrong way’.50
Terminology is here a tool partly to describe the actual features of political
meetings and partly to evaluate them according to the political aims and
preferences of a given author or his sources.
In a recent article, Flower comments on the use of the phrase ‘by
subdivisions’ (κατὰ μέρος) in Appian’s work, in the passage about
Tiberius Gracchus’ agitation in Rome (B Civ. 1.14.3). According to
Flower, here κατὰ μέρος indicates that Tiberius ‘turned to city divisions,
rather than to individual citizens’. Flower sees neighbourhoods (uici) and
professional associations (collegia) in these divisions and makes interesting
suggestions about how such kinds of ‘local’ political communication might
have been implemented technically.51 This reconstruction seems plausible,
but why do we know so little about such gatherings and sometimes even
have to prove first whether they ever happened? While the traits of such
assemblages (not exactly unofficial but also not conducted by a magistrate
of the people or a plebeian tribune) are certainly visible in the passage
analysed by Flower, in most other similar cases the evidence is less clear.
In my view, this might be a direct result of their mostly restricted or local
importance. Even though taken together such gatherings might signifi-
cantly influence the political life of the Republic, any single meeting of that
kind was not important in terms of describing the overall stream of events
that our sources tend to narrate. However, if one particular gathering on
50 51
Cf. Pina Polo 1989: 43–53. Flower 2013.
the initiative of a priuatus (or, maybe, of a local official) acquired general
political significance for some reason, then ancient authors would report it
simply in order to explain the causes and outcomes of events. This being
the case, it is no wonder that we know almost exclusively about unusually
influential unauthorised meetings and consultations, unique among other
such gatherings. The need to emphasise the uncommon political signifi-
cance of these (as a rule) ‘wrong’ meetings often leads Cicero, Livy and
others to employ terminology usually applied to magisterial assemblies.
chapter 13
Servilia’s Consilium
Rhetoric and Politics in a Family Setting
Harriet Flower
quam orationem cum ingressus essem, Cassius interuenit. ego eadem

illi repetiui.1
Cic. Att. 15.11.1 (SB 389)
The much-anticipated new edition of the fragments of the Roman

Republican orators will undoubtedly yield a reassessment of many topics
in Roman political culture. It has already prompted me to reconsider the
issue of rhetoric within the setting of the family or domestic consilium.
By consilium, I mean a meeting called by an individual (or perhaps in
practice often by a group of related individuals and their close friends) to
talk about a course of action that needed to be decided upon.2 In a pattern
typical of the Latin language, the word consilium can designate both
a meeting designed to gather opinions and the kind of advice given and
received in this setting.3 Traditional examples of issues to be settled might
include a marriage, a divorce, the purchase of a piece of property or a more
overtly political matter of concern to the family group.4 Alternatively,
alleged delinquency, such as misbehaving sons or adulterous women,
may have led to quasi-forensic speeches being delivered before
a punishment was imposed by the family. Conversations within a private
I thank the following for help and suggestions for this chapter: Michael Flower, Richard Marshall, Amy
Russell, Catherine Steel, Henriette van der Blom, the anonymous readers for Cambridge University
Press and the audience at the FRRO conference in London in 2014.
1
‘I was well launched on this speech when Cassius came in. I repeated to him what I had already said.’
2
For general discussion of Roman consilia, see Liebenam RE s.v. consilium, Voss in BNP and especially
Johnston 2008.
3
OLD and TLL for consilium yield the following range of primary meanings: counsel, advice, advisory
body, reason, purpose, plan, stratagem, resolution, will, judgement, prudence.
4
In addition to the material to be studied below, another example of a consilium (or a series of
discussions) involving Servilia would presumably have occurred when Pompey (Plut. Pomp. 44 and
Cat. min. 30.3–5) offered a marriage alliance with Cato in the late 60s bc. The women were eager, but
Cato adamantly refused. This is another interesting family matter that would have had significant
political implications, as Cato’s female relatives could appreciate.
252
Servilia’s Consilium 253
context are obviously not an easy topic to investigate, since we are not
informed in much detail about what was discussed in such settings, let
alone about how opinions were usually presented to the assembled group
of friends and relatives.
Even with regard to the Senate, by far the most influential and the largest
consilium in Rome, we have few detailed descriptions of debates from the
Republican period, hardly any evidence of record-keeping before Caesar
and not many extant published speeches.5 Nevertheless, it stands to reason
that many questions put to the Senate by a magistrate would already have
been discussed in at least one private consilium (which is to say, one called
by this same man), if not several in the case of a controversial issue that
many leading Romans were talking about among themselves. In other
words, part of my interest in the ‘conversations’ that took place in private
settings springs from their relationship with an eventual debate in the
Senate or even with a public speech (contio) before the people, where many
of the same opinions would be presented, after having been discussed and
honed in front of a more intimate and friendly audience.
Striking and unusual glimpses of such private but very political consilia
can be found in two well-known letters of Cicero, written within a period
of about eighteen months after Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 bc. Both
meetings involved the families of Caesar’s assassins, including notably
Servilia, the older half-sister of M. Porcius Cato (who had committed
suicide at Utica in April 46 bc) and mother of Marcus Brutus, a leader in
the plot to kill Caesar. Cicero had not been included by any family
members in the original conspiracy against Caesar, a course of action
that had presumably been discussed and debated by many of the same
people in a series of conversations on different occasions. He was, however,
invited to each of these subsequent meetings and recorded partial descrip-
tions, of the first in a letter to his best friend Atticus and of the second when
he was writing to Brutus himself. Times were trying and decisions were
genuinely hard to make, as the ‘Liberators’ faced a political situation
increasingly dominated by Marcus Antonius (still consul in 44 bc) and
by the young Octavian, Caesar’s legal heir.6 For those of us operating with
hindsight, the looming threat of military defeat, political miscalculation
and the formation of a new triumvirate can seem all too evident.
Nevertheless, I will focus on a few indications of how such a consilium
5
For the Republican Senate, see Lintott 1999b: 65–88; Santangelo 2006; Jehne 2013a; Steel 2014a,
2014b.
6
For politics after the Ides, see Gotter 1996; Osgood 2006; Welch 2012.
254 harriet flower
was organized and how it unfolded from a logistical point of view and,
therefore, how opinions were expressed in this context. So I want to
relegate the political issues to the background, at least for the moment,
however fascinating they continue to be.
The first meeting took place at Antium, a harbour town on the coast of
Latium some sixty kilometres (about thirty-seven miles) from Rome, in
early June 44 bc. Cicero is writing to Atticus, who was himself closer to
Servilia than Cicero was:
Antium ueni ante H. VI. Bruto iucundus noster aduentus. deinde multis
audientibus, Seruilia, Tertulla, Porcia, quaerere quid placeret. aderat etiam
Fauonius. ego, quod eram meditatus in uia, suadere ut uteretur Asiatica
curatione frumenti; nihil esse iam reliqui quod ageremus nisi ut saluus
esse<t>; in eo etiam ipsi rei publicae esse praesidium. quam orationem
cum ingressus essem, Cassius interuenit. ego eadem illa repetiui. hoc loco
fortibus sane oculis Cassius (Martem spirare diceres) se in Siciliam non
iturum. ‘egone ut beneficium accepissem contumeliam?’ ‘quid ergo agis?’
inquam. at ille in Achaiam se iturum. ‘quid tu’ inquam, ‘Brute?’ ‘Romam’
inquit ‘si tibi uidetur.’ ‘mihi uero minime; tuto enim non eris.’ ‘quid? si
possem esse, placeretne?’ ‘atque ut omnino neque nunc neque ex praetura in
prouinciam ires; sed auctor non sum ut te urbi committas.’ dicebam ea quae
tibi profecto in mentem ueniunt cur non esset tuto futurus.
multo inde sermone quaerebantur, atque id quidem Cassius maxime,
amissas occasiones Decimumque grauiter accusabant. <ad> ea negabam
oportere praeterita, adsentiebar tamen. cumque ingressus essem dicere
quid oportuisset, nec uero quicquam noui sed ea quae cottidie omnes, nec
tamen illum locum attingerem, quemquam praeterea oportuisse tangi, sed
senatum uocare, populum ardentem studio uehementius incitare, totam
suscipere rem publicam, exclamat tua familiaris ‘hoc uero neminem
umquam audiui!’ ego <me> repressi. sed et Cassius mihi uidebatur iturus
(etenim Seruilia pollicebatur se curaturam ut illa frumenti curatio de senatus
consulto tolleretur) et noster Brutus cito deiectus est de illo inani sermone
<quo se Romae> uelle esse dixerat. constituit igitur ut ludi absente se fierent
suo nomine. proficisci autem mihi in Asiam uidebatur ab Antio uelle.7 (Cic.
Att. 15.11.1–2 [SB 389]; sent from Antium [?])
7
‘I came to Antium before the sixth hour (noon). Brutus was glad to see me. Then in front of many
listeners, including Servilia, Tertulla, and Porcia, he asked me what my advice to him was. Favonius
too was present. I gave the advice I had prepared on the way, to accept the Asiatic grain commission.
I said his safety was all that concerned us now; he himself was the defence of the Republic. I was well
launched on this speech when Cassius came in. I repeated to him what I had already said, whereupon
Cassius, with a fierce expression on his face (the picture of a warrior) said that he had no intention of
going to Sicily. “Should I have taken an insult as though it was a favour?” “What do you intend to do
then?” I said. He replied that he would go to Greece. “How about you, Brutus?” I said. “To Rome,”
he answered, “if you agree.” “But I don’t agree at all. You will not be safe there.” “Well, supposing
I could be safe, would you approve?” “Of course, and what is more I should be against your leaving
Cicero says that many were present (multis audientibus) in the setting of
a seaside villa. These participants, most of whom are unnamed, included
(at least) three prominent women: Servilia herself, her daughter Junia
Tertia (here called Tertulla, the wife of Cassius) and her niece Porcia
(daughter of Cato, married to Marcus Brutus since the previous year).8
Less than three months after the Ides of March, the question was whether
Brutus and Cassius should leave Italy or stay in Rome to face an increas-
ingly volatile political situation and an openly hostile populus.
The ‘Liberators’ had thought that ordinary people in Rome would be
content to see the tyrant Caesar die; they had miscalculated.
Spontaneous popular reaction of grief and outrage had only been rein-
forced by the theatrical funeral staged for Caesar by Antonius, who had
undertaken the role of chief mourner.9 A grain commission had now been
offered in a senatus consultum as a way to allow Brutus and Cassius to leave
Italy for a while in an official capacity (or to get rid of them, depending on
one’s point of view).10
Cicero has obviously been specifically summoned for this meeting, and
he knows beforehand what the question under discussion is. But the
proceedings already seem well under way when he arrives before the middle
of the day (ueni ante horam sextam), a day that would have had about fifteen
hours of daylight in early June in this area of Italy. Shackleton Bailey thinks
that he probably came from nearby Astura rather than all the way from
for a province either now or after your praetorship. But I do not advise you to risk going to Rome.”
I went on to give reasons, which no doubt occur to you, why he would not be safe.’
‘A lot of talk followed, in which they complained, Cassius especially, about the lost opportunities,
and Decimus [Brutus] came in for severe criticism. To that I said it was no use talking about the past,
but I did agree with what had been said. And when I began to give my views on what should have
been done (nothing original, only what everyone is saying all the time), not however ever mentioning
that someone else [M. Antonius] ought to have been taken care of, only that they should have
summoned the Senate, urged the popular enthusiasm to action with greater vigour, assumed
leadership of the whole state, your girl friend [Servilia] exclaimed, “Well, I never heard anyone say
that before!” I stopped speaking. But it looked to me as though Cassius would go (moreover Servilia
promised to get the grain commission removed from the Senate’s decree), and our friend Brutus was
soon persuaded to drop his empty talk about wanting to be in Rome. He therefore decided that the
games should be held under his name but in his absence. It looked to me as though he was willing to
go to Asia from Antium.’
8
Servilia (RE 101): mother of Marcus Brutus (see Fündling in BNP; Fehrle 1983: 54–8; Osgood 2014:
47–52). Junia Tertia or Tertulla (RE 206): Servilia’s daughter, half-sister of Marcus Brutus, wife of
Cassius. Porcia (RE 28): daughter of Cato, wife of Marcus Brutus. For more detailed discussion of
their family trees, see Geiger 1973 and Harders 2007a, 2007b. Servilia did not approve of her son’s
divorce from his previous wife Claudia Pulchra and marriage to his cousin Porcia (Cic. Att. 13.22.4
(SB 329)). One wonders whether Servilia was invited to the consilium at which this political
realignment was decided upon.
9
For Caesar’s funeral, see Flower 1996: 125–6 with references.
10
Cura annonae: Cic. Att. 15.9.1 (SB 387), 15.10 (SB 388), Appian, B Civ. 3.6, 4.57.
256 harriet flower
Rome.11 His wording perhaps implies that his journey was not short and
had been undertaken for this specific purpose. If Cicero was travelling fast,
he might have been able to arrive before midday after spending only one
night on the way from Rome. In any case, wherever he was coming from,
he took time to prepare his presentation during his ‘journey (in uia)’.12
No summary is given of what he has missed from the remarks made
before his arrival, nor are we told whether someone briefed him about the
conversation before he started to speak. It is unclear whether the many
listeners are each also expecting to speak or to express their opinions in
a simpler way, such as through a show of hands or by acclamation. It is
notable that so few individuals are named and that of these three are
women, who are mentioned without any tone of surprise.13 It seems
ambiguous who asks Cicero to speak, apparently soon after he arrives.
Perhaps it is Brutus, but it could well be Servilia herself or even a more
informal invitation on the part of the assembled group. Cicero’s role may
be that of an ‘invited speaker’ who makes a presentation of his own to the
group rather than a person expecting to participate in the whole discussion
and decision-making process on an equal footing.
Cicero tells us that he has prepared his remarks on the subject while on
his journey (quod eram meditatus in uia), whether simply in his mind or
with the use of notes or of a secretary.14 He calls his presentation a speech
(quam orationem cum ingressus essem). Perhaps unsurprisingly, he has the
facility to repeat what he has just said when Cassius arrives late (ego eadem
illa repetiui). This exercise does not seem to inconvenience him but may
be addressed to Cassius separately rather than to the whole group;
apparently he has been invited to start again from the beginning. There
follows a lively and vividly described debate between Cicero and his
friends, Brutus and Cassius. Other ‘speeches’ seem to follow, most
notably one made by Cassius (maxime). However, the speakers now
11
Shackleton Bailey ad loc. Cicero had sold his own house at Antium by this time. See Cic. Att. 15.12
(SB 390) for a reference to Astura.
12
Obviously, the tone is somewhat different if he came from Astura (c. seventeen kilometres) or from
Rome (c. sixty kilometres). See the Stanford ORBIS project (Scheidel and Meeks 2012) for travel
times within the Roman Empire, which suggests thirty-six kilometres a day as reasonable for ‘routine
private vehicular travel with convenient rest stops’ and fifty kilometres a day for ‘accelerated private
vehicular traffic’. By comparison, Cic. Rosc. Am. 19 records a fast journey for a single rider of fifty-six
Roman miles (c. eighty-three kilometres) in about ten hours. Is Cicero suggesting to his friend
Atticus that he spent a long time preparing or that he only needed a relatively short time to pull his
‘speech’ together?
13
For the influence of women at the time, see now Brennan 2012 and especially Osgood 2014.
14
Pliny the Elder is described as making constant use of a secretary, including while he was travelling
(Plin. Ep. 3.5, cf. 9.36).
seem to range across a variety of topics, especially various criticisms of
past actions and of persons not present (Decimus Brutus), rather than
sticking to the question that is apparently the real object of the
discussion.15 Nevertheless, it may be that each speaker did (at least)
start by addressing the question as posed to the assembled friends, before
taking the opportunity to insert his own thoughts about the political
situation and how they had come to this point.
Then Cicero speaks again (cumque ingressus essem dicere quid oportuisset),
or perhaps we should see this section as a continuation of his previous
remarks after an interruption. He gives only a very compact summary in
indirect speech. Although Cicero represents himself as advising the audi-
ence not to dwell on the past (negabam oportere praeterita), he then seems
himself to have gone on to talk about all the opportunities the ‘Liberators’
had missed after the Ides of March. This part of the letter seems to allude
again to a formal presentation that is also ‘prepared’ and at some length.
It is this second rhetorical exercise that is suddenly interrupted by Servilia
herself (exclamat tua familiaris), although it remains unclear how much
more Cicero might have gone on to say if she had not intervened. It is hard
to be sure exactly what she objected to in Cicero’s speech; perhaps it was his
whole advice that they should effectively have staged a coup immediately
after Caesar’s death.
He quotes her as saying: hoc uero neminem umquam audiui! (‘well,
I never heard anyone say that before!’ – rather than Shackleton Bailey’s
‘well, upon my word! I never heard the like!’). The stress is obviously on hoc
as the first word in the sentence but also distinctly on nobody (neminem).
In this very Roman context, Servilia deftly isolates Cicero, who is unchar-
acteristically defensive in his description of this part of the conversation, at
least as addressed to Atticus. She says: ‘truly I heard no person say this
before’. Within a culture that stressed influence, particularly in the form of
personal authority and a rhetorical skill that naturally created consensus,
these words were especially pointed.16 We may imagine that Servilia is
being quite rude in what she says, as well as in how and when she says it.
In fact, Cicero seems then to decide not to say more. He writes: ego repressi.
The me is an editorial addition here, but it seems likely given the tone.
The alternative scenario, which would have Cicero in turn now interrupt
Servilia, does not seem to fit in with the logic of what happens next in the
exchange of ideas.
15
Strauss 2015 ascribes a significant role in the murder of Caesar to Decimus Brutus (RE 55a).
16
For consensus in Roman politics, see Flower 2014.
258 harriet flower
Others, including again Cassius, now speak. Servilia herself has some-
thing to say and confidently promises to have the grain commission
removed from the senatus consultum (obviously through indirect influence,
since she is not a senator herself!). It is not clear that she managed to achieve
this.17 Nevertheless, Cicero mentions her undertaking as if there were
nothing at all surprising or unusual about it. Similarly, she is listed as
a speaker on the same level as the others. It would obviously be interesting
to know whether she also gave a prepared speech. Brutus is persuaded
(presumably mainly by others rather than by Cicero?) to give up the risky
idea of returning to Rome. Servilia’s intervention has obviously attracted
much scholarly interest; it may provide further indication that this was
indeed ‘her’ consilium. There is plenty of evidence in Cicero’s correspon-
dence for her representation of Brutus’ and Cassius’ interests while they
were abroad.
Ultimately, and rather frustratingly for us, however, the letter to Atticus
only really describes Cicero’s role in any detail, although we may imagine
a debate that went on for much of that long summer day, presumably
punctuated by planned breaks and by unanticipated interruptions for
arrivals and departures, perhaps also by orchestrated opportunities for
private conversation between speeches, and by various meals. Questions
of overall timing (essentially unanswerable) are inevitably raised by any
consideration of the format at Antium. How long was Cicero’s speech?
How long was the entire consilium supposed to take? Was a whole day the
usual time frame or a response to a crisis? Cicero’s aim in writing is to give
a personal account to his best friend of what he himself said and how he
fared. We only catch glimpses, or rather overhear brief snippets, of the
heated arguments that were interspersed with more formal speeches, pre-
sented in form and content not completely unlike ones in the Senate (or
even in more public venues).
Overall, however, Cicero is scathing in his verdict on the whole
proceedings. A few sentences later, he even exclaims, ‘no plan, no
logic, no order’ (nihil consilio, nihil ratione, nihil ordine). Shackleton
Bailey translates this as ‘no plan, no thought, no method’. This can
easily be interpreted as a comment on the outcome but should perhaps
be taken as equally, if not more, applicable to the procedure in itself.
In fact, Brutus did not run the risk of returning to Rome, although
17
See Cic. Att. 16.4.4 (SB 411) with Welch 2012: 134 and Osgood 2014: 179, n. 33. Gotter 1996: 71, n. 8,
thinks that Brutus wanted to go abroad anyway and that Servilia was looking for a more honourable
way of achieving this goal than what had been offered so far. In other words, he sees the most
pressing decision as already having been made before the consilium was called.
perhaps not for the very reasons that Cicero had advanced. Obviously,
Cicero is generally apprehensive of the political situation, and with good
reason. But he is also unhappy about the whole tenor of the conversation
and about the reception of his carefully crafted advice, spoken from his
position as a senior consular. He is disappointed that his speech was not
better received by this audience, presumably for a variety of intercon-
nected reasons that were related to his personal standing, his careful
preparation, his expert delivery, as well as the actual content of his
remarks.
The second occasion Cicero writes about is a consilium definitely called
by Servilia herself in Rome, so presumably at her town house, a little over
a year later, on 25 July 43 bc:
rogatus sum a prudentissima et diligentissima femina, matre tua, cuius
omnes curae ad te referuntur et in te consumuntur, ut uenire ad se a. d.
VIII Kal. Sext.; quod ego, ut debui, sine mora feci. cum autem uenissem,
Casca aderat et Labeo et Scaptius. at illa rettulit quaesiuitque quidnam mihi
uideretur, accerseremusne te atque id tibi conducere putaremus an tardare et
commorari te melius esset. respondi id quod sentiebam, et dignitati et
existimationi tuae maxime conducere te primo quoque tempore ferre prae-
sidium labenti et inclinatae paene rei publicae.18 (Cic. Ad Brut. 1.18 [SB 24];
sent from Rome to M. Brutus in Greece, 27 July 43 bc)
The group appears much smaller (only three men are named), and Cicero
again seems to arrive when proceedings were already underway.19
The question is whether Brutus should return to Italy bringing his army
with him: an invasion is at issue.20 Memories of Sulla seem inevitable,
albeit unexpressed, and treason hangs heavily in the air. The atmosphere is
tense; every course of action is fraught with danger. The meeting is
described in much less detail and in a very different tone, since Cicero is
writing to Brutus himself rather than to a third party. Cicero’s friendship
18
‘That very prudent and careful woman your mother, whose every care begins and ends with you,
asked me to visit her on the eighth day before the kalends of Sextilis (25 July). I did so without delay,
as I was obliged to do. But when I had arrived, Casca, Labeo and Scaptius were already there. Your
mother put the question and asked: What did I think? Should we send for you, and did we consider
this to be in your best interests, or was it better that you should take your time and hold back?
In reply, I gave my considered opinion, that it was in the highest degree advantageous to your
personal prestige and reputation that you should come to the aid of our tottering and almost
collapsing Republic at the earliest possible moment.’
19
P. Servilius Casca Longus (RE 53) had been the first to strike Caesar on the Ides of March. Q. (or
Pacuvius) Antistius Labeo (RE 35), father of the Augustan jurist, chose not to survive Brutus. For
Brutus’ agent and business associate M. Scaptius, see Andreau 1999: 15 and 17.
20
See Welch 2012 for a general discussion of various possible plans to isolate or invade Italy in the years
after Caesar’s death.
260 harriet flower
with Brutus is also not of the same kind as his relationship with Atticus, to
whom he wrote more frankly than to any of his other correspondents.
In this case Servilia is described as putting the question more formally (at
illa rettulit quaesiuitque quidnam mihi uideretur): is it better to call Brutus
home or to tell him to wait (accerseremusne te atque id tibi conducere
putaremus an tardare et commorari te melius esset)? Cicero gives
a summary of his advice in indirect speech in a single compressed sentence:
respondi id quod sentiebam, et dignitati et existimationi tuae maxime con-
ducere te primo quoque tempore ferre praesidium labenti et inclinatae rei
publicae. In light of the previous letter and of the seriousness of the subject
under discussion, it is reasonable to imagine Cicero gave this advice also in
a formal speech, this time apparently without being interrupted before he
finished what he had to say. The setting in town and the very dangerous,
not to say treasonous, proposals under discussion may have contributed to
the more subdued and formal tone. No other speakers or points of view are
described.
It is interesting to see Cicero included again, despite the fact that his
viewpoint had obviously not met with Servilia’s approval on that previous
occasion. A year later, his participation is apparently deemed integral to
this intimate inner circle of Brutus’ relatives and friends, but he again failed
to convince. Yet each consilium inevitably recalls the fact that Cicero was
not consulted before the Ides and was apparently taken unawares by
Caesar’s murder, which he did not himself witness. Previously, Cicero
had been close with the family and had written in praise of Cato after his
suicide at Utica (at Brutus’ request) and had also composed a funeral
eulogy (laudatio) for Porcia (Cato’s sister, wife of L. Domitius
Ahenobarbus), who had died late in 46 or early in 45 bc.21 But then we
may imagine that Servilia herself, a (former?) lover of Caesar, would most
probably not have been a party to the conspiracy of her son, whose life
Caesar had apparently taken care to save after the battle of Pharsalus,
specifically at her request.22
On the one hand, both letters focus rather precisely on Cicero’s own
role and reflect his very focused and specific priorities, with the result
that they offer only a partial picture with a distinct perspective. On the
21
For Cicero’s Cato, see Cic. Orat. 35 and Att. 12.21.1 (SB 260) with Fehrle 1983: 322–4 for all the
testimonia and fragments; Brutus also wrote a eulogy of his own. For Cicero’s laudatio for Porcia (RE
27), see Att. 13.37.3 (SB 346), 13.48.2 (SB 345).
22
Caesar twice intervened on behalf of Brutus: Cic. Att. 2.24.3 (SB 44) and Plut. Brut. 5.1. For Caesar’s
famous affair with Servilia, see Suet. Iul. 50.2; Plut. Brut. 5.2–4; Cat. min. 24.1–2. Plut. Brut. 13 has
Brutus’ wife Porcia involved in the plans for Caesar’s murder.
other hand, his accounts are close to the events and not shaped by the
literary concerns of historiography or by the powerful bias of hindsight.
Meanwhile, neither letter shows obvious signs of being written with
a broader public in mind. The letter to Brutus, however, may be
written in the way that it is in order to avoid spelling things out in
too much detail, in case it should be intercepted in transit. In light of
my present concerns, two aspects of the descriptions of these consilia
seem to be of particular interest, namely, the careful preparation of
speeches and a seemingly standardized procedure governed by rules for
debate and deliberation.
Although relatively less attention has been paid to the format of these
consilia (as opposed to their very political content), they do seem to have
featured (at least some) ‘speeches’ that were prepared in advance by the
principal participants and their invited guests. Cicero’s casual references
suggest that this was very much to be expected in both instances. To sum
up: Cicero represents himself (quite unselfconsciously) as preparing some-
thing he calls an oratio on his journey to Antium. In his first letter, he
summarizes each part of his speech into three main points, in a traditional
rhetorical pattern. He has naturally, therefore, been informed in advance of
the question(s) under consideration as part of the invitation. We may
imagine that his views were probably not much of a surprise to his friends.
In fact, he describes the second part of his speech at Antium as a summary
of opinions that were commonly held and much discussed in Rome at the
time. Consequently, it seems that he has, in fact, been invited precisely to
represent these well-known views in front of this audience here (and, if he
had come directly from Rome, perhaps also to report on the latest news
from the city). It would obviously be interesting to know how specific the
wording of that invitation had been. Were the themes of his speech
suggested to him? Has he been given an assignment? Is his dismay at
Servilia’s interruption based precisely on the fact that he had been invited
to represent these views?
With this situation in mind, we may imagine that a significant part of his
preparation was probably rhetorical. He had to decide which arguments to
use and how to arrange the material with this rather particular audience in
mind. Despite being subject to interruptions, requests for repetition, cross-
examination, as well as distractions when other topics were introduced by
a variety of speakers, Cicero (claims that he) managed to deliver
a significant speech, in two separate parts, before himself deciding to say
no more when he was sharply called to order by Servilia. Her position of
authority may well derive from the fact that she is the person who has
262 harriet flower
invited the participants (which would make it in some sense her consilium)
or from her seniority within the assembled family group or simply from the
force of her personality. It is unclear whether each speaker sought permis-
sion to speak from a ‘presider’, who moderated the debate.
On the other hand, the many related people present may also have made
the meeting at Antium more of a family consilium, in as much as plans for
both Brutus and Cassius were under discussion. Cassius also seems to speak
at some length, although mainly about past events rather than on the same
topic as Cicero. Unfortunately, we cannot say how many other people
spoke, over what period of time, or how many gave what could properly be
called speeches. Cicero’s aim in the letter is to tell Atticus about his own
role in the consilium rather than giving a general description of the
proceedings. It would indeed be quite characteristic of him simply to
omit particularly telling points of argument made by other speakers against
the case as he had presented it.
Very similar considerations apply to the subsequent meeting in Rome.
Cicero is invited and represents a certain point of view, which he sum-
marizes much more briefly for Brutus. Again, he seems to suggest that the
actual content of his remarks is no surprise, either to his audience in Rome
or to the recipient of this letter. This time there was no interruption,
although he was proposing a much more radical course of action, nothing
less than the invasion of Italy with an army led by Brutus, which he
summarizes in a distinctly euphemistic way in his letter. It is suggestive
that he sends Brutus his advice contained in a description of Servilia’s
consilium in Rome rather than simply stating his view directly. The context
of the consilium gives the advice a particular cultural setting and traditional
tone. Inevitably, and somewhat ironically, his words recall the several
descriptions and very negative characterizations of Catiline’s secret and
subversive meetings with his followers, where treason was allegedly
planned almost twenty years earlier.23 Now we read Cicero describing his
participation in two consilia that discussed various strategies for seizing
power in Rome.
Scholars have also tended to describe these proceedings as ‘parliamen-
tary’ in structure and tone, which has only added to the surprise they have
expressed not only about this whole way of doing business but particularly,
therefore, about the presence of the women and the prominent role of
Servilia herself. Münzer very much admired Servilia and her actions as
23
See Cic. Cat. 1.6 and 8–9. Sall. Cat. 20 has Catiline give a speech in a consilium (cf. 27.4). See also
Chapter 12.
presider (Vorsitz) at what he already called a ‘party conference’
(Parteitag).24 However, Syme was less enthusiastic. He says: ‘At a party
conference in the summer of 44, Servilia, arrogating precedence before
a consular, assumed the role of chairman and undertook to have a decree of
the Senate modified in the interest of Brutus and Cassius.’25 He then goes
on in the next sentence: ‘From that it was a short step when the energetic
Fulvia took action on behalf of Marcus Antonius and stirred up a civil war
in Italy.’ Yet, we may note that Servilia does not seem to have encouraged
either political assassination or civil war but to have been working for
reconciliation among various factions and a more stable political future,
although she obviously failed in her objectives.26
If we move beyond considerations of women crossing gender bound-
aries, however, we can ask more basic questions about procedure and how
we should understand what is going on at these discussions. Is Servilia
‘imitating’ a range of senatorial procedures she has never herself experi-
enced? If so, then why is Cicero not more surprised? Is she ‘taking
precedence’, even in the context of a free-ranging conversation in
a country house by the sea?
It could, of course, be argued that Cicero’s language, recalling the way
business was conducted in the Senate in Rome, is largely metaphorical and
has been taken too literally – simply at face value – by modern readers.
If we assume, however, that his description is careful and accurate
(as Münzer specifically suggested it was in the letter to Brutus), then
a logical conclusion would be that such a procedure was usual and expected
in the context of a family consilium of the nobiles. Why should the Senate,
the grand consilium in Rome, necessarily be either the source of, or the only
proper setting for, such procedural habits, as opposed to the equally
traditional and ancient family consilium, especially in the circle of the
patrician Servilii?
Such a consilium, therefore, apparently provided the setting for
a typically Roman culture of debate, which included at least some invited
and prepared speeches delivered by distinguished advisers and friends.
Opposing points of view appear to be deliberately solicited and given
a hearing (at least up to a point). Issues were identified and alternatives
explored in speeches especially prepared for the occasion and delivered at
24
Münzer RE s.v. ‘Servilia’ and Münzer 1920: 336–75. For Münzer, Servilia is a vivid and inspiring
figure.
25
Syme 1986: 198–9.
26
Her lack of success in the 40s bc and the previous premature deaths of her father, brother and first
husband are all especially stressed by Fündling in BNP.
264 harriet flower
length. Presumably, therefore, speeches later delivered in front of the
Senate, or in a law court, or at a contio might have had their initial origins
in remarks first prepared for presentation in a consilium. Equally, a leading
orator like Cicero would frequently himself have prepared or solicited
speeches for a consilium, whether his own or, as seen here, someone
else’s. Inevitably, it remains unclear to what extent these speeches com-
posed for private audiences already existed in written form; Cicero does not
offer to send his correspondents a draft of his remarks, but that is hardly
surprising in the dangerous political climate after Caesar’s assassination.
part iv
Memory and Reputation
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chapter 14
Like Father, Like Son?

The Dynamics of Family Exemplarity and Ideology
in (Fragmentary) Republican Oratory
Evan Jewell
Ideology in the Late Republic has most recently been characterised as ‘a

particular set of linguistic symbols’ as opposed to something ‘derived from
the values and beliefs of political agents’.1 In either estimation, oratorical
discourse could and did function as an ideologically laden way of
speaking.2 The exemplum drawn from memoria is one such ‘linguistic
symbol’ and is one that has received particular attention in recent
scholarship.3 It is evident from the catalogues of populares transmitted by
Cicero, Sallust and others that to invoke a lineage of past populares was to
place oneself in such a tradition and adopt a mode of popularis ideological
discourse, one available to orators in the contio and elsewhere.4 These
exempla, however, were often only unified by their status as murdered
tribunes: passing into the realm of memoria, they became bound together
by the ideological discourse that they themselves had deployed while alive.5
In another corner of the storehouse of memory, we find exempla that
appear to have no ideological content whatsoever: family exempla. Inherent
to the centrality of the mos maiorum and the necessity of maintaining the
cultural capital of one’s gens, the invocation of family exempla was parti-
cularly common in forensic contexts, where contrast and comparison
This chapter is dedicated to the erudite and inspiring Tom Hillard and Lea Beness, to whom I am ever
thankful for their time, teaching, mentorship and expert critique. I also thank James Tan, who
commented on an early draft; the conference attendees for their feedback; and the anonymous readers
for their critiques and suggestions. Finally, I am particularly grateful to Catherine Steel, Henriette van
der Blom, Christa Gray and Richard Marshall for their critiques of this chapter and seeing it through to
the present form. All errors or infelicities of argument remain, of course, my own.
1
Arena 2012: 7. Cf. Morstein-Marx 2004: 30.
2
Following Morstein-Marx 2004: 15, n. 64, I understand ‘discourse’ in the sense used by contempor-
ary social and political criticism and not in the sense advocated by Habermas.
3
See Bücher 2006; van der Blom 2010.
4
Seager 1972b; Martin 2000; Bücher 2006: 281–96; van der Blom 2010: 164–5.
5
See Martin 2000 and Wiseman 2009: 10 on the popularis martyrology.
267
268 evan jewell
could be drawn between a present individual and his or her family lineage.6
Family exemplarity could serve the immediate argumentative aims of
discrediting or admonishing an opponent’s character, as we see in
Cicero’s Claudian exempla in the Pro Caelio (33–34) or the jabs at Servius
Sulpicius Rufus’ ailing family fortunes in the Pro Murena (16).7 Indeed, in
Latin historiography and Roman cultural thought more broadly,
Richardson has demonstrated the ‘Roman tendency to believe that mem-
bers of the same gens behave in the same way and consequently do similar
things’ and that descendants should follow the exemplum of an ancestor.8
This tendency in Roman thought becomes particularly potent when
examined in the ideological discourse of Republican oratory, where we
can track its valency for an orator’s strategy if one or several members of his
opponent’s ancestors happened to be ideologically charged exempla or had
the potential to be articulated as such. And unlike historical exempla and
the general invocation of the mos maiorum, when bloodlines became mixed
into ideological discourse, the exemplum carried weight not only at the level
of the community but became an index of the relationship between an
individual and his or her family’s maiores. Thus, the political contexts that
allowed an orator to invoke a family exemplum in an ideological contest –
beyond the domain of localised character-building or invective – can
elucidate one particular intersection of ideology and memoria in Late
Republican oratory, whereby family exempla could become ideological
exempla at one and the same time. And so while family exempla would
seem to be personal and devoid of ideological content, this chapter will
demonstrate that this was not always the case.
Three gentes – the Lutatii Catuli, Livii Drusi and Junii Bruti – offer us
potent examples where the ideological behaviour of someone’s maiores
became central to oratorical strategy. The former two gentes will fore-
ground the potency of deploying ideological family exempla, whereas
a potential oratorical fragment from the Rhetorica ad Herennium, invoking
the famous liberator of the res publica, Lucius Junius Brutus, will be re-
articulated within the wider development of his exemplarity by the Junii
Bruti in the Late Republic, allowing us to grasp the ideological longevity of
a family exemplum. In focusing upon these three families, whose interac-
tion with ideological discourse happens to be attested in both Ciceronian
and non-Ciceronian fragments and testimonia, this chapter also provides
opportunities to recalibrate the Ciceronian spectacles that often colour our
6
For recent literature, see Hölkeskamp 2010: 67, n. 47.
7 8
On family exempla, see van der Blom 2010: 87–103, 316–21. Richardson 2012: 11.
Like Father, Like Son? 269
understanding of ideology and oratory and so observe the ideological
discourse of exempla in a more holistic hue.
Catulan Connections
After the elder Quintus Lutatius Catulus sided with Sulla against his
consular colleague, Gaius Marius, the gens Lutatia garnered a reputation
as a bastion of conservative political activity in the Late Republic.
The son carried on the father’s conservatism, and both men came to be
ideological exempla deployed by Cicero in his struggle against Clodius.
Before this, however, other ideological family connections of the younger
Q. Lutatius Catulus (cos. 78 bc) came into play when he became the
object of a friendly dressing-down in a fragment of Cicero’s Pro Cornelio
in 65 BC, having appeared as a witness for the prosecution. The trial saw
Cicero defend Gaius Cornelius, charged with ignoring the veto of
a tribunician colleague.9 Cornelius’ tribunate appears to have been per-
ceived as popularis in nature, or at least Cicero presents it as such, citing
the fact that ‘this was already the custom [mos] in the time of those
ancient and bearded men: to prosecute populares’.10 This is borne out by
the way Cicero deftly deploys a family exemplum against Catulus to
neutralise criticism of the popularis character of Cornelius’ tribunate,
pointing out that one of Catulus’ most distinguished relatives, Cn.
Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. 96 bc), was well known for his popularis
tribunate in 104 bc11:
sed si familiariter ex Q. Catulo sapientissimo uiro atque humanissimo uelim
quaerere: utrius tandem tibi tribunatus minus probari potest, C. Corneli,
an – non dicam P. Sulpici, non L. Saturnini, non Gai Gracchi, non Tiberi,
neminem quem isti seditiosum existimant nominabo, sed auunculi tui,
Q. Catule, clarissimi <patri>aeque amantissimi uiri? qui<d> mihi tandem
responsurum putatis?12 (Cic. Corn. 2 F5 Crawford)
9
On the trial, see Griffin 1973, with Crawford 1994: 67–72.
10
Cic. Corn. 2 F4: hic mos iam apud illos antiquos et barbatos fuit, ut persequerentur populares.
11
On Domitius’ tribunate, see Tatum 1999: 13–4, who inclines towards a cynical reading of Domitius’
popularis motives: ‘one is hard pressed to detect anything but aristocratic pique underlying his
legislation’ (13). All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.
12
‘But if I wanted to ask, in a friendly way, that most wise and humane man, Quintus Catulus: “Of the
two, which tribunate do you approve of less, Gaius Cornelius’, or – I shall not speak of Publius
Sulpicius’, nor Lucius Saturninus’, nor Gaius Gracchus’, nor Tiberius’: I shall name no man whom
those men reckon to be the seditious type, but that of your uncle, Quintus Catulus, a most
outstanding and patriotic man?” Now what do you suppose his answer would be to me?’
270 evan jewell
Cicero proposes to compare Cornelius’ tribunate to others, striking
through a list of seditious populares in a series of negatives, only to arrive
at the adversative sed and the delayed reveal: ‘your uncle’, he declares to
Catulus. Domitius’ nomina do not appear in the extant fragments of the
speech,13 such that the term auunculus stresses the specific family connec-
tion between Catulus and Domitius, while muting the lack of homonym-
ity between their nomina gentilicia and the potential disconnect which that
might imply – and so allowing Cicero to hold Catulus accountable to more
than one set of ideological family exempla. Finally, by contrasting
Domitius, painted in superlatives, against a catalogue of other so-called
seditious tribunes, Cicero politely forces Catulus between a rock (that is, an
illustrious family member who bucked the popularis martyr trend and went
on to become consul and censor) and a hard place (that is, a family member
with a questionable tribunician history). As Crawford aptly put it, ‘what
Cicero wants the jurors to consider is how Catulus could oppose a man
such as Cornelius, when his own uncle was cut from the same cloth’.14 For
Cicero, then, the ambiguity of an ideological family exemplum afforded
him an opportunity to corner a witness with the ties of family and to offer
the target much less room to rebuff the ideological applicability of the
exemplum.
Exempla, however, were always tailored to an oratorical and political
context, and as such, Domitius was just as easily invoked by Cicero against
a suspected popularis tribune of 63 bc, P. Servilius Rullus. Now Cicero
played up to his oratorical and ideological advantage the disconnection
between the two families and their claims to nobilitas, asking a contional
audience: ‘see the difference between Cn. Domitius, tribune of the plebs,
a most noble man [hominem nobilissimum], and P. Rullus, who, as I think,
tested your patience, when he said that he was noble [nobilem]’.15
Nearly a decade after the Pro Cornelio, Cicero chose to appeal to the
conservative, better known side of Catulus’ ideological blood, this time
invoking his father in the De domo sua.16 Father and son were enlisted
posthumously (Catulus iunior died in 61 bc) as conservative stalwarts in the
fight against Clodius. Here the apostrophe – ‘O Quintus Catulus! Shall
I call upon the father first or the son?’ (O Q. Catule! Patremne appellem ante
13
Cf. Cic. Corn. 2 F6, auunculus tuus clarissimus uir. 14 Crawford 1994: 141.
15
Cic. Agr. 2.19: uidete, quid intersit inter Cn. Domitium, tribunum plebis, hominem nobilissimum, et
P. Rullum, qui temptauit, ut opinor, patientiam uestram, cum se nobilem esse diceret. The agreement of
the MSS should be accepted here, despite Zielinski 1904: 788. Rullus clearly referred to his nobilitas
in his earlier contio, perhaps in contradistinction to Cicero’s nouitas. See Syme 1964: 410.
16
Cic. Dom. 113–14.
an filium?) – exploits homonymity to suggest their ideological parity.17
Cicero could conveniently invoke two exempla at once and then address
the ideological connection of each man to himself in turn, beginning
with the words of the younger Catulus, whose ‘memoria is more recent’
(recentior . . . memoria), while Clodius’ purported destruction of the
elder Catulus’ monumentum, the Porticus Catuli, is connected to that of
Cicero’s own home.18 This technique of stressing the ideological traits
of family exempla through homonymous apostrophe is by no means
unique to Cicero: an antecedent, if not a model, for Cicero comes from
an orator he heard as an adulescens and leads us to the family tree of the
Livii Drusi.
A Father’s Words, a Son’s Actions: The Livii Drusi

The year is 90 bc, the Social War is raging, and C. Papirius Carbo Arvina is
one of three tribunes said to deliver contiones daily on the Rostra.19 Just as
Cicero exploited the homonymity of father and son, so too did Carbo, but
for radically different ideological purposes:
O Marce Druse, patrem appello: tu dicere solebas sacram esse rem pub-
licam: quicumque eam uiolauissent, ab omnibus esse ei poenas persolutas.
patris dictum sapiens temeritas filii comprobauit.20 (Papirius Carbo ORF4
87 F4 [= Cic. Orat. 213])
Cicero cites this example in the context of his Orator to demonstrate the
powerful effect that prose rhythm can have upon an audience; for as an
eyewitness to the contio, he noted the tantus clamor (‘great applause’) that
arose in the crowd upon hearing the ditrochee.21 As Morstein-Marx has
made clear, the apostrophe exploits a ‘clap trap’, so that we move from the
attention-grabbing address to a dead man ‘at first to the recently murdered,
highly controversial tribune of 91 bc, but as patrem then makes clear,
actually to his father, the rival [and tribunician colleague] of Gaius
Gracchus in 122 bc’ and, ultimately, the consul of 112 bc.22 Beyond the
rhetorical device, however, there are several other reasons why this ‘clap
17
Cic. Dom. 113.
18
Cic. Dom. 114. On this speech and the destruction of Catulus’ monumentum, see Tatum 1999: 163–6;
Roller 2010: 161–3.
19
Cic. Brut. 305.
20
‘O Marcus Drusus – the father – I call upon you! You were accustomed to say that the Republic was
sacrosanct: whoever had desecrated it, the penalties for it were paid by all. The recklessness of the
son has proven the wise saying of the father.’
21
Cic. Orat. 214. 22 Morstein-Marx 2004: 139.
272 evan jewell
trap’ was so effective, not the least of which must have been the political
background to the utterance.
At the beginning of the younger Drusus’ political life, the two Livii
Drusi were, like the two Lutatii Catuli, perceived as a harmonious, homon-
ymous duo. An anecdote in the fragmentary Diodorus Siculus closely
associates the two men in positive ideological terms as exceptional politi-
cians (πλὴν δυεῖν Δρούσων), owing both to their family’s nobility
(εὐγένεια) and their fairness (ἐπιείκεια) and humanity (φιλανθρωπία)
towards their fellow citizens.23 While one fragment does not necessarily
decode the other, the implication that father and son may have already
been strongly associated in a positive political context prior to the elder
Drusus’ death in 109 bc only heightens the dissonance of Carbo’s
apostrophe.
Yet, this positive connection between the two Drusi quickly became
sullied, if not entirely severed: first by the younger’s programme of reform
in 91 bc and then with his violent death, which ushered him into a tradition
of popularis exemplarity.24 Accordingly, in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, the
younger Drusus is just one among several men in a popularis catalogue of
martyred tribunes, from Tiberius Gracchus to Sulpicius Rufus. It seems that
with the conclusion of the Social War, Drusus’ death was re-appropriated
for the purposes of popularis speech, so in this work, as in Carbo’s contio, he
is addressed with an apostrophe: ‘O Drusus, your blood stained your house-
hold walls and the face of your parent’.25 The distinctive image suggests
a particular tradition of defining Drusus’ death in relation to his family,
unlike the other tribunes in the catalogue, who appear to be presented
wholly in relation to the res publica.26
The familial line exploited by Carbo’s ‘clap trap’, which expresses out-
right hostility towards the dead Drusus minor and pays simultaneous lip
service to his father, was evidently an effective strategy, whose affective
results we can read in the contional audience’s reaction. We may look
behind the ‘delightful’ prose rhythm of the apostrophe and suppose that
the contional crowd’s clamor arose as much from their heated agreement
with Carbo’s assessment of the younger Drusus and his temeritas as from
the metrical sensibilities of the clausula. We can certainly assume that
Drusus’ push for Italian enfranchisement was not appreciated by the
23
Diod. Sic. 37.10.2. 24 Cf. Rhet. Her. 4.46; Sen. Marc. 16.4; Flor. 2.5.6.
25
Rhet. Her. 4.31: tuus, O Druse, sanguis domesticos parietes et uultum parentis aspersit.
26
Haug 1947: 113 interprets the uultus parentis as one of the imagines in the house of Drusus, but a more
horrific possibility is the living face of his mother Cornelia (likely still alive at the time of his
death: Münzer 1920: 403–4).
contional crowd, particularly now that they found themselves caught up in
the midst of a traumatic war not of their own making. That Drusus the
elder was known for his tribunician veto of C. Gracchus’ earlier attempt to
enfranchise the Latins in 122 bc presented the sticking point of ideological
contrast between his tribunate and that of his son.27 For if we turn back to
Carbo’s apostrophe, we have a testimonium within the fragment that pits
the father’s words against the son. As Rawson suggested, in summoning up
the elder Drusus, Carbo was perhaps referring to a speech – tu dicere solebas
(‘as you were accustomed to say’) – of Drusus the elder’s as tribune in
122 bc, when he had opposed C. Gracchus. In this setting, Drusus pater,
ostensibly alluding to the oath first taken by the plebeians on the Mons
Sacer that had enshrined the tribune as sacer, may well have famously
claimed that the res publica was sacra, no doubt to undercut Gracchus’
claims to tribunician sacrosanctity.28 In 90 bc, however, tribunician sacro-
sanctity and Drusus’ mysterious death were clearly not the immediate
issues at stake; the main threat to the res publica was the war with the
Italians and the potential implications of defeat for Rome. Accordingly,
Carbo took the whip to the younger Drusus’ temeritas by contrasting the
father’s words with the son’s actions.
From this vantage point, Carbo’s apostrophe appropriated the ideolo-
gical dictum of the elder Drusus to suggest not only that the younger
Drusus’ death was self-inflicted but that it now threatened the res publica,
while the penalties (poenae) for Drusus’ tribunate are effectively being paid
by all those present at the contio. The elder Drusus had ensured that the
citizen body of the res publica remained ‘sacrosanct’, while the younger
Drusus’ revival of Gracchus’ reform had only ensured its desecration.
We might even imagine Carbo delivering this oration in support of
Q. Varius Hybrida’s lex Varia de maiestate, which set up a court aimed at
prosecuting Italian sympathisers.29 By rearticulating Carbo’s apostrophe
and the family exempla it deployed within its intricately layered political
contexts, we gain an understanding of how a family exemplum could be
invoked to great effect outside the courtroom and applied not to a living
27
See MRR I: 517 for sources, with Millar 1986: 5.
28
Rawson 1974: 195. Cf. Steel 2010 on tribunician sacrosanctity and performativity before contional
audiences in the 60s bc. See also Cic. Fam. 9.23.3 (SB 198), in which Cicero singles out our Carbo
(praeter hunc C. Carbonem) as an exception among his notorious relatives; this may further indicate
the ideological position of Carbo in 90 bc.
29
On this lex, see Gruen 1965; Seager 1967; Badian 1969; Dart 2014: 104–6. I am thankful to Lea Beness
for allowing me to see her (forthcoming) work on the tribunate, in which she suggests this as
a possible context, thanks especially to Carbo’s proximity to Varius and his supporter, Pomponius,
at Cic. Brut. 305, as well as 221, 227 and 308.
274 evan jewell
individual per se but to a highly charged ideological issue in the arena of the
contio – an arena that forms the probable setting for the final family
exemplum of this chapter.
Becoming Brutus: Lucius Junius Brutus as Exemplum Gentis

quodsi nunc Lucius ille Brutus reuiuescat et hic ante pedes uestros
adsit, <is> non hac utatur oratione? ‘ego reges eieci; uos tyrannos
introducitis. ego libertatem, quae non erat, peperi; uos partam seruare
non uultis. ego capitis mei periculo patriam liberaui; uos liberi sine
periculo esse non curatis.’30 (Rhet. Her. 4.66)
Here the Rhetorica ad Herennium provides an admonition from the
famed liberator of the res publica as an example of prosopopoeia (here
labelled as conformatio), a technique that is best known from Cicero’s
shaming of one family member by another in the Pro Murena and Pro
Caelio.31 And although Cicero applied it sparingly, he did so to great
purpose, capitalising upon its highly performative elements to take
a family exemplum to its extreme rendition: the arousal of an ancestor
from the dead (ab inferis) to deliver an admonition that immediately
forged a gulf of behavioural distance between ancestor and targeted
descendant.32 While the example from the Rhetorica is devoid of
a named speaker or target, it nevertheless provides a fruitful stimulus
for the examination of Lucius Brutus as our final exemplum and his
longevity as an ideological symbol of libertas connected to and cultivated
by the Junii Bruti in the Late Republic.
To begin with, the application of prosopopoeia to family members allows
us to explore the implications of envisaging the performance of this
exemplum in a real historical context – as a potential oratorical fragment
involving the Junii Bruti rather than as a generic example, concocted by the
anonymous author of a rhetorical handbook. Martin suggested that the
30
‘What if that Lucius Brutus should come back to life now and appear here before your feet, would he
not make this speech? “I ejected the kings; you [uos] are introducing tyrants. I brought forth libertas,
which did not exist; what I created you [uos] do not want to protect. I, my life imperilled, liberated
the fatherland; even without peril, you [uos] do not care to be free.”’
31
Cic. Mur. 66–7 (Cato); Cael. 33–4 (App. Claudius Caecus). On the technique of prosopopoeia in
theory, see Cic. Top. 45; Orat. 85; De or. 1.245; Quint. Inst. 4.1.28, 9.2.31, 12.10.61, with Dufallo 2007:
13, n. 2; on the connection between prosopopoeia and family members, see Flower 1996: 153–4;
Dufallo 2007: 15.
32
For the threat to raise the dead, cf. Cic. Ver. 2.1.94, 2.5.113, 129; Font. 36; Catil. 2.20; Red. Pop. 25;
Red. Sen. 26; Sest. 130; Cael. 33; Mil. 79, 91; Marc. 17. For a non-Ciceronian example, see Helvius
Mancia ORF4 71 F1.1–16 (= Val. Max. 6.2.8). Dufallo 2001: 134 examines the theatrical elements of
Cic. Cael. 33–4.
exempla in the Rhetorica might warrant inclusion in Malcovati’s fragmen-
tary orators,33 and since Marx, the author’s claim that he did not borrow
exempla (Rhet. Her. 4.1–10) has often been discounted.34 Internal evidence
from the handbook suggests composition c. 86–82 bc and so provides
a context for the author’s choice of oratorical exempla.35 This final case
study will therefore situate the preceding (potential) fragment within the
development of L. Brutus as the ideological exemplum for the Junii Bruti
par excellence, for even if it does not constitute a true ‘fragment’ – the
proof of which is not my object here – the exercise of canvassing the
possible contexts of such an oratorical episode will itself shed light on the
broader role of L. Brutus as an ideological family exemplum deployed both
by and against the Junii Bruti. In particular, the exercise of climbing
through L. Brutus’ family tree will sketch the genealogy of an ideological
history that preceded, and thus enriches our understanding of, his ultimate
use as an exemplum by Caesar’s assassin and his chief spin doctor, Cicero.
Understandably, scholars have tended to train their focus on the
historiographical development of the Brutus legend or his role as an
exemplum for M. Junius Brutus, Caesar’s assassin, wherein Lucius
provided a model of ideological behaviour – the preservation of liber-
tas – for his descendant, even if his actual descent from Lucius’ line was
disputed in antiquity itself.36 Consequently, little attention has been
paid to the complementary performative traditions of drama and oratory
that preceded Marcus’ L. Brutus as a family exemplum. Yet the first
member of the Junii Bruti to have plausibly cultivated the family’s
links to L. Brutus was Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus (RE 57), cos.
138 bc.37 Callaicus is said to have been friendly with the poet Accius,
who composed verses for his temple of Mars but who also wrote
a fabula praetexta entitled, Brutus.38 Whether Accius’ Brutus was
commissioned by Callaicus or not,39 it would have provided an
33
Martin 2000: 29. 34 Marx 1894: 114–18.
35
Caplan 1954; Corbeill 2002: 33. Cf. Achard 1989: xiii, who dates the work even more specifically to
84–83 bc. Contra Douglas 1960 (c. 50 BC or later) and Winkel 1979.
36
For the historiographical development of L. Brutus, see Welwei 2000; Richardson 2012: 21–3;
Wiseman 2014. On L. Brutus as a generic exemplum, see Bücher 2006: 178–80. For ancient assertions
of the falsity of M. Brutus’ claim to descent from L. Brutus, see Plut. Brut. 1.6 and Richardson 2011
with Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.18, 5.48.2.
37
The nomen gentilicium may not descend from L. Brutus; Wiseman 2014: 139–40 suggests that it may
be a fabrication of the late fourth century bc.
38
Accius and D. Junius Brutus Callaicus: Cic. Leg. 2.21.54 (amicissimi); Arch. 11.27 (Accius’ verses on
his building projects).
39
See the discussion in Manuwald 2001: 220–37; she is rightly sceptical of any direct patronage on the
part of Callaicus. Nevertheless, Flower’s point (1995: 176), that the Brutus would have ‘underscored
276 evan jewell
opportunity for showcasing the ideological capital of the Junian gens –
particularly if it was staged after Callaicus’ leading role in the killing of
C. Gracchus (‘tyrant’, as the conservative tradition held) in 121 bc.40
We cannot pinpoint the date of its original staging, but the play did find
a timely revival in 57 bc at the ludi Apollinares, where it played a role in
Cicero’s ongoing ideological contest with P. Clodius, casting Cicero as
‘[Servius] Tullius, who had strengthened the people’s libertas’ (Tullius,
qui libertatem ciuibus stabiliuerat).41 Even Cicero, then, could momenta-
rily invent an ideological ancestor for himself, if only through the
facetiousness of an onomastic pun.42 More importantly, the Brutus was
scheduled to be presented at the same ludi in July 44 bc by the
tyrannicide M. Brutus as praetor urbanus but was ultimately substituted
with Accius’ Tereus.43 The play clearly had the capacity to communicate
a pointed anti-tyrannical message and promoted the association of the
Junian gens with libertas.44 Since prosopopoeia had an inextricable element
of theatricality in its delivery, Accius’ Brutus thus offers a pre-existing and
fertile dramatic source that, whether it influenced the L. Brutus exem-
plum or not, reminds us that the oratorical development of an exemplum
could be contiguous with other ideological performances.
Returning to oratory proper, we encounter the first instance of L. Brutus
being deployed as a family exemplum in a forensic context, wielded against
a member of the Junii Bruti, when sometime between 101 and 91 bc Crassus
the orator defended a certain Cn. Plancus against M. Junius Brutus (RE 50).45
the fragments of the speech preserved by Cicero, the maiores of the Junii
Bruti were invoked to shame the prolific prosecutor Brutus, a veritable
‘blight upon your family name’ (dedecus generi uestro), as Cicero informs
his contemporary descendant in the Brutus.46 In a series of rapid-fire ques-
tions aimed at admonishing the prosecutor Brutus while the pompa funebris
of his Aunt Junia passed by the court,47 Crassus demanded to know what
Brutus’ aunt would say about her nephew to their maiores in the
underworld:
Callaecus’ rank . . . while at the same time reaffirming the validity of the system and of his ancestor as
the “second founder” of Rome’, makes sense of the political context of the play’s production.
40
Oros. 5.12.7; Ampel. 19.4, 26.2; Beness and Hillard 2001: 139, n. 17. For Accius’ ideological
relationship to the Gracchi, see Bilinski 1957. On C. Gracchus’ death in the broader Roman
articulation of tyrannicide, see Pina Polo 2006; Wiseman 2009: 177–210.
41
Cic. Sest. 123; Arena 2012: 211–12. Afranius’ Simulans, a comeodia togata, was also staged (Sest. 118),
which likewise featured the story of Brutus and lines of which were deployed against P. Clodius.
42
Cf. Cic. Att.15.12.2 (SB 390) for Cicero punning on ‘Brutus’ (in Greek).
43
Cic. Att. 16.5.1 (SB 410). 44 Richardson 2012: 22–3. 45 See Alexander 1990: 52 (no. 98).
46
Cic. Brut. 130. 47 Following Flower 1996: 151–3.
Brute quid sedes? quid illam anum patri nuntiare uis tuo? quid illis omni-
bus, quorum imagines duci uides? quid maioribus tuis? quid L. Bruto, qui
hunc populum dominatu regio liberauit? quid te agere? cui rei, cui gloriae,
cui uirtuti studere? patrimonione augendo? at id non est nobilitatis. sed fac
esse, nihil superest; lubidines totum dissupauerunt.48 (L. Licinius Crassus
ORF4 66 F45.34–40 [= Cic. De or. 2.225])
This fragment of Crassus’ oration has been compared to another example
of anaphoric questioning in the Rhetorica, yet previous analyses have
overlooked the all-important content of Crassus’ questions, which centre
upon the ancestral tradition of the Junii Bruti.49 Crassus moves from
Brutus’ father, to his imagines, his maiores, and finally to the exemplum of
Lucius Brutus, who is singled out as the ultimate measure of familial
behaviour. Indeed, he may have been re-appropriating themes and exempla
already invoked in Junia’s laudatio funebris. To be sure, we know that the
author of the Rhetorica had read Crassus’ famous orations,50 just as a later
echo of Crassus’ phrase describing Brutus’ achievement – ‘He liberated this
people from royal domination’ (hunc populum dominatu regio liberauit) – is
found in Cicero’s Pro Plancio.51 But it would be facile simply to attribute
Crassus’ influence to the composition of our example from the Rhetorica
and leave our investigation at that. For besides the fact that Crassus
merely threatens to personify Junia (and thereby only indirectly raises
Brutus as an exemplum) and does not personify L. Brutus directly – unlike
the Rhetorica – the comparison ignores the sharply ideological tone of the
Rhetorica example: the speaker adopts particularly strong watch-words –
tyrannus and libertas – which sit more at home in an overtly political
setting, such as the contio. Indeed, we are left wondering to whom the
repeated second person plural pronoun uos refers, whereby Brutus juxta-
poses himself to a group. That the addressee of Brutus’ admonition is an
emphatic ‘you all’ is also consistent with a contional audience, not simply
the forensic jury in Crassus’ case.52 Nonetheless, the L. Brutus of Crassus’
oratio does inform the Brutus of the Rhetorica in one respect: by
48
‘Brutus, why do you sit? What would you have that old matron announce to your father? What to all
those ones, whose imagines you see being led along [in the pompa funebris]? What to your maiores?
What to Lucius Brutus, who liberated this people from the domination of the kings? What is she to
say you are doing? What achievement, what gloria, what uirtus are you striving for? Is it enlarging
your inheritance? But this is not characteristic of nobilitas. Yet even if you make it so, nothing is left;
your lusts have squandered it all.’
49
Rhet. Her. 4.19 (quid . . . quid . . . quid); cf. von Ungern-Sternberg 1973: 150 with n. 43; Achard 1989:
149, n. 91.
50
Rhet. Her. 4.5; cf. 4.2, 7. 51 L. Cassius Longinus ORF4 168 F1.17 (= Cic. Planc. 60).
52
See Hölkeskamp 2013: 19–28.
278 evan jewell
Crassus’ day, Brutus had already accrued a certain ideological stability,
clarity and familial applicability as an exemplum of libertas and thus as
a model of behaviour for the Junii Bruti.
If situated in the contio, the prosopopoeia of L. Brutus becomes all the
more striking for its targeting of the contional audience, thereby breaking
with patterns of contional strategy, which, as we have observed in Carbo’s
performance, above all sought to create a consensus between orator and the
interests of the audience.53 Exceptions to this rule were apparently rare, but
the exceptional auctoritas of L. Brutus and his ideological weight may have
helped override it.54 The author of the Rhetorica certainly expresses no
reservations about his choice of example, but its exceptionality forces us to
imagine a contional context and a speaker who could have successfully
executed the impersonation such that it had relevance to the readership of
the handbook. Here the established role of L. Brutus as an ideological
family exemplum for the Junii Bruti may offer a possible solution, whereby
an orator may have exploited ancestral connections to L. Brutus to estab-
lish grounds for impersonating him. Of course, the existence of such an
orator is entirely speculative, but I will explore this imaginative avenue in
the hope that it will contextualise the relevance of L. Brutus to the hand-
book, his longer-term development as an ideological family exemplum and,
finally, provoke further attempts to contextualise ideological exempla in
non-Ciceronian oratory.
We might envisage two oratorical scenarios involving (1)
a contemporary Junius Brutus drawing on their ancestral connection to
L. Brutus and his ideological symbolism as a ploy to shift the contional
consensus towards himself and (2) an orator opposed to a contemporary
Junius Brutus, who exploited L. Brutus to reverse the contional consensus
by casting his opponent as a tyrannus and the contional audience as
misguided in its acceptance of his opponent’s proposals. The politically
turbulent period in which the handbook was written (86–82 bc) certainly
suggests that L. Brutus may have had contemporary relevance as an
exemplum, but surveying the evidence for a Brutus who might have either
brought their ancestor back from the dead before a contional audience or
been labelled a tyrannus, only one man presents himself – the father of the
tyrannicide.
53
On contional strategy, see Morstein-Marx 2004. Instances of orators explicitly admonishing their
audience seem to be non-existent.
54
Cf. Catulus the Younger’s tactic of alluding to the plebeian secessions in exhorting his contional
audience to defend its libertas: Plut. Pomp. 30.4 with Morstein-Marx 2004: 183. On the auctoritas of
historical exempla, see Stemmler 2000; van der Blom 2010: 124–6.
M. Junius Brutus (RE 52) was tribune in 83 bc and involved himself in
the litigation that led to Cicero’s Pro Quinctio, before being killed in 77 bc
after joining the revolt of M. Aemilius Lepidus against the Sullan regime.55
Notably, Brutus’ activities as tribune appear to have been contentious and
probably viewed as popularis: namely, his foundation of a colony at Capua,
which Cicero later (in 63 bc) presents in a contio as an attempt to found
a new res publica in opposition to Rome.56 Here Cicero also highlighted
‘the most bitter penalties of wicked men’ (acerbissimas impiorum poenas)
which Brutus suffered (alluding to his death in 77 bc),57 arguing later that
in following Brutus’ exemplum, Rullus was undermining the ‘monuments
of ancestral wisdom’ (monumenta maiorum sapientiae).58 Morstein-Marx
rightly points out that these references to Brutus are so offhand that Cicero
seems to assume that his contional audience was wholly familiar
with M. Brutus, his legislation and his death at the hands of Pompey.59
This is confirmed by Helvius Mancia Formianus, who threatened in 55 bc
to ‘resurrect’ against Pompey his victims from the Sullan period, among
whom stood none other than M. Brutus.60 Apparently, M. Brutus and his
gory death were controversial enough to find a place in the memoria of his
audience twenty years on.
It may be no coincidence, then, that Cicero, within the context of
a contio proliferating with regnal rhetoric,61 assimilates Rullus and his
supposed plans for a Capuan colony to Brutus’ similar plans two decades
previously, wherein both men apparently posed a threat to the libertas of
Rome. On the basis of Cicero’s presentation of M. Brutus and the infer-
ence we can draw about his standing in recent memoria, it is not difficult to
imagine that M. Brutus was subjected to similar regnal rhetoric in his
own day, which may well have resulted in him being named a tyrannus by
an opponent in a contio and facing an exemplum like that of L. Brutus in the
Rhetorica. That Brutus’ colony at Capua barely lasted a year may point to
an element in Rome that had opposed the foundation all along.62 We can
also entertain the possibility that in one of his contiones, M. Brutus resorted
to impersonating his ancestor to defend his colony against dissolution,
55
MRR II: 63. 56 Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.89. 57 Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.92. 58 Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.98.
59
Morstein-Marx 2004: 73.
60
Helvius Mancia ORF4 71 F1.6–8 (= Val. Max. 6.2.8). See Steel 2013a.
61
Cf. Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.8 (regna), 2.15 (X reges . . . reges in ciuitate), 2.20 (regia potestas), 2.24 (regnum),
2.29 (reges constituuntur, non X uiri), 2.32 (re uera regiam . . . formam adhuc habetis, Quirites, et
speciem ipsam tyrannorum), 2.33 (intolerantium regum), 2.33 (rex), 2.34 (regnorum uendendorum
summa potestas datur), 2.35, 2.39 (regna X uirum), 2.43 (rex denique opulentissimi regni reperietur),
2.61, 75. Libertas: Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.4, 9, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24, 25, 29, 30, 71, 75, 86, 102.
62
On the political context of Brutus’ colonial initiative, see Harvey 1982.
280 evan jewell
although it is difficult, admittedly, to envisage this scenario playing out in
Sulla’s midst: Brutus evidently managed to survive Sulla’s proscriptions.
A further parallel between the De lege agraria and the Rhetorica strength-
ens the former possibility, suggesting that Cicero may have been taking
a leaf from the same oratio that inspired the L. Brutus of the Rhetorica.
Thus far we have not considered the only other example of prosopopoeia in
the Rhetorica, which immediately precedes that of Lucius Brutus and sees
Rome admonish her ciues:
nunc uestris seditionibus, o ciues, uexor; quam dolis malitiosa Kartago,
uiribus probata Numantia, disciplinis erudita Corinthus labefactare non
potuit, eam patimini nunc ab homunculis deterrumis proteri atque
conculcari?63 (Rhet. Her. 4.66)
The author prefaces the two examples of Rome and L. Brutus as represen-
tative of the range of the technique, which could encompass both res and
personae.64 Yet this does not explain the author’s choice of examples
applicable only in contional contexts, for, as with L. Brutus, here Rome
herself seems to have been enlisted to chide a contional audience of ciues
riven by seditiones: again, a situation that corresponds well to the political
context of a handbook written in the 80s bc. The personification of Rome
is all the more conspicuous when we turn to the section of the De lege
agraria between the two descriptions of M. Brutus’ colonial foundation at
Capua: here we also find both Rome’s history as a conquering city vaunted
in the face of the rival res publica of Capua and the same three specific
cities – Carthage, Numantia and Corinth – are again named as her
principal victims: ‘many serious wars have been waged, the Carthaginian,
Corinthian, and Numantian; there were many civil dissensions in this
state, which I pass over’.65 The seditiones that are (presently) vexing
Rome in the Rhetorica clearly had no relevance to Cicero’s contio in
63 bc, yet, tellingly, he did not omit mention of them entirely. Such
echoes, then, between the Rhetorica and De lege agraria are suggestive of,
if not allusive to, a shared point of reference. Cicero may have been
recycling the rhetoric levelled at M. Brutus two decades prior.
Despite this (deliberately speculative) exercise in contextualisation and
reconstruction, it is crucial to remember that the 80s bc saw several
63
‘I am now vexed, O citizens, by your civil dissensions. Her whom Carthage with malicious trickery,
whom Numantia with proven strength, whom Corinth with learned culture could not topple, do
you now allow to be trampled under foot and abused by the worst weaklings?’
64
Rhet. Her. 4.66.
65
Cic. Agr. 2.90: gesta . . . multa praeterea bella grauia, Carthaginiense, Corinthum, Numantinum.
multae in hac re publica seditiones domesticae quas praetermitto.
members of the Junii Bruti, and not just M. Brutus, caught in the rapidly
shifting political sands, a fact that at the very least points to the amplified
relevance of L. Brutus in the Rhetorica.66 Whether the exemplum is
a verbatim fragment or not, and who the speaker may or may not have
been, is beside the point; what the preceding exercise has revealed is how
the development of L. Brutus as an exemplum for the Junii Bruti was
connected to their own ideological self-fashioning and to their contests
with political opponents in this period. The example from the Rhetorica
may have arisen in one such contest. More tangibly, Accius’ Brutus had cast
L. Brutus in the ideological limelight – along with his contemporary
namesake – while a generation later his potency as an ideological exemplum
could be wielded by Crassus against another Brutus.
The dynamics of these two performative contexts in the ideological
history of the Junii Bruti illustrate the long-recognised adaptability of
ideological exempla, but taken with the cases of the Lutatii Catuli and
Livii Drusi, we may reach further conclusions. Firstly, the gens could
become ideological by virtue of the perceived political actions of its
maiores, wherein the family tree carried latent ideological sap that an
orator could tap in relation to a living member of the same gens.
Following this, ideological exempla were inherently more potent when
applied to a member of the same gens as the exemplum, in that the
descendants of that family – broadly or narrowly conceived – were
bound by the ideological memoria of their maiores. The orator could
then strategically exploit, or himself face, the ideological discourse
available in their stockpile of family exempla. As a very specific linguistic
symbol for some exceptional families, such as the Junii Bruti, their
family exempla would almost always be bound up with a very particular
ideological discourse.
Unlike the chequered past of Catulus’ uncle Domitius or the ambigu-
ities surrounding the Livii Drusi, the family exemplum of L. Brutus came to
accrue a certain ideological stability, clarity and longevity of its own. These
characteristics come into focus with the figure of M. Junius Brutus, well
before he became the tyrannicide – the inevitable epilogue to our family-
tree climbing, for in 52 bc Marcus delivered a speech regarding Pompey
that has been characterised most recently by Balbo as a ‘forthright attack on
66
Other politically active Bruti in this period: M. Junius Brutus (RE 51, pr. 88 bc), a Marian supporter
who committed suicide in 82 bc; L. Junius Brutus Damasippus (RE 58, pr. 82 bc), who may have
held a contio before his notorious execution of Sullan supporters, including the previously discussed
Carbo; D. Junius Brutus (RE 46, cos. 77 bc), who bucked the family trend, opposing both
Saturninus and later Lepidus.
282 evan jewell
tyranny’.67 This attack must be set against Marcus’ inevitable self-
awareness (and self-fashioning) of his own family tree, drawn up by
Atticus (accurate or not) – beginning with Lucius Brutus on the patrilineal
side and stretching down to the death of his father at the hands of
Pompey.68 The memory of Marcus’ slaughtered father persisted such
that, as we have seen, it is attested twenty years later in Cicero’s De lege
agraria and in 55 bc with Helvius Mancia’s performance. One year after
this, Brutus as a moneyer placed libertas on the obverse and L. Brutus on
the reverse of one of his coins.69 For Brutus, then, even before Caesar, there
was Pompey: the tyrant and inimicus.70 So too his ideological self-
fashioning must be understood within the shadow of his father’s memoria,
as much as he laid claim to the heritage of L. Brutus. But had the
ideological traits of the Junii Bruti not persisted, and had the ideological
family exemplum not existed as an oratorical strategy, then perhaps Brutus’
attack on Pompey and the discourse arising after the death of Caesar might
have been very different. Counterfactually, C. Servilius Ahala might have
figured much more prominently in Brutus’ ideological discourse.71 In his
First Philippic, Cicero might not have echoed that phrase – L. Brutus . . .
dominatu regio rem publicam liberauit – from Crassus’ famous oration to
justify Brutus’ actions.72 In his Tenth Philippic, he could not have blurred
the lines between the memoria of the living Brutus and his famous ancestor
which, despite Marcus’ absence from his ludi Apollinares in 44 bc, made his
presence felt to the crowd: ‘the body of the liberator was absent, but the
memoria of libertas was present, in which the imago of Brutus seemed to be
perceived’.73 And thus this intentional slippage between ancestor and
descendant would have held no resonance; the ideological bond between
the Bruti – archaic and Late Republican – that so readily springs to mind
today just would not be.
67
Balbo 2013: 316. M. Iunius Brutus ORF4 158 F16 (= Quint. Inst. 9.3.95).
68
Nep. Att.18.3; Cic. Att. 13.40.1 (SB 343). 69 RRC 433/1–2.
70
See Epstein 1987: 43 on the enmity between Brutus and Pompey.
71
Cicero made ample use of Ahala earlier in his career against Catiline and Clodius, but his oratorical
application of him to M. Brutus is confined to Phil. 2.26; instead, he preferred (Phil. 2.27) to play on
the homonymity between Ahala and two other assassins of the same gens, C. Servilius Casca and
P. Servilius Casca Longus. See Arena 2012: 216–7 with n. 259 for Brutus’ use of Ahala.
72
Cic. Phil. 1.13; cf. 2.87, 7.14. Nor could the graffiti in 44 bc at Rome have exhorted Brutus to follow
his purported ancestor, on which see Morstein-Marx 2012: 204–15 and Hillard 2013: 112–4.
73
Cic. Phil. 10.8: corpus aberat liberatoris, libertatis memoria aderat, in qua Bruti imago cerni uidebatur.
Cf. Plut. Brut. 1.8, preserving a fragment of Posidonius, who claimed that Junii Bruti in his day –
thus likely prior to M. Brutus tyrannicide – played up their physical resemblance (τὴν ὁμοιότητα
τῆς ἰδέας) to the statue of L. Brutus.
chapter 15
Good Fortune and the Public Good

Disputing Sulla’s Claim to Be Felix
Alexandra Eckert
In January 81 bc, the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla celebrated

a splendid triumph over King Mithridates VI of Pontus.1 The festivities
lasted for two days. Sulla had the spoils of many cities of Greece and Asia
Minor displayed in the triumphal procession.2 The Fasti Triumphales refer
to the victorious commander as Sulla Felix dictator (‘Sulla the Fortunate,
dictator’).3 Officially, Sulla’s triumph was over the Pontic king he had
defeated in 85 bc. However, for the Romans, his triumph inevitably
provoked strong memories of the Civil War, which had come to its
conclusion a few months before, in the Battle of the Colline Gate on
1 November 82 bc.4
In the weeks between the final battle of the Civil War and the celebra-
tion of his triumph, Sulla was appointed dictator and awarded the surname
Felix (‘the Fortunate’).5 Sulla was the first Roman to adopt this name.
The dedication on his golden equestrian statue in the Forum read: ‘Lucius
Cornelius Sulla the Fortunate, dictator’.6
I thank the editors, Catherine Steel, Henriette van der Blom and Christa Gray, as well as the
anonymous reader for their helpful comments on this chapter. Moreover, I express my gratitude to
Jackie Powell (Santa Ana, CA) and Alexander Thein (Dublin) for proofreading my English and for
valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this chapter.
1
Plut. Sull. 34.1. 2 Val. Max. 2.8.7. 3 Degrassi 1954: 108.
4
See App. B Civ. 1.98–9 for details regarding Sulla’s appointment as dictator, specifically, the role of
the interrex Valerius Flaccus and the approval of the assembly of the people. For the latter, see also
App. B Civ. 4.10; cf. Jahn 1970: 11–31 regarding the office of the interrex, and cf. 161–5 for the
interregnum of 82 bc preceding Sulla’s dictatorship.
5
Vell. Pat. 2.27.1 records 1 November 82 bc as the date of the Battle of the Colline Gate. Vell. Pat.
2.27.5 indicates that Sulla adopted his surname Felix after the sack of Praeneste and the death of
Marius the Younger. The Fasti Capitolini record Sulla as Sulla Felix dictator for the year 82 bc. Cf.
Degrassi 1954: 74. For Sulla’s surname Felix, cf. also Balsdon 1951.
6
App. B Civ. 1.97: Κορνηλίου Σύλλα ἡγεμόνος Εὐτυχοῦς. In 80 bc, Sulla was elected consul together
with his father-in-law Metellus Pius and struck an aureus depicting his equestrian statue in the
Forum. See RRC 381/1a: L SULL FE; on r. LI DIC. See RRC 381/1b: L SVLLA FELIX DIC. Cf. also
Sehlmeyer 1999: 204–8.
283
284 alexandra eckert
Several years before, during the Social War of 91–89 bc, Sulla’s
legions expressed belief in their commander’s felicitas (‘good fortune’)
by decorating him with the rare honour of the corona graminea (‘grass
crown’) for his exploits at the Italian town of Nola. Soldiers awarded
this honour to a general who had not only defeated his enemies but
also had saved his soldiers from a dire fate.7 The green blades of grass
symbolised the original meaning of the word felix as fruit-bearing, thus
distinguishing the honoured commander as the bearer of felicitas.8
We may assume that Sulla exploited his military success during his
campaign for the consulship of 88 bc. One year later, Sulla publicly
expressed his firm conviction of being exceptionally favoured by the
gods when he named his twin children Faustus and Fausta (‘auspicious,
bringing good fortune’).9 These names had close ties to felix and
felicitas, as illustrated by the traditional Republican blessing quod
bonum faustum felix fortunatumque sit (‘may it be good, auspicious,
fortunate and blessed’).10 In his autobiography, completed shortly
before his death in 78 bc, Sulla further emphasised his self-styling as
Felix by attributing key achievements in the military and political arena
to his felicitas.11
This chapter argues that the Romans perceived Sulla’s claim to felicitas
(‘good fortune’) – as expressed by his surname Felix (‘the Fortunate’) – as
an outrageous offence against ideas at the heart of Roman society: the
divine gift of felicitas and its close ties to the salus rei publicae (the ‘public
good of the Romans’). It does so by first discussing the censorial lustration
and the Roman triumph, which will show that both concepts were highly
relevant to the political and religious life of Rome. Second, this chapter
takes a closer look at Sulla’s acts of violence, which will reveal an enormous
tension between his deeds and his surname Felix. Third, a detailed analysis
of ancient sources from the Late Republic to the early Imperial period
7
Sulla FRHist 22 F16 (= Plin. HN 22.12). According to Pliny, Sulla was one of only seven Roman
generals to be granted the grass crown.
8
See Versnel 1970: 376–7.
9
Plut. Sull. 34.3. The birth date of Sulla’s twins in 87 bc can be derived from the episode of Sulla’s wife
Metella fleeing to Greece after Marius and Cinna had returned to Rome. Cf. Plut. Sull. 22.1.
10
Cic. Div. 1.102. By referring to mores, Cicero indicates that the blessing originated in the early days of
the Roman Republic.
11
See Keaveney 1983; Behr 1993; Scholz 2003; Smith 2009; Thein 2009; Smith 2013, who discuss the
strong emphasis Sulla put on his good fortune in his memoirs. Sulla may have reinterpreted episodes
of his earlier career to promote his felicitas in his autobiography. With some likelihood, the capture
of King Jugurtha of Numidia and the prophecy of the Chaldean seers, foretelling Sulla’s death after
a glorious life at the height of his good fortune, are examples of such reinterpretation. Cf. Eckert
2016.
Good Fortune and the Public Good 285
illustrates that the Romans did not accept Sulla’s violation of the salus rei
publicae. Hence, they disputed his claim to be called ‘the Fortunate’.
Felicitas and Salus Rei Publicae

The idea of felicitas originated in both the agricultural and religious spheres
of ancient Rome.12 It encompassed agricultural fertility and productivity,
promoted by divine favour. An important prerequisite of felicitas was
utmost diligence when performing religious rites. A fragmentary speech
of Cato the Elder illustrates how the censorial lustration (lustrum) symbo-
lised the close ties between felicitas and the salus rei publicae or salus
communis (the public or common good of the Roman people):
praeclara fertur Catonis oratio de lustri sui felicitate. iam tunc enim in illa
uetere re publica ad censorum laudem pertinebat, si lustrum felix condidis-
sent, si horrea messis implesset, si uindemia redundasset, si oliueta large
fluxissent.13 (M. Porcius Cato ORF4 8 F135 [= Pan. Lat. 5(8).13.3])
The ritual of the censorial lustration marked the end of the Roman census.
Hence, it related to the Roman people as a whole. It saw individuals with
names signifying good fortune walking the sacrificial animals, the suoue-
taurilia or solitaurilia, in a circle around the gathering of the Roman people
before the animals were sacrificed.14 The formula ‘to perform a fortunate
lustration’ (lustrum felix condere), used by Cato, conveyed the idea that
a censor diligently performing the lustration won the favour of the gods,
thus securing ample harvests for the Romans and safeguarding the well-
being of the Roman people during the five-year period until the next
census was held.15 The censorial lustration included a prayer to the
12
For the concept of felicitas in Rome, see Erkell 1952; Versnel 1970; Fears 1981: 736–826; Wistrand
1987. For the cult of felicitas, cf. Clark 2007.
13
‘A famous speech of Cato on the felicitas of his lustration came down to us. Back then at the time of
the old Republic, the glory of the censors benefitted, when they had performed a fortunate
lustration, when the harvest had proved bountiful, when the vintage had been plentiful, when the
olive groves had produced oil in abundance.’ (All translations by the author.) Malcovati ad loc. and
Cugusi and Sblendorio Cugusi 2001 (= 24 F99) attribute this fragment to Cato’s oration De suis
uirtutibus contra <L.> Thermum post censuram, a speech given in 183 bc. Linderski 1996b: 377–9 =
2007: 62–3 discusses several speeches of Cato the Elder to which the fragment in question might be
attributed. We can assume that the sequence of words si lustrum felix condidissent, si horrea messis
implesset, si uindemia redundasset, si oliueta large fluxissent renders Cato’s words quite closely and can
therefore be considered a fragment rather than a testimonium. For the distinction between fragment
and testimonium, see the general introduction in Cornell FRHist: 14.
14
Cf. Cic. Div. 1.102 and Plin. HN 28.22.
15
Cato the Elder was censor in 184 bc. Because of his excellent conduct of the censorship, the Roman
people honoured him with a statue in the temple of the Salus Publica Populi Romani Quiritum on
the Quirinal. See Plut. Cat. Mai. 19.3–4. Cf. Winkler 1995: 16, 32. For the temple and its dedication
immortal gods, asking them to promote the common good of the Romans,
the salus rei publicae. In 142 bc, the censor Scipio Africanus Minor is said to
have changed the ancient prayer:
Africanus . . . qui censor, cum lustrum conderet inque solitaurilium sacrifi-
cio scriba ex publicis tabulis sollemne ei precationis carmen praeiret, quo di
immortales ut populi Romani res meliores amplioresque facerent rogaban-
tur, ‘satis’ inquit ‘bonae et magnae sunt: itaque precor ut eas perpetuo
incolumes seruent’, ac protinus in publicis tabulis ad hunc modum carmen
emendari iussit.16 (Val. Max. 4.1.10)
The idea of the public good as expressed in the censorial lustration
encompassed both agricultural fertility and the growth of the Roman
populace. The censor had performed a fortunate lustration when harvests
were plentiful and the number of Roman citizens had increased.
The Roman census, conducted on the Campus Martius, comprised an
assessment of the lists of Roman citizens and their tax class. The sacrifice of
the suouetaurilia to the god Mars concluded the census. According to
Roman thinking, this god had a dual nature as the god of fertility and
the god of war.17 Consequently, the close association of felicitas and the
common good of the Romans also played an important role in the military
sphere of Roman society. The Roman general who excelled in battle after
having carefully taken the auspices (auspicia) was perceived as the bearer of
felicitas. The Romans considered his success a divinely favoured victory for
the Roman people at large, as symbolised by the ritual of the Roman
triumph.18 The formula ‘accomplished with success and good fortune’
(bene ac feliciter gesta), employed by a Roman general to request
a triumph after a victorious military campaign, implied glory for the
general, the Roman people and Jupiter Optimus Maximus.19 His temple,
the Capitol, marked the final destination of the triumphal procession and
provided the setting for the successful general’s sacrifice.
in 302 bc, see also Clark 2007: 176–7. For the significance of the censorial lustration, cf. Eisenhut KP
s.v. lustrum; Baudy 1998: 236–46; Sciarrino 2011: 174–5.
16
‘As a censor, Scipio Africanus performed the lustration: at the sacrifice of solitaurilia, the scribe was
reading the traditional prayer from the public tables. The formula asked the immortal gods to
improve and enlarge the affairs of the Roman people. Scipio said, “They are good and great enough,
so I implore the Gods to protect them from harm forever.” And immediately he gave the order to
adapt the prayer in the public tables accordingly.’
17
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.22 and Livy, 1.44.1–2 describe the Campus Martius as the place where the
censorial lustrum was carried out. See Baudy 1998: 114–15 for the dual nature of the god Mars.
18
See Cic. Fam. 15.5.2 (SB 111) and Wistrand 1987: 37–8. For the ritual of the Roman triumph, cf. also
Beard 2007.
19
See Cicero and Livy e.g. Cic. Pis. 97 or Livy, 31.48.12. For the formula, see Pabst 1997: 62, n. 172;
Pittenger 2008: 179–80.
The close relation between felicitas and the salus rei publicae in the
context of the Roman triumph became evident when the victorious general
donated part of his booty, the harvest of war, to the populus Romanus, by
giving public banquets and games, constructing public buildings or ded-
icating temples.20 The ritual of the Roman triumph expressed the idea that
a victory in war was more than the divinely favoured achievement of the
Roman general as an individual. For the Romans, it represented a military
success on behalf of and for the Roman people at large and therefore
contributed to the salus rei publicae. When the general finally dedicated
the laurel wreath to Jupiter on the Capitol, the evergreen laurel leaves
represented both the hope for continuing military success and a reminder
of the original meaning of felix – ‘fruit-bearing’.21
Sulla’s Violation of the Salus Rei Publicae

The spectators at Sulla’s triumphal procession were well aware that Sulla had
violated the salus rei publicae in a way hitherto unknown in Roman history.
Sulla was the first Roman to be responsible for the death of tens of thousands
of his fellow countrymen in a civil war. On the morning of
2 November 82 bc, when the dust had settled on the battlefield near the
Colline Gate, the corpses of 50,000 citizens lay scattered within sight of
Rome.22 The death toll of the Civil War amounted to more than 100,000
Roman soldiers.23 However, Sulla decided that the bloodshed was not yet
over. Only three days after his victory, he ordered a mass execution of
Roman citizens near the building of the censors, the Villa Publica, although
20
See Wistrand 1987: 29–30; Churchill 1999.
21
Cf. Versnel 1970: 356–71, esp. 361–66, regarding the significance of felicitas for the ritual of the
Roman triumph and the symbolic meaning of the laurel wreath. Cf. also Pabst 1997: 62.
22
App. B Civ 1.93 records 50,000 dead soldiers at the Colline Gate. This number seems reliable. Florus
testifies a total of 70,000 soldiers who perished in the Battle of Sacriportus and the Battle of the
Colline Gate. See Flor. 2.9.23–5. Sulla’s memoirs record 20,000 dead enemies and 8,000 prisoners at
Sacriportus: Sulla F25 FRHist 22 F25 (= Plut. Sull. 28.8). Claudius Quadrigarius testifies to 25,000
soldiers killed at the Battle of Sacriportus: Quadrigarius FRHist 24 F88 (= Oros. 5.20.6). Velleius’
and Plutarch’s accounts also indicate that the figure of 50,000 men killed at the Colline Gate is
probably correct. According to Velleius, 40,000 Samnite troops were engaged in the Battle of the
Colline Gate, the vast majority of whom perished. Plutarch describes how Sulla’s forces suffered
huge losses of about four legions. See Vell. Pat. 2.27.1–3; Plut. Sull. 29.7; Crass. 6.6.
23
Diod. Sic. 37.29.5 and App. B Civ. 1.103 both provide a figure of 100,000 soldiers for the overall
death toll of Sulla’s second march on Rome. This does not seem exaggerated with respect to the
70,000 victims recorded for the battles at Sacriportus and the Colline Gate. See App. B Civ 1.93 and
note 22. Moreover, in the battles at Mount Tifata (Plut. Sull. 27.4–5), Clusium, Faventia and
Fidentia (Vell. Pat. 2.28.1), Sulla and his commanders routed many legions of the enemy forces.
Therefore, an overall death toll in the Civil War of between 90,000 and 100,000 soldiers seems
likely.
he had promised to spare them if they surrendered. Their relatives and
friends, and even bystanders who happened to be in the Villa Publica at
the time, were also assassinated along with them. The Romans were left
trembling.24 The river Tiber carried away the bodies of 8,000 men.25
Sulla’s atrocities in the Villa Publica were only the prelude to a series of
seemingly endless acts of violence and terror. Sulla gave his soldiers free
rein to kill personal enemies.26 Riots and anarchy in Rome and Italy were
the result. Within a short time, the death toll of Sulla’s marauding troops
in Rome surpassed the slaughter at the Villa Publica.27 Terror and fear
overshadowed Roman society. Sulla also introduced the proscriptions,
a new device to eliminate political enemies. Proscription had the most
severe consequences for the citizen in question, his wife and children.28
The names of the proscribed were published on lists in the Forum. With
immediate effect, they were condemned to death, outlawed and their
property confiscated; their wives lost their dowries; and their children
were deprived of both inheritance and all rights to run for public
office.29 What is more, bounty hunters were awarded large sums of
money for killing proscribed men, and anyone supporting a proscribed
person was subject to the death penalty.30 The public archives recorded the
names of 4,700 proscribed Romans.31 Sulla himself presided over public
auctions in the Forum, where the confiscated property of the proscribed
men was sold to his partisans for a fraction of its true value.32 Sulla even
dared to proclaim in public that he was selling ‘his booty’ (se sua praeda
uendere) when he auctioned the property of Roman citizens.33
24
Val. Max. 9.2.1.
25
[Sall.] Ep. ad Caes. 1.4.1–2; Strab. 5.4.11; Livy, Per. 88; Val. Max. 9.2.1; Sen. Clem. 1.12.2; Ben. 5.16.3;
Plut. Sull. 30; Flor. 2.9.24–5; Dio Cass. 30–5 F109. The ancient sources provide figures of between
3,000 (Strabo) and 8,000 (Livy) persons who had fallen victim to Sulla’s atrocities in the Villa
Publica. The discrepancy between the figures of Strabo and Livy can be explained. Strabo’s account
represents only a small portion of those executed in the Villa Publica, namely, the survivors of four
legions of Samnite troops. Livy’s figure of 8,000 victims, however, also includes the inhabitants of
Antemnae (see Plut. Sull. 30) and the many Romans who had mingled in the Villa Publica with the
Samnite troops who had surrendered (see Dio Cass. 30–5 F109).
26
At the end of the Civil War, Sulla had twenty-three legions, or about 120,000 soldiers, under his
command. See Livy, Per. 89; App. B Civ. 1.104.
27
Oros. 5.21 records a toll of 9,000 citizens killed by Sulla’s marauding soldiers in Rome. See also
Heftner 2006, who demonstrates that Sulla’s victory on 1 November 82 bc was not immediately
followed by the onset of the proscriptions, as had been suggested by Hinard 1985. Instead, a time of
anarchy and arbitrary assassinations preceded.
28
Eckert 2014 discusses the proscriptions from the perspective of cultural trauma.
29
Plut. Sull. 31.4–5. 30 See Sen. Ben. 5.16.3; Plut. Sull. 31.4. 31
Val. Max. 9.2.1.
32
Cic. Rosc. Am. 6, 80–1, 93. Plut. Cic. 3.2–3 describes the true value of Sextus Roscius’ estate as 250
talents, while it was sold for 2,000 drachmas during one of Sulla’s auctions.
33
Cic. Verr. 2.3.81. For Sulla’s proclamation that he was selling his booty, see van der Blom 2017.
When Sulla put up the first list of eighty proscribed men in the Forum, his
fellow citizens expected that this would give them at least some safety by
determining who was condemned to death and who was safe.34 Sulla, how-
ever, shattered those hopes after only one day. He arbitrarily extended the
proscription lists on the following two days by several hundred names and
announced that he would repeat this as he pleased.35 He even had the lists
extended by his partisans.36 As the example of M. Plaetorius demonstrated, no
one in Rome could feel safe: Sulla’s bounty hunters assassinated him on the
spot for having fainted while witnessing the cruel killing of a proscribed man.37
As many executions of proscribed Romans were carried out in public, the
outrageous deeds of Sulla’s partisans were highly visible in Roman society.38
Two months after the proscriptions had begun, in the midst of an
atmosphere of mortal fear and uncertainty, Sulla celebrated his triumph.
However, no end to the terror was in sight. According to Sulla’s lex
Cornelia de proscriptione, the proscriptions would continue for another
four months until 1 June 81 bc.39 Although the proscriptions were primarily
directed against members of the Roman elite, fear dominated all social
strata of Roman society. Accidentally falling prey to Sulla’s cruelty could be
a matter of showing the wrong facial expression, bearing a name similar to
one of those already on the lists or wearing an expensive tunic.40 Not even
Sulla’s partisans could feel safe.41 Sulla ordered the public execution of one
of his most faithful generals, Q. Lucretius Ofella, on the pretext that this
man had not followed his orders.42 Ofella had overseen the siege and
surrender of Praeneste.43 At that time, this Italian town was the last
stronghold of Sulla’s fiercest opponent, Marius the Younger, and his
remaining troops.44 Although Sulla’s envoy Cethegus had promised pro-
tection to the Praenestines if they surrendered, Sulla ordered the execution
of 12,000 inhabitants of Praeneste.45 He even had the corpses scattered on
34
Plut. Sull. 31.3. 35 Plut. Sull. 31.3.
36
See Cic. Rosc. Am. and the role of Sulla’s freedman Chrysogonus in the proscription of Sextus
Roscius the Elder.
37
Val. Max. 9.2.1; Flor. 2.9.26. M. Plaetorius had fainted at the cruel killing of M. Marius Gratidianus.
For M. Plaetorius as a victim of the proscriptions, see Hinard 1985: 393–4.
38
Val. Max. 9.2.1. 39 Cic. Rosc. Am. 128. 40 See Sall. Cat. 51.32–5; Dio Cass. 30–5 F109.
41
Dio Cass. 30–5 F109 states that nobody except those belonging to the innermost circle of Sulla’s
partisans could live without fear.
42
Livy, Per. 89; Asc. 91C; Plut. Sull. 33.4; App. B Civ. 101; Dio Cass. 37.10.2. 43 Vell. Pat. 2.27.6.
44
Livy, Per. 88; Vell. Pat. 2.27.4–6; Val. Max. 6.8.2.
45
Plut. Sull. 32.1 records 12,000 victims at Praeneste. Sulla’s soldiers executed 5,000 inhabitants of
Praeneste (Val. Max. 9.2.1) and 7,000 Samnites. Sulla spared only the Romans present at Praeneste.
Both Samnites and Romans belonged to the forces of Marius the Younger, who had fled to Praeneste
after their defeat in the battle of Sacriportus. See Diod. Sic. 38/39.15.1 and App. B Civ. 1.94.
the fields.46 A mere ten weeks after these acts of violence, Sulla displayed
the gold of Praeneste in his triumphal procession, thus provoking strong
memories of the Civil War.47 The fate of Praeneste also signified that
Sulla’s atrocities were not confined to the city of Rome. Terror, bloodshed
and proscriptions affected many Italian towns. Sulla deprived municipa-
lities of their Roman citizenship, confiscated their land to establish colonies
for his veterans and even razed some of them to the ground.48
Sulla had sacrificed the public good of the Roman people for his
personal advantage. Even after his victory, an enormous number of
Romans were doomed to die as a direct consequence of Sulla’s atrocities.
By conservative estimates, more than 30,000 men fell victim to the mass
executions in the Villa Publica and at Praeneste, to Sulla’s marauding
soldiers and to the proscriptions.49 About 1 million citizens lived in
Rome and Italy before the Civil War of 83–82 bc.50 About 100,000 soldiers
(i.e. 10 per cent of the male Roman population) were killed in Sulla’s Civil
War. After Sulla’s victory at the Colline Gate, his acts of vengeance
increased the already high death toll to at least 130,000 Roman citizens.51
We may assume that most people living on the Italian peninsula knew at
least one of Sulla’s victims in person.
Sulla and the Public Good in Cicero’s Speech for Sextus

Roscius of Ameria
Cicero addressed Sulla’s violation of the salus rei publicae as early as 80 bc in
his speech defending Sextus Roscius of Ameria. At that time, Sulla was still
the most powerful man in Rome.52 To win acquittal for his client, Cicero’s
46
Val. Max. 9.2.1; Plut. Sull. 32.1.
47
Plin. HN 33.16. Lange 2013: 73–4 and Wienand 2015: 189–90 discuss the display of the gold of
Praeneste in Sulla’s triumphal procession as an example of a Republican restitutio being within the
boundaries of Roman values. Both authors neglect that Sulla’s triumph took place in an atmosphere
of terror provoked by the ongoing proscriptions. The display of the gold evoked the negative
memories associated with the massacre of Praeneste. Sulla’s triumph may thus have even intensified
the fear.
48
See Cic. Dom. 79; Flor. 2.9.27; App B Civ. 1.96, 100.
49
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.77.5 even testifies that 40,000 Romans of the opposing party were killed on
Sulla’s orders after they had surrendered to him.
50
Beloch provides a figure of 963,000 Roman citizens for the census of 86/85 bc and 910,000 Roman
citizens for the next census held in 70/69 bc. Brunt gives a figure of 981,000 citizens for the census of
70/69 bc. Hence, a figure of 1 million Roman citizens in Italy seems plausible. Cf. Beloch 1886: 348,
352; Brunt 1987: 92, 94, 97.
51
Flor. 2.9.23 points out that the end of the war was not the end of the killing.
52
Dyck 2010: 4 places the date of the trial in early 80 bc. At that time, Sulla was consul together with
Metellus Pius. Whether Sulla still held office as dictator in early 80 bc is a matter of debate. Appian
first line of argument addressed the injustice committed by certain indivi-
duals towards his client, Sextus Roscius, who had first lost his father at the
hands of his relatives, had then been deprived of his inheritance when his
father was proscribed and finally had been falsely accused of parricide.
When pursuing this line of argument, Cicero attacks Sulla’s partisan
Chrysogonus and the treacherous relatives of Sextus Roscius, as well as
the prosecutor Erucius.53 He even declares that Sulla had been too busy as
head of the res publica to recognise the wicked deeds of his follower
Chrysogonus:
huc accedit, quod, quamuis ille felix sit, sicut est, tamen in tanta felicitate
nemo potest esse, in magna familia qui neminem neque seruum neque
libertum improbum habeat.54 (Cic. Rosc. Am. 22)
Of equal importance for Cicero’s strategy to win over the judges was
a second line of argument addressing the devastating effects of the
proscriptions for Roman society at large. Without mentioning Sulla, he
argues that continuing the arbitrary extension of the proscription lists
will further deteriorate the well-being of the Roman people and will
finally destroy social cohesion.55 In the last section of the speech,
Cicero appeals to the judges to banish the cruelty against Roman citizens
from the res publica.56
When Cicero illustrated the consequences of the proscriptions for
Roman society, he provoked the question of who was ultimately respon-
sible for the plight of the Republic. The answer is, of course, always the
same: Sulla. However, it is never expressed directly. The following passage
illustrates how brilliantly Cicero used the two lines of argument to make
his point:
te pugna Cannensis accusatorem sat bonum fecit. multos caesos non ad
Trasumennum lacum, sed ad Seruilium uidimus.
quis ibi non est uulneratus ferro Phrygio?
non necesse est omnes commemorare Curtios, Marios, denique
Memmios, quos iam aetas a proeliis auocabat, postremo Priamum ipsum
senem, Antistium, quem non modo aetas, sed etiam leges pugnare
emphasises that Sulla was the most powerful man in Rome even after having resigned from the
dictatorship (App. B Civ. 104).
53
Santangelo 2007: 83 argues that Cicero tried to downplay Sulla’s responsibility for the proscriptions
by blaming Chrysogonus. He overlooks Cicero’s indirect criticism of Sulla.
54
‘Moreover, may he be as fortunate as he really is: despite his good fortune, nobody can be so
fortunate as not to have a deceitful slave or freedman in a large following.’
55
See Hinard 1990 for the disruptive consequences of Sulla’s proscriptions for Roman families.
56
Cic. Rosc. Am. 154.
prohibebant. iam quos nemo propter ignobilitatem nominat, sescenti sunt,
qui inter sicarios et de ueneficiis accusabant.57 (Cic. Rosc. Am. 89–90)
Cicero carefully entwines the two perspectives of the individual and of
Roman society at large. He takes the individual point of view when he
addresses Roscius’ prosecutor Erucius and names victims of the pro-
scriptions: Curtius, Marius, Memmius and Antistius.58 When Cicero
alludes to the countless heads of the proscribed presented to Sulla at the
Servilian Basin and the hundreds of Romans who fell victim to the
proscriptions because they had formerly acted as prosecutors in court,
he argues from the point of view of Roman society at large. What is
more, by taking the worst defeats of the Roman past, the Battle of
Cannae and the Battle of Lake Trasimenus, and relating them to the
Civil War and the proscriptions, Cicero associates the winner of the
Civil War and the instigator of the proscriptions with Hannibal.59
At first sight, the orator leaves it to the imagination of his audience to
take this allusion a step further, but the conclusion is inevitable: Sulla
Felix dictator is the arch enemy of Roman society, the worst threat to the
public good.60 With the rhetorical question, quis ibi non est uulneratus
ferro Phrygio? (who was not injured there by Phrygian steel?), Cicero
addressed how many Romans had lost family members, relatives or
friends after Sulla had turned Phrygian steel from the Mithridatic War
against his fellow citizens. The dramatic diminution of the number of
Roman citizens due to Sulla’s Civil War and his acts of vengeance
constituted a major offence against the Roman notion of felicitas and
its relation to the common good. Sulla Felix’s decision not to have
57
‘You [Erucius] became an acceptable prosecutor as a result of the battle of Cannae. Our eyes have
seen many who have perished, not near Lake Trasimenus, but at the Servilian Basin. “Who was not
injured there by Phrygian steel?” We do not need to name men like Curtius, Marius and finally
Memmius, who already no longer engaged in battle because of their age; last to mention, their old
Priam, Antistius; not only his age, but also laws, prohibited him from fighting; then, a large number
of prosecutors in cases of murder and poisoning, who are never mentioned because nobody knows
their names.’
58
For the translation of the generalising plural Curtios, Marios, denique Memmios (‘men like Curtius,
Marius, Memmius’), see Dyck 2010: 155. Cf. Hinard 1985: 347–8 (Curtius), 371–2 (Memmius), 375–7
(Marius) and 330–1 (Antistius), who discusses said victims of Sulla’s proscriptions in more detail.
59
For the way in which Cicero associated the battle of Lake Trasimenus with the Servilian Basin, see
Cic. Rosc. Am. 89. Cf. Diehl 1988: 92; Stinger 1993: 36; Bücher 2006: 272; van der Blom 2010: 114.
60
Dyck 2010: 154–7 convincingly points out that Cicero alludes to the proscriptions by mentioning
the Servilian Basin in Rosc. Am. 89. However, Dyck does not consider the perspective of Roman
society. When mentioning the battles of Cannae and Lake Trasimenus, Cicero argues on the
‘collective’ level; his succinct words express severe criticism of Sulla, the man responsible for Civil
War and proscriptions. Thus, I dispute Dyck’s position that the full passage Cic. Rosc. Am. 89–91
clearly exculpates Sulla. Cf. Dyck 2010: 154.
a census carried out in 81 or 80 bc may therefore have been far from
a coincidence. The substantial decrease in the Roman population since
the previous census of 86 and 85 bc would have been all too obvious.61
The Essence of Felicitas: Cicero’s Speech on the Manilian Law

In 66 bc, Cicero addressed the Romans in an assembly of the people to
speak in favour of Pompey’s command against King Mithridates.62 In this
speech, the orator included a remarkable passage on the general nature of
felicitas that I shall paraphrase and analyse in the following. According to
Cicero, good fortune is a favour from the gods that no man may ascribe to
himself. To refer to the felicitas of a specific person without exercising strict
moderation, or to take the divine gift for granted, would provoke the anger
of the gods.63 Hence, even if military success indicated that the favour of
the gods had rested with a general such as Pompey in the past, the Romans
could only cautiously hope, but never expect with certainty, that the gods
would bestow felicitas again.64 The Romans should wish that the immortal
gods granted Pompey felicitas as a permanent gift, for the sake of the public
good, the state and the general himself (cum communis salutis atque imperii,
tum ipsius hominis causa).65 Pompey had accomplished his earlier achieve-
ments with the favour of the gods and to the benefit of the Roman state
(cum salute rei publicae). Cicero ends this passage by concluding that
assigning the command to Pompey would therefore prove advantageous
to the Roman people.66
When Cicero referred the Roman people to Pompey’s military achieve-
ments, this inevitably evoked the memory of Sulla Felix because Pompey
had taken the first steps of his career under Sulla. To draw a clear line of
distinction between Pompey and Sulla, Cicero decided not to mention the
latter’s name when elaborating on the nature of felicitas and Pompey’s good
fortune in particular. Although Cicero avoided Sulla’s name, his words
indirectly, but unmistakably, related to Sulla’s abuse of felicitas. In this
61
For Sulla’s violation of the public good, see also Eckert 2016.
62
The tribune C. Manilius had proposed a law to assign the command in the war against King
Mithridates to Pompey. Thus, this speech is called ‘On the Manilian Law’. The attitude of the
Roman plebs towards Pompey’s command was a favourable one, hence providing a friendly atmo-
sphere for Cicero’s arguments. Cf. Tan 2008: 183; Jehne 2013b: 54.
63
For the view that the gods are perceived as a real power that must not be provoked, see Chapter 9.
64
Cic. Leg. Man. 47–8. 65 Cic. Leg. Man. 48.
66
Cic. Leg. Man. 49–50. Cicero also provides examples of Pompey’s military achievements in Leg.
Man. 30. For the relevance of the public good in Cicero’s speech on the Manilian Law, see Jehne
2013b: 54–5.
respect, Sulla was responsible for three major offences. Firstly, by adopting
the surname Felix, he had ascribed felicitas to himself, although good
fortune was considered a divine favour.67 Secondly, Sulla had expressed
a permanent claim to felicitas by adopting the surname Felix, thus taking
the divine gift for granted. Thirdly, owing to the enormous death toll of the
Civil War and his acts of vengeance, Sulla the Fortunate had violated the
public good of the Romans in an unprecedented way. By being the first
Roman in history to name himself Felix, he had not only failed to show
moderation towards the divine sphere, but he also perverted the idea of
felicitas with its close ties to the well-being of the populus Romanus.
Evoking Memories of Sulla: Caesar’s Auction of Pompey’s Property

Cicero’s Second Philippic, written approximately half a year after Caesar’s
assassination in March 44 bc, illustrates how Sulla’s offences against the
idea of felicitas and the public good had exerted a profound and long-
lasting effect on Roman society.68 In this speech, the famous orator
remembers how Caesar’s self-fashioning took a remarkable turn. From
the beginning of the Civil War in 49 bc until late 47, Caesar distanced
himself from Sulla’s atrocities by pursuing a policy of clemency towards his
enemies.69 After he had defeated Pompey in the battle of Pharsalus
in August 48 bc, Caesar spared the surviving commanders and soldiers of
the enemy forces.70 Pompey fled to Alexandria, where the Egyptians killed
67
Steel 2001: 134–5 elaborates on Sulla’s surname Felix with respect to Cicero’s remark in Pro lege
Manilia that no man should ascribe felicitas to himself. In her discussion of Cic. Leg. Man. 48,
Welch 2008: 194 argues that Cicero presented Pompey’s felicitas as a personal attribute. To the
contrary, Cicero outlines felicitas as being a divine favour.
68
In contrast to the First Philippic, which Cicero delivered in the Roman Senate on 2 September 44 bc,
he never actually delivered the Second Philippic. However, Cicero published it, probably as early as
the end of November 44 bc, when Antonius had left Rome. Cf. Ramsey 2010: 9, 81, 155–9.
69
Caesar openly announced his policy of clemency and distanced himself from Sulla in a letter
addressed to a wider audience in Rome. Cf. Cic. Att. 9.7C (SB 174C: 5 March 49 bc): ‘L. Sulla,
whom I will not imitate. Let this be our new strategy to achieve victory that we arm ourselves with
mercy and gentleness’ (L. Sullam, quem imitaturus non sum. haec noua sit ratio uincendi, ut
misericordia et liberalitate nos muniamus). Caesar rarely refers to clementia in his writings. Instead,
he prefers to speak of his opposition to crudelitas, his misericordia, lenitas or liberalitas. Cf. Griffin
2003: 159–63. However, Caesar appreciated others praising his clementia. See Cic. Att. 9.16.1–2 (SB
185: 26 March 49 bc) and Cic. Marcell. 1, 12. Also, the Civil War narratives Bellum Africanum and
Bellum Alexandrinum written by Caesar’s continuators quite often refer to Caesar’s clementia.
Moreover, in 45 bc, the Senate decreed a temple to Caesar’s clementia. See Plut. Caes. 57.3; App.
B Civ. 2.106; Dio Cass. 44.6.4. A coin issued by P. Sepullius Macer in 44 bc depicts the temple and
bears the legend clementiae caesaris. See RRC 480/21. For Caesar’s clementia, cf. Konstan 2005;
Dowling 2006: 20–8; Braund 2009: 35–6.
70
Caes. B Civ. 3.99; Vell. Pat. 2.52; Plut. Caes. 44–6; Pomp. 68–73.
him shortly before Caesar arrived. Caesar had Pompey’s murderers put to
death and treated Pompey’s comrades with mildness before he returned to
Rome in October 47 bc.71 At first, he seemed to continue his policy of
distancing himself from Sulla by refraining from celebrating a Civil War
triumph for his victory over Pompey at Pharsalus.72 However, he then
made an outrageous move by publicly auctioning Pompey’s property.
In the Second Philippic, Cicero chooses his words carefully when recal-
ling Caesar’s auction: ‘Caesar returned from Alexandria, a fortunate man,
as he considered himself; however, in my opinion, no one can be called
fortunate who brings misfortune upon the Republic’ (Caesar Alexandrea se
recepit, felix, ut sibi quidem uidebatur, mea autem sententia, qui rei publicae
sit infelix, felix esse nemo potest).73 According to Cicero, the Romans made it
unmistakably plain that they would not approve of the auction when
Caesar had the auctioneer’s lance put up in the Forum. Though the
many people attending were struck with fear, they confronted Caesar
with a collective groan of rejection. What is more, both Caesar’s followers
and the crowd refused to bid. Finally, Antonius stepped forward as the sole
bidder and seized Pompey’s goods.74
In his judgement, namely, that someone who brings misfortune upon
the Republic cannot be considered a bearer of felicitas, Cicero addressed
how Caesar had ignored the close ties between felicitas and the public good
of the Romans.75 When Caesar sold Pompey’s property, only thirty-five
years had passed since Sulla had waged a Civil War with an enormous
death toll and auctioned the goods of proscribed Romans as if they were
booty seized in a war against foreign enemies.76 Hence, Caesar’s auction
evoked strong memories of Sulla’s Civil War and the proscriptions among
the Romans present in the Forum. These Romans had either been eye-
witnesses of Sulla’s cruel deeds or were the children, relatives and friends of
eyewitnesses. Moreover, many of them had known Sulla’s victims in
person. With their groan and their refusal to bid, the bystanders of
71
Plut. Caes. 48–51; Pomp. 79–80. See also Ramsey 2010: 253 for Caesar’s return from Egypt to Rome.
72
For Caesar’s decision against a triumph after the battle of Pharsalus, see Dio Cass. 42.18.1.
73
Cic. Phil. 2.64. In his work De officiis written at the end of 44 bc, Cicero openly attacks both Caesar
and Sulla for having waged a civil war and having sold the goods of dead enemies under the ‘blood-
stained spear’ (hastam illam cruentam) of an auctioneer. See Cic. Off. 2.29. Cf. also Cic. Off. 2.27–9
and 2.83. Cf. Dyck 1996: 402–6, 476–7.
74
Cic. Phil. 2.64.
75
A coin issued by the moneyer M. Lollius Pelikanus bears the legend felicitas and is generally
believed to refer to one of Caesar’s victories in the Civil War. Cf. RRC 473/3. According to [Caes.]
B Afr. 83.1, Caesar used felicitas as the watchword in the battle of Thapsus.
76
Cic. Verr. 2.3.81.
Caesar’s auction expressed their indignation that Caesar, just like Sulla,
forced them to witness such an impious spectacle. Caesar, who in his youth
had almost fallen victim to Sulla’s acts of violence and who had claimed
from the onset of the Civil War that he would not imitate Sulla, now
publicly sold the property of his dead Civil War enemy Pompey.77 When
Cicero described Antonius’ bid as a crime committed by ‘an enemy of gods
and men’ (dis hominibusque hostis), his judgement was aimed at both
Antonius as the bidder in this impious auction and Caesar as the one
responsible for the auction and the Civil War.78
In 46 bc, Caesar once more followed in Sulla’s footsteps. He formally
celebrated four triumphs over foreign nations on four consecutive days.79
However, his triumphs over Egypt and Africa were in fact triumphs over
fellow Romans in a Civil War. Like Sulla, who had displayed the gold of
Praeneste in his triumph, thus evoking strong memories of the Civil War of
83–82 bc, Caesar clouded the splendour of his triumph over Africa by
openly presenting the goods of Roman citizens and pictures of his Civil
War enemies who had committed suicide after their defeat. When the
spectators of the African triumph saw the images of Caesar’s opponents,
L. Scipio, Petreius and Cato the Younger, they gave a loud groan despite
their fear.80
Challenging Sulla’s Felicitas during the Roman Empire

The concepts of felicitas and salus rei publicae were deeply rooted in Roman
identity. Hence, they prevailed during the Roman Empire. The first
Emperor Augustus (27 bc–ad 14) established himself as the exclusive bearer
of imperium (the right to command military forces) and auspicium (the
right to perform the ritual of the auspices). Consequently, his successors
77
After Sulla’s victory, Caesar refused to divorce the daughter of Sulla’s enemy Cinna. As a result,
Sulla’s bounty hunters tried to assassinate Caesar. However, Caesar managed to escape. Cf. Vell.
Pat. 2.41.2; Plut. Caes. 1.1–3; Suet. Iul. 1.1–2, 74.1. For Caesar’s distancing of himself from Sulla, see
Cic. Att. 9.7C (SB 174C).
78
Cic. Phil. 2.64. Courrier 2014: 820 discusses Caesar’s auction as depicted in Cic. Phil. 2.64. He
considers Pompey’s high popularity among the Roman people (cf. App. B Civ 2.102) to be the
reason for the crowd’s rejection of Caesar’s auction. However, Courrier neglects the negative
memories that were evoked when Caesar sold Pompey’s goods. Ramsey assumes that Antonius
was the only man in the Forum with the financial means to buy Pompey’s estates and that he may
have expected a discount from Caesar, similar to those Sulla had granted to his partisans. Cf. Ramsey
2004: 163–4, 169; Ramsey 2010: 254–5. Yet, if Antonius remembered Sulla and Sulla’s proscriptions
at Caesar’s auction of Pompey’s goods in 47 bc, why should the other Romans present in the Forum
not remember the months of terror during Sulla’s proscriptions?
79
Livy, Per. 115A; Vell. Pat. 2.56.1–2; Plut. Caes. 55.1–3.; Suet. Iul. 37.1; Dio Cass. 43.19.1–3.
80
App. B Civ. 2.101; Dio Cass. 43.19.2.
maintained close ties with the idea of felicitas and bore a special responsi-
bility to safeguard the public good.81 Sulla Felix’s severe violation of the
salus rei publicae therefore remained highly relevant. During the Late
Republic, mere allusions were sufficient to evoke strong memories of
Sulla’s abuse of felicitas. In the Imperial period, references to Sulla’s
atrocities become more explicit, possibly because eyewitnesses to his
deeds had passed away.82
An illuminating passage from Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Deeds and
Sayings, written during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (ad 14–37),
demonstrates the long-lasting repercussions of Sulla’s offences against the
idea of felicitas. More than a hundred years after Cicero’s defence of Sextus
Roscius, Valerius expressed openly what Cicero had only alluded to in
80 bc: Sulla followed the bad example of the Roman arch-enemy
Hannibal in savouring his victory. He cruelly flooded Rome and every
region of Italy with rivers of citizens’ blood. He ordered mass executions in
the Villa Publica and at Praeneste. He was responsible for the proscription
of political enemies as well as innocent Romans and had the heads of
proscribed men brought before him. Valerius concludes his succinct
description of Sulla’s acts of vengeance with a telling exclamation disputing
Sulla’s claim to be Felix: en quibus actis felicitatis nomen adserendum putauit!
(‘on account of these deeds he deemed it proper to insolently claim the
surname “The Fortunate”!’).83
Seneca the Younger challenged Sulla’s felicitas in a similar way. In his
work, De providentia (‘On Providence’), he considers Sulla’s contemporary
Rutilius Rufus fortunate for having remained in exile so as not to witness
Sulla’s atrocities. Due to the many victims of the massacre in the Villa
Publica and the proscriptions, Seneca disputes Sulla’s claim to be felix.84
In the ad 60s, Seneca the Younger’s nephew Lucan voiced a verdict on
Sulla’s surname Felix that closely echoed Valerius Maximus’ words. After
having enumerated Sulla’s acts of violence in the Villa Publica and at
Praeneste, and having provided cruel details of the proscriptions, Lucan
concludes: hisne salus rerum, felix his Sulla uocari?85 (‘did these deeds entitle
Sulla to be named salus of the State and Felix?’).86
According to Pliny the Elder, who thrived under the reign of Emperor
Vespasian (ad 69–79), Sulla could neither be called a legitimate bearer of
81
Cf. Erkell 1952: 108; Wistrand 1987: 58; Winkler 1995: 36–45.
82
The proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate in 43 bc revived the memories of Sulla’s atrocities.
The triumvirs’ edict shows their futile attempt to distinguish themselves from Sulla Felix. Cf. App.
B Civ. 4.10.
83
Val. Max. 9.2.1. 84 Sen. Prov. 3.7–8. 85 Luc. 2.221. 86 Luc. 2.190–220.
the grass crown nor of the surname Felix, as the death toll from the Civil
War and proscriptions by far surpassed the number of citizens he had saved
at Nola.87 Pliny thereby referred to the notion that felicitas was firmly
rooted in both the agricultural and military spheres, as well as closely tied
to the public good and the growth of the Roman populace. This idea had
been at the heart of Roman society since the early days of the Republic and
remained relevant in the Empire. Sulla’s felicitas was also disputed during
the second and third century ad.88 Without doubt, Sulla had been
a successful general. However, his victories had exacted a high price: the
many lives of his fellow citizens. Consequently, the question arose as to
whether Sulla should be regarded as infelix rather than felix.
87
Plin. HN 22.12–13.
88
Cf. e.g. Ael. F53 Hercher; Ser. Med. 5.58–63: Sylla quoque infelix. Cf. Eckert 2016.
chapter 16
Gaius Verres Troubleshooter

Martin Stone
When questions are asked about the governance of the Roman Empire,
replies will outline an irresistible predatory and rapacious system at work
over many centuries. If more detail is called for, the name of C. Verres,
governor (73–71 bc) and plunderer of Sicily, will soon come up as typical.
But this defeats the purpose of his prosecutor, Cicero, to make him unique.
It is argued here that Verres was neither typical nor unique and that he was
addressing the issues of a point in time, effectively at first but as things
developed less so, and that he fell foul of political enemies who scapegoated
him in their promotion of a more ‘modern’ approach to the Empire.
The most unusual factor in the Verres case is the existence of a body of
material that directly illuminates Roman provincial government and obli-
quely, without the full cooperation of the author, reveals the shape of
a political episode in which Verres is not the only villain.
The five speeches of Cicero’s Second Actio against Gaius Verres are
a work of literature. More than this, they are a work of fiction. This is
not to say an outright lie: they are a purported continuation of
a prosecution that had already succeeded (Cic. Verr. 2.1.1–2).1 Verres had
left Rome and had been convicted in absentia. There was no need to
present the evidence in writing. Oral testimony, assumed to be correct in
the First Actio, had served the purpose. Cicero had outmanoeuvred the
defence team, who, for their part, had planned a tactical deployment
(1.24–37, 53–5). It was not so much a case of what was to be said but
when. The defence was outclassed not by words but by the strategy out-
lined in the First Actio.
And yet words did matter. Many thousands of them are still on record in
the published fictional Second Actio. Cicero needed to show the reading
public that the defendant was irrational and loathsome, guilty beyond the
needs of any conceivable prosecution. And yet the fact was that a large part
1
All references henceforth are to Cic. Verr. unless otherwise stated.
299
300 martin stone
of the political class at Rome, which Cicero was in the process of joining,
wanted Verres acquitted.2 And they wanted this even amidst a political
crisis affecting the future participation of senators in juries trying criminal
cases (2.5.177–8). Drop Verres, said Cicero in the First Actio, or face losing
control of – or even participation in – criminal trials whose defendants,
prosecutors and many witnesses were in the same political class as the
jurors. Now, even after Verres’ conviction and the settlement of the jury
issue, it was still necessary to spend time ‘showing’ that he was a waste of
space.
It was an issue of politics. Two years before, there had been a radical
turnaround when the Senate had angrily deposed the consuls of the year
from the command against the insurgent forces led by Spartacus and
replaced them with Marcus Licinius Crassus in a special command (Plut.
Crass. 10.1). This had worked well, and now Crassus was consul. And yet in
this year 70 bc, the Senate had been purged by censors who were precisely
the consuls deposed in 72. Verres, the governor of Sicily who had coop-
erated so effectively with Crassus to stop Spartacus crossing over to Sicily,
was on trial for extortion – and indeed for everything that he had ever
done. The senators who had promoted Crassus, who had just seen their
fellows purged and who were now at risk of losing their place on the juries,
viewed Verres’ plight with concern and welcomed Q. Hortensius, the
orator and tactician, as their champion. Cicero must defeat not only
Verres on trial but Hortensius, master of the courts.3 And he must ever
so tactfully take on the Senate itself.
Cicero won too soon in August 70 bc to show what he might do in open
court against the full resources of Hortensius’ oratory. Hortensius had been
supreme in the Roman courts hitherto.4 Cicero needed a forum to display
his own superiority as an orator – in vituperation, detailed narrative,
surprise, the whole range and richness of the orator’s paint-box.5 A new
2
Cic. Verr. 2.5.182: hominum nobilium non fere quisquam nostrae industriae fauet; nullis nostris officiis
beniuolentiam illorum adlicere possumus (‘hardly any of the nobles supports our hard work (that is, on
this case); by no performance of our obligations can we win over their goodwill’). These words are
part of a disquisition on the difficulties faced by homines noui in competing with aspirants to office of
consular descent (2.5.177–83). Of course, this is an exaggeration and ignores the role of the Claudii
Marcelli (emphasised by Cicero himself: Div. Caec. 13 etc.). Nevertheless, it would be tactically inept
to repudiate large-scale noble support, if it were there, merely for the sake of a standard complaint
about the ill use of ‘new men’.
3
Cic. Verr. 2.5.175: tulit haec ciuitas . . . regiam istam uestram dominationem in iudiciis et in omni re
publica, tulit (‘this community . . . put up with this kingly power of your group in the courts and in
the totality of public life, put up with it, I say’). Cicero is attacking a regime that he identifies with the
nobilitas, as Sulla who set it up also did.
4
Cic. Brut. 301–3, 317–19. 5 Cic. Brut. 162; Att. 1.14.3–4 (SB 14).
Gaius Verres Troubleshooter 301
master was at work, on which we may refer to the autobiographical sections
of the Brutus (317–30). He needed real amplitude on the details of Verres’
administration, for which Verres was on trial, and false amplitude on his
activities as commander and judge, in which topics the Roman public
would take a keen interest. Integrity was trumped as an issue at Rome by
performance in war, and Verres had a case. For Cicero, success was not
enough: he must not emerge from this as the ruthless oppressor of a fellow
Roman and a fellow senator. Both before and after this episode, Cicero
avoided prosecution cases (2.5.183). Verres must therefore be made unique.
Is anything retrievable of the reality?
Conversations about Verres: Literary Elision

and Historical Suppression
Recent decades have witnessed extensive developments in the study of the
rhetorical culture of ancient Rome. A military aristocracy spent its years at
school learning the rules of oratory. Their speeches and their textbooks
have become our study, and Cicero’s published Verrine speeches bulk large
in every sense. The five books of the Second Actio are an epideixis, displaying
the presence of an art that is still studied by scholars. My purpose here is to
demonstrate a certain absence that amounts to suppression: Cicero has not
wanted his readers to know the mandate from the Senate that Verres
worked with in Sicily, nor his consular aspirations supported by important
friends, nor the detailed military cooperation between Verres and Crassus,
nor the close interest of the consul Pompey the Great in bringing Verres
down (though Cicero does name his collaborators, Pompey’s friends).
These things are not part of Cicero’s epideixis, though they are examples
of his art.
Insistence on noticing only what is on display is a limitation to our
current approach. I bring it up here only in works that are otherwise
exemplary.
1. Ann Vasaly (2009) addresses the historical importance of Verres’ trial
by a new approach that adds to scholarly debate about the political
significance of the trial, with Gruen (1971) and Mitchell (1979: 133–49)
generally downplaying it in response to the interpretations of Stockton
(1973) and Ward (1970). And yet she prefers not to deal with Pompey’s
relevance on principle (‘Pompey’s position is unclear’: 2009: 106),
which takes us away from a piece of history that Badian (1958:
279–84) got right, that is, Pompey’s involvement.
302 martin stone
2. More complex is the issue of Verres’ alleged crimes not falling
straightforwardly under the heading of repetundae (that is, extortion
from the Sicilian allies). The fifth Verrine is full of claims that
Verres injured the civil rights of Roman citizens and was liable to
prosecution for maiestas and perduellio. Cicero actually promises, if
Verres is acquitted of repetundae, to bring such charges (2.1.12–14).
Moreover, the late Walter Spencer has opened our eyes to Cicero’s
use of conspiracy language in the Verrines. Yet he himself notes
Cicero’s failure to specify such a charge: ‘in the Verrines, Cicero
eschews phrases associated with maiestas (“treason”) and uis (“vio-
lence”)’ (2010–11: 125). So his use of ‘conspiracy’ is metaphorical,
and we find suppression in the midst of linguistic superabundance.
Why has Cicero held off? We must give thought to his backers and
their desire not to import the recent state of civil war from Spain
to Italy (Plut. Pomp. 20.4).
3. In a complex and nuanced treatment, Jonathan Prag (2013: 279–80)
links Verres’ patronal claims with the conceptualisation of a koinon
(‘a community’, ‘a province-wide unit’) of Sicily. Prag does not treat
the koinon as an accepted fact, nor does Cicero press it. And yet the
plea in 70 bc by the orator Sosippus of Agrigentum pro tota Sicilia
(‘on behalf of the whole province’) before the consul Pompey in
Rome shows not only joint action by the province but also the
recognition of this by Pompey, though not by his colleague Crassus
(2.3.204). Crassus’ absence cannot be fortuitous: Cicero would not
hesitate to claim his goodwill alongside Pompey’s if goodwill was
what Crassus manifested. It is in Cicero’s interest to stress the unity
of Sicily, and yet, to make Sicily a koinon outright and thus draw
attention to Sthenius’ manoeuvres and the province-wide strike by
the cultivators would embarrass him. Again, we see suppression in
the midst of superabundance.
4. Thomas Frazel (2009: 125–32) is well aware of Hortensius as
a presence in the Verrines and takes into account Hortensius’
own Pro Verre, accepted as authentic by Quintilian (Inst.
10.1.23). We cannot now reconstruct in detail the nature of this
‘conversation’ between the orators; the only certainty is that there
was one. Reconstruction on the basis of allegations is hazardous,
but it will be attempted in this chapter. For inspiration, we should
bear in mind Sean Gurd’s (2010) reconstruction of the documen-
tary record behind the Verrines. Detective work is possible and
called for.
Verres’ Consequence at Rome
Verres was not a nonentity. He was not a nobilis of consular descent, but
his father was a man of substance, perhaps a former praetor, certainly an
active and influential senator (2.2.95–100; 2.4.41), and a standing rebuke
to his son (2.5.136–8), according to Cicero. The son is presented through-
out as a no-hoper. It is a bolt from the blue, therefore, when a slip reveals
him as a prospective candidate for the consulate, with close connections
to a level of society even higher than his father’s: tibi enim consulatus
quaerebatur, Metello paternus honos et auitus neglegebatur? (‘were you after
a consulship and L. Metellus careless of an office held by his father and
grandfather?’ [2.3.43]). Cicero is enticed by this irony into revealing what
it is his policy to conceal elsewhere: his Verres is a political nobody, but
this Verres was a prospective candidate for the consulate of 68 bc. Verres
would be in electoral alliance (coitio) with L. Caecilius Metellus. Another
contemptuous aside – this one is repeated – reveals Verres as a cousin of
L. Metellus, who succeeded Verres in Sicily, and hence cousin of his elder
brother Q. Metellus, already consul designate for 69 bc in August 70, the
dramatic date of the speech, and also cousin of a third
brother, M. Metellus, praetor designate for 69 bc. Q. Metellus is friend
and colleague of Q. Hortensius, also elected consul for 69 bc and leader of
Verres’ defence team. M. Crassus was in office as consul in 70, having
cooperated well with Verres in 72 when Spartacus looked like crossing
over the strait to Sicily, the scene of former slave wars. Crassus’ son was
soon to marry Q. Metellus’ daughter. Were they betrothed at this stage?
Verres was part of what might be termed a Münzerian cluster, driving
Roman political life by personal relationships.6
L. Metellus had already arrived in Sicily in 70 bc when letters were brought
to him by L. Laetilius revealing (or reminding him of) the cognatio (‘blood
relationship’) between Verres and the three brothers and forbidding L.
Metellus to do anything that would damage Verres’ credit. Cicero is scornful
of the cognatio, but the Metelli accepted the relationship: the gratia (‘favour’)
and amicitia (‘friendship’) were to be endorsed by family ties (2.2.64, 2.2.138).
In August 70 bc, some powerful Romans wanted to make Verres consul;
others wanted to eject him from Rome. Cicero himself, having refused the
requests of the Sicilians to prosecute Verres, sending them to Q. Caecilius,
changed face abruptly: he now emerged to challenge publicly Caecilius’ right
to act and was appointed himself to prosecute (Cic. Div. Caec. 4). Asked by
6
Cf. Münzer 1920.
304 martin stone
whom? By many Sicilians, and at Rome by the Claudii Marcelli (Cic. Div.
Caec. 13–14). But were they enough to outweigh the bulk of the senatorial elite?
What was needed was some new factor, one that would trump Hortensius, the
Metelli, the consular C. Curio and many others. Cicero was not seeking
martyrdom.
Verres’ Res Gestae in Sicily

Cicero’s brief was to accumulate and present the claims of a large number
of prosecution witnesses, to provide a dossier of allegations. The court of
repetundae was a court of recovery in which the errors and malfeasances of
Roman officials could be redressed. At the end of the First Actio (56),
Cicero impressively summarised the claim before the court: C. Verres has
committed acts of licence and cruelty against Romans and allies and
impieties against gods and men, but above all he has appropriated contrary
to law 40 million sesterces. Verres could not pay it back and was not asked
to. After the trial, the assessment made with Cicero’s assistance came to
3 million sesterces (Plut. Cic. 8.1). Did the Sicilians show dissatisfaction?
Did they say, ‘What about the other 37 million?’ They accepted the
assessment of damages and rewarded Cicero with voluntary contributions
to his expenses as aedile (Plut. Cic. 8.2). They did not think he was bribed to
go easy on Verres. We should bear this in mind as we read horror after
horror perpetrated by Verres in Sicily. What were the real res gestae of
a man whom some were putting forward as a consular candidate?
In the mid-70s bc, there was outright famine in Rome. Organised piracy
interrupted Mediterranean trade. A slave uprising took large areas of
southern Italy out of the economy and threatened to spread to Sicily.7
As will be shown, Verres was energetic in combating all three. He was
seeking and earning his prospective consulate. Even his fund-raising in
office was more credibly directed towards his political campaign than to his
defence in some trial.
The grain shortage in 75 bc is the occasion of the famous speech
attributed to the consul C. Cotta by Sallust (Hist. 2 F44–8 M). Less well
known is the Senate’s systematic response and its political failure in the
same year (Cic. Verr. 2.3.18–19). The Senate decreed that some taxes
hitherto sold in Sicily under the lex Hieronica (i.e. local practice, possibly
revised by the lex Rupilia of 132 bc) should henceforth be sold in Rome
under arrangements applying in other provinces. Envisaged returns would
7
CAH IX2: 212–14, 221–3, 232.
be higher. The current situation in Sicily was felt to be a sweetheart deal.
The reform was opposed by a single prominent Sicilian who happened
(casu) to be in Rome: Sthenius of Thermae. Sthenius is the key to Cicero’s
prosecution.
Cicero is brazen about him: Siculo uno recusante (‘a single Sicilian
refusing’), that is, refusing to accept the Senate’s decision (2.3.19).
The Senate backed down because a single Sicilian objected. The point is
double edged. Would the next governor also submit to this important
figure or do something? We should see Sicily being run as a cartel that was
tolerated by the Roman government, Marian and Sullan, for the sake of
peace. Its principal, or capo, had been a friend of Marius, from 82 bc
onwards was a friend of Pompey (absent in Spain 76–71 bc) and was clearly
close to the consular senators who backed away from raising Sicilian
contributions – even in a time of famine at Rome – under pressure from
Sthenius. A governor who took on Sthenius in his homeland would make
enemies in Sicily and Rome, as Verres was to do in his assumed role of
troubleshooter.
In the year 75 bc, Verres was elected praetor, served as urban praetor in
74 and went to Sicily pro praetore in 73 (that is, with a praetor’s power).
Verres introduced a tough new regime,8 assessing the farmers’ dues by fiat
and introducing a safeguard of eightfold reparation if the Roman assess-
ment was found to be excessive. There were no cases. Cicero alleges
structural intimidation (2.3.19–26, esp. 2.3.26). Verres’ tithe collector
Q. Apronius went into action, and Cicero acknowledges and deplores his
effectiveness. How could a poor farmer stand up to such a man? (2.3.25–6).
Verres needed to pick a quarrel with Sthenius, escalating his affronts into
a capital charge. Forgery was alleged of official documents (2.2.90).
Sthenius fled to Italy, taking refuge with Pompey’s friends, the consuls of
72 bc, L. Gellius and Cn. Lentulus Clodianus (2.2.83–118, esp. 2.2.95).
The consuls acted, and a decree of the Senate was proposed; Verres’ father
promised his son’s compliance without a decree, and the decree was not
8
Verres acts in Sicily as though a senatus consultum introducing a new system of tax collection in the
province had been sustained, not withdrawn. In this case, Verres’ innovations would have a mandate;
Cicero’s denial is a kind of proof: 2.3.9 ‘You, a man of little sense, without an order from People and
Senate, Sicily as a whole in a state of resistance, entirely abolished the law of Hiero on tax-collection’,
which elaborates an earlier passage (2.3.17). As it is, Verres’ actions appear to represent an interpreta-
tion of the failed decree as an authorisation. The inability to get a senatus consultum passed in favour
of Sthenius in 72 bc by the consuls of that year – before or after the transfer of command against
Spartacus to Crassus? – is telling. At all stages Verres enjoyed a substantial bloc of senatorial approval.
All that Cicero can put up against this fact is that the Senate nearly got annoyed with him. Two
renewals of his tenure put paid to this claim.
306 martin stone
passed, but Verres remained recalcitrant (2.2.92–7). What was done to
him? Verres continued in command in Sicily until 71 bc – his third year.
His immunity suggests that he was doing something right. Cicero must be
exaggerating senatorial disapproval. Verres’ assessment of the Senate’s true
sentiments proved correct.
In 72 bc, Verres cooperated closely with M. Licinius Crassus in his
special command against the insurrectionary slaves led by Spartacus.
Verres secured the loyalty of Messana across the straits from Italy and
disposed his forces to prevent Spartacus from crossing over to Sicily.
The island was historically prone to slave rebellions; the latest one, the
so-called Second Slave War of 104–99 bc, occurred some thirty years
before. Cicero sneers (2.5.1–2) and gives all the credit to Crassus (2.5.5),
but a fragment of Sallust tells the story (Hist. 4 F32 M): C. Verres litora
Italia propinqua firmauit (‘C. Verres strengthened the shores close to
Italy’).
The Impact of Hortensius

It is possible to reach this point without acquiescence in Cicero’s rhetorical
reductionism. There were real events taking place that could be misrepre-
sented but not changed. It is possible to counter-contextualise and present
Verres’ activities as rational, and in part even commendable, a res gestae that
might form ready material for a practised and astute defence counsel. Yet
Hortensius’ defence has been as qualified by Cicero’s presentation as
Verres’ own actions have been. Above all, there is Verres’ withdrawal
into exile, which may, however, have owed as much to new political
developments in 70 bc as to a recognition of his own wickedness. But
the literary circumstances may actually assist our own critique: Hortensius’
defence could be merely suppressed in an invective of which Verres alone
was the object. But if Hortensius himself was a comparable target, he must
appear in the Verrines for refutation, distortion and ridicule. He cannot be
made to disappear, and the Verrines become an unlikely tribute to
Hortensius and the nobilitas (strictly elite individuals of consular descent,
but more broadly those who were on or joined the Sullan side in the Civil
War of the 80s bc), who even in the face of a powerful assault on their
control of the courts thought Verres was still worth defending. Perhaps
Verres’ withdrawal was as much a last service to his loyal friends as Milo’s
nearly twenty years later.9
9
Cf. Asc. 54C, saving them from embarrassment.
Hortensius is referred to in six of the seven Verrine speeches.10 He is
usually named but is sometimes merely alluded to. In the fourth speech of
the Second Actio, he is neither named nor the subject of any unmistakable
allusion. Yet an unspecified aliquis (‘someone’) appears as defender in his
place (or Verres is made to speak for himself). This is the speech De signis
(‘On Works of Art’), and here Hortensius is known to be a personal
beneficiary of Verres’ accumulation of artworks. In the published work,
Cicero is Hortensius’ oratorical rival; he does not intend to start a personal
feud by accusing him directly of complicity in Verres’ illegalities.
An analysis of references to the defence would repay the trouble but cannot
be covered in full in this chapter. It is notable that the future tense is usual
in these passages. I believe that this is technical, because Hortensius never
made reply in a second actio. Hortensius’ own version of his defence speech
Pro Verre probably did not appear until after Cicero’s Second Actio was
published (Quint. Inst. 10.1.23). Reckless assertions by Cicero ought to be
ruled out as a hypothesis because they would be so obviously false and
malicious to a contemporary readership. I conclude that the attributions
represent the real line Hortensius took. As noted earlier, Cicero wished to
refute, not suppress, the rival orator.
Hortensius maintained, firstly, that Verres’ measures alleviated a real
food shortage in Italy, as indicated by the failed attempt at Rome to set
aside the lex Hieronica (temporarily?) and the successful passage of the
lex Terentia Cassia in 73 bc (2.3.163, 173; 2.5.52). If Verres exceeded his
instructions, it was with great benefit to the public. Secondly, Verres’
perquisites as governor were in part illicit. Hortensius acknowledges this
(2.3.209) but argues that they were current practice (2.3.205–8). Cicero’s
rhapsodies about ancient exempla and the contrast with recent governors
of Sicily (2.3.211–20) really show Hortensius carrying his point. Thirdly,
10
It is notable that Cicero refers to men in public life as rarely as possible in this huge and highly
political text, e.g. Pompey, Crassus, L. Cotta, the brothers Metellus; it is otherwise with Hortensius,
who is frequently alluded to, usually by name. He is strategically in control of Verres’ defence (Div.
Caec. 23, 24, 44–6; Verr. 1.18–19, 25, 33, 37, 38). If he wants to delay the trial into 69 bc according to
plan, it means that he also expects to defeat the transfer of the courts to equestrian juries or mixed
panels. Not every exchange can be addressed in the present context. Cicero’s mockery of Hortensius’
demand for a full prosecution speech is not apropos (2.1.24–6); it is reasonable to require the
prosecutor to present more than raw evidence. In rejecting Verres’ defensibility, Cicero mentions, as
being unthinkable, the real line a defence might take: frugalitas, fortitudo, mores commodi, i.e. Verres’
tight administration, military qualities and social ease. In his conclusion of the fifth speech,
addressing Hortensius man to man as ‘Quintus’, Cicero bemoans Hortensius’ membership of
a tight and exclusive cabal to which he does not belong any more than Cicero (2.5.174–6). The close
friendship for which Cicero longs eluded them until Hortensius’ much lamented death in 50 bc
(Cic. Brut. 1–3).
308 martin stone
Verres brought back works of art to assist his friends’ election campaigns
(i.e. those of Q. Metellus and Hortensius and, prospectively, of Verres
himself, perhaps?). The lending and display of works of art for celebra-
tions and dinner parties and elections are interesting features of current
social life.11 Verres had long been climbing the greasy pole by means of
this form of liberality. The commentator known as Pseudo Asconius
(p. 238.7–12St) refers to this in connection with Hortensius’ own (lavish)
aedileship in 75 bc and praetorship in 72, as well as with several
campaigns of Metellan candidates. But, it is said, Verres paid for every-
thing (2.4.8; at 10, Verres’ defender is aliquis [‘someone’]). Cicero
incriminates the records, pointing out the astonishingly small sums
they detail (2.4.12–14).
What could the defence say about Verres that made him more than an
effective governor who deserved acquittal? What could indicate consular
capacity? The fifth speech of the Second Actio is the culmination of Cicero’s
case. Strictly speaking, it is extra causam (‘outside the case’, which is
narrowly extortion) and has wider implications for the Roman People
than the Sicilian prosecution of a repetundae action. Cicero’s services to
the Sicilians are past; his concern for Rome is the future. What did
Hortensius have to say about Verres and Rome?
The opening chapters of the fifth ‘speech’ are impressive. Cicero pro-
claims his helplessness: what is he to do? What line of attack can he take?
Which way shall he turn? Against every assault on the citadel of Verres’
credit the claim to ‘the name of a good commander’ (boni nomen imper-
atoris) stands like a wall (2.5.2, 11). It is a strong point for Hortensius.
Another corrupt governor had rested on this claim and been defended by
the great Marius: M’. Aquillius is brought in by Cicero himself as not
a good parallel (2.5.3–9). Was Verres to get off on the same basis? Cicero
mocks a hypothetical attempt by Verres to share the credit of suppressing
Spartacus with Crassus or Pompey (2.5.5): the preservation of Sicily had
really been Crassus’ work. Verres had, in fact, done well in 72 bc. It is only
by emphasising the disgrace of 71, more recent in public memory, that
Cicero can strip him of the claim to be saviour of Sicily (2.2.154). Cicero
runs Verres’ three years in the province together. His technique is the
reverse of analytical historiography. It is generically drawn on the lines of
invectives as in In Pisonem and the Second Philippic, and it is notable that
L. Piso went on to be censor, Antony the joint ruler of Rome, a (flawed)
11
See e.g. Stein-Hölkeskamp 2005.
hero. Verres was not so lucky. Cicero’s slash-and-burn treatment of com-
peting narratives to his own is in evidence.12
The year 71 bc changed everything. The Sicilian cultivators went on
strike; they abandoned the land (2.3.120–4). Strikes have to be organised,
and we may see Sthenius (the true chief of the koinon) at work from his
secure base in Rome. The incoming governor, L. Metellus, restored the old
lex Hieronica and wrote to tell the Sicilians that he would do this: ‘Please
sow a crop’ (2.3.124). The other event of 71 was a surprise raid on the Great
Harbour of Syracuse by the pirate-chief Heracleo or Pyrganio (Cic. Verr.
2.5, esp. 87–103; Oros. 6.3.5). Verres was caught off-guard and discomfited.
The strike and the raid were not good. Both were rapidly dealt with by his
successor, his friend and acknowledged cousin L. Metellus. The aspiration
to a consulate was already, perhaps, a might-have-been even before the
Marcelli launched their prosecution against the man who wished to replace
them as patrons of Syracuse; under Verres, a new festival, the Verria,
superseded the Marcellia (Cic. Verr. 2.2.51, 154–5; 2.4.151). Verres was
damaged goods by the time it all closed in on him. Yet, Hortensius and
‘Team nobilitas’ – for this is what the winning side in the Civil War called
themselves and in fact were (Cic. Rosc. Am. passim) – did not drop him.
Cicero never refers to such a development in the Verrines. Hortensius’ Pro
Verre seals the case for the loyalty of Verres’ friends.
Victim and Symbol

The consuls of 70 bc, Cn. Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus,
could not help but be concerned with the issue of Verres’ government of
Sicily. We know they disagreed on everything after they jointly restored the
traditional powers of the tribunate of the plebs (Sallust Hist. 4 F48, 51 M;
Plut. Crass. 12.2). Crassus had worked well with Verres in the slave
insurrection; he was soon to unite his son in marriage with the daughter
of Q. Metellus, consul designate for 69 bc and Verres’ newly discovered
cousin; the same factor would tend to bring Crassus in behind
a prospective coitio (‘electoral combination’) of L. Metellus and Verres
for the consulate of 68. The sudden progress of Crassus’ career, initiated by
the Senate in 72 bc with a special command and a huge army, would make
him unlikely to support the expulsion of sixty-four senators in the censors’
purge of 70 bc (Livy, Per. 98). After all, these censors had been the consuls
12
On the Second Philippic, note my own retrieval of Antony’s case for himself in terms of the cardinal
virtues (Stone 2008).
310 martin stone
demobilised by the Senate in 72 bc in favour of Crassus;13 those expelled in
70 might well include some of Crassus’ closest supporters.14 At this time,
Crassus could have no interest in promoting the replacement of senators by
equites Romani (non-political gentry enrolled in the cavalry) on the juries of
the criminal courts. He may well, however, have brokered the compromise
solution expressed in the lex Aurelia at the end of 70 bc.15 With a dramatic
date of August 70, however, total replacement of senators by equites was the
menacing prospect in Cicero’s speech (2.3.223, 5.177).
The destruction of Verres could be no part of Crassus’ rational agenda.
Both were also close friends of the future praetor (at the latest in 68 bc)
L. Sergius Catilina (Plut. Cic. 15.5; Asc. 87 C). When Verres returned to
Rome, he found many houses open to him, where he was admitted extra
ordinem (‘ahead of his place’) as a lively (mores commodi) guest of the
owners and welcome visitor to the household staff (2.3.8). I suggest that
Crassus’ house would be visited as often as those of his known friends
Hortensius and Catiline. A bright future was in prospect for this nexus of
familiares, cognati and adfines (‘friends, relatives and in-laws’). Its fruition
was to be blocked on several occasions by Cicero. Why would he want to
do this? He had already sensibly turned the Sicilians down, yet switched to
support them against the resources of what he could represent in
a published work as an all but united nobilitas. And he nailed his colours
to the mast: the publication of the Verrines makes his intervention much
more than a tactical blip.
In 71 bc, Pompey the Great returned to Rome from Spain, having
pardoned Sertoriani (rebels supporting Sertorius in Spain) and destroyed
incriminating letters from secret Marians. He was no longer the
13
Livy, Per. 96; Plut. Crass. 9.7–10.1; Cat. Min. 8.1–2.
14
We should note P. Lentulus Sura, consul of 71 bc (Plut. Cic. 17.1), and C. Antonius, to be consul in
63 (Asc. 84C), both also friends of Catiline. In 73 bc, Crassus and Catiline had been charged with
incestum with vestal virgins.
15
The whole career of Crassus has been historically deformed by the notion that he was a spokesman
for ‘business interests’, conveniently gathered under the label equites. For a finer touch on this issue,
see Syme 1986: 271–2 and Gruen 1977. For them, Crassus should be seen as a conservative statesman,
more flexible than his peers in general, though, I will suggest, not more so than Hortensius.
The marriage between the youthful Marcus junior and the daughter of Q. Metellus, consul in
69 bc (the future ‘Creticus’), should be delayed into the middle 60s, but not too long for their son to
be consul in 30 bc at a credible age for the office. In expectation of the future Creticus’ absence for
several years in the East, the fathers of the young couple may well have arranged matters in 70–69 bc,
perhaps immediately after Crassus’ quarrel with Pompey. Metellus had also had to wait for his
consulate (praetor 74 bc): he won it now, while his future ‘in-law’ was consul. Once reform of the
jury panels was inescapable, it was in Crassus’ interest to make it as moderate as he could and as little
as possible an expression of Pompey’s grand design (Sall. Hist. 4 F51M). The senators kept their place
on the juries but were reduced in number.
adulescentulus carnifex (‘teenage butcher’)16 but the statesman-like peace-
maker, already the ‘healer’. Pompey’s promise to restore the pre-Sullan
tribunicia potestas and to do something about the corrupt jury courts is
famous (Cic. Verr. 1.45). Less well known is the visit to Rome later in 70 bc
of the great orator Sosippus of Agrigentum, who spoke publicly before the
consul Pompey, not Crassus, about the plight of the cultivators of the
economic unity constituted by Sicily (2.3.204). That Pompey was vitally
concerned for the government of the Empire’s provinces emerges clearly.
His disinterest in Verres, maintained by some, is a non-starter.
The symbolic destruction of Verres is inseparable from his healing
programme.17
Verres himself had already picked a quarrel with Pompey. It is char-
acteristic of his audacity that he should execute beneficiaries of Pompey’s
clemency who fell into his hands (2.5.152–3). Even earlier in 72 bc he had
taken on Pompey when he targeted Sthenius, rightly identifying him as his
chief opponent in improving tax returns from Sicily (2.2.83–115). Pompey’s
personal prestige required revenge on the inimicus of his amicus (‘enemy of
his friend’): Verres must pay. The installation of a workable prosecution,
however, required someone who could be put up against Hortensius.
Cicero had refused to act and connived at a collusive prosecution by
a nonentity (Cic. Div. Caec. 4). Now he was induced to be the requisite
prosecutor and turn his intervention into a published manifesto.
The names of some of the prosecution witnesses and those who helped
Cicero gather evidence in defiance of L. Metellus and his collaborators tell
the story: those Sicilian Greeks who bore ‘Pompeius’ in their names (see
below) may now be added to Sthenius of Thermae to reveal the hand of
Pompey; his studied self-restraint belied the truth. Pompey must avoid
another undignified wrangle with Crassus in public at all costs. As far as he
could, Cicero kept them both out of it, but not quite!
I contend that both Pompey and Crassus were well and truly in it.
Pompey’s alleged indifference to the jury court reform needs to be
addressed. Cicero’s reference back to Pompey’s enthusiasm for the measure
as consul designate a year later, with the end of Pompey’s consulate now in
sight, hardly makes sense if Pompey had lost interest or never really cared.
In and after August 70 bc it would be tactless to remind hearers and readers
that Pompey had ever made an issue of it. What would be the point of
16
Val. Max. 6.2.8.
17
This passage has been little noticed. It attests a formal dialogue between parts of the Empire and
Rome that goes beyond private complaints and prosecutions and attains the level of theatre.
Pompey’s presence and Crassus’ absence are, as suggested earlier, food for thought.
312 martin stone
blundering into this territory and possibly even antagonising the great
man? In fact, we should assume that Pompey did care, were it not for
a single word in Plutarch’s Life of Pompey.
At Plutarch, Pomp. 22.3, we read: ‘In the Senate Crassus was more
influential, but among the people the power of Pompey was great. For he
restored the tribunate to it and allowed [perieiden] the courts to be transferred
again to the equites by a law. He himself provided a very sweet spectacle to
the people in requesting discharge from military service.’ On my reading,
Pompey did not allow or tolerate the transfer of the courts in the sense that
he would rather not have done so, but in contrast with a law on the tribunate
passed under his own name and a personal request for discharge from the army,
he merely supported the lex Aurelia passed in the name of the praetor
L. Cotta. All three of these items reveal Pompey’s commitment to popular-
ity. Thus, Cicero could, without embarrassment, refer back to Pompey’s
original sponsorship of jury court reform under questioning by a friendly
tribune of 71 bc, M. Lollius Palicanus. Lollius is attested as watering down
the compromise between senators and equites with the insertion of a third
element, the tribuni aerarii (Schol. Gron. p. 328.22–3St.). These would
further limit senatorial presence; they were essentially equites, eiusdem scilicet
ordinis uiri (‘obviously men of the same order’ [Schol. Bob. p. 94.25–6St]).
Plutarch is equally spot on in this passage in referring to Crassus’
senatorial allegiance at that time. A straightforward reading of what he
has to tell us about the consuls and the issue of the courts works better than
subtlety.18 There was in fact a serious struggle over the matter, as the delay,
the complexity of the solution and Cicero’s repeated references to
L. Cotta’s watchful tenacity show.19
The names of Cicero’s assistants in Sicily are worth noticing; he certainly
thought so. Of great service to Cicero as hosts and protectors were
Pompey’s clients at Messana, where the city’s links to Verres were strong:
the wealthy and respectable Cn. Pompeius Basiliscus and the Percennii
who had now become Pompeii (2.4.25); Sex. Pompeius Chlorus, advocate
of a victim of Verres (2.2.23, 2.2.102); Cn. Pompeius Theodorus, particu-
larly approved by Pompey the Great (2.2.102); and Cn. Pompeius Philo,
robbed by Verres, thinking himself safe as a Roman citizen (2.4.48). How
18
For a different view, see Gruen 1995: 34: ‘Pompey himself showed no great zeal for the reform . . . the
consul simply avoided standing in Cotta’s way. Nothing attests to any political struggle over the
passage of the measure.’ See also Gruen 1971 for wider contextualisation.
19
Cic. Div. Caec. 8; Verr. 1.38–9, 44–6; 2.2.174 (a nobilissimus (‘a man of the highest nobility’) as radical
reformer); especially 2.3.223 (the praetor Cotta favoured total transfer to equestrian jurors); 2.5.177 (a
text was already promulgated for a law).
many more friends of Pompey, who like Sthenius did not bear the
Pompeian name, were involved in the case?20 Pompey did not mind his
preference being known, that is, his policy of liberalism, but he did not
wish to be divisive. Cicero respected this.
How to Govern an Empire

There was theory as well as practice at work. Thucydides became a model for
orators at Rome (Cic. Opt. gen. 15–16). That the Mytilene debate in Book 3
(Thuc. 36–50) fascinated Romans of this generation can be seen in Sallust’s
pairing of Caesar and Cato (Cat. 50–3), turning the issue inside out. Should
imperial states be run by severity or moderation? This surfaces in the Verrines
with a striking turn of phrase attributed to Hortensius at 2.5.22: dicet rem
publicam administrari sine metu ac seueritate non posse; quaeret quam ob rem
fasces praetoribus praeferantur, cur secures datae, cur carcer aedificatus, cur tot
supplicia sint in improbos more maiorum constituta (‘Hortensius will say that
the State cannot be governed without fear and severity; he will ask why it is
that the fasces are carried before high office-holders, why axes have been
given, why the prison has been built, why so many forms of punishment
have been laid down by ancestral custom for wrongdoers’). Empires are not
ruled by kindness – though C. Verres was, his friends maintained, never
cruel. Ancestral harshness is attested towards Rome’s subjects in Crassus,
Crassus’ adfinis Q. Metellus Creticus (in direct opposition to Pompey),
Crassus’ friend Catiline and Catiline’s familiarissimus (‘close friend’)
Verres.21 Mildness towards provincials is championed by such different
figures as Pompey and Lucullus, both in contrast to their master, Sulla.
Pompey the Great was soon to parade himself as benefactor of defeated
pirates, as well as the cities and peoples of the East, in deference to the
humanitarianism of the Stoic philosopher and historian Posidonius of
Rhodes (Plut. Pomp. 42.5). At the initiation of this policy in 71–70 bc,
Verres was selected as the ideal victim. He had taken this risk in principle
when (or before?) he arrived in Sicily as troubleshooter.
20
On this aspect, note Badian 1958: 281–4. On Pompey’s mentalité, see Anderson 1963 and Morrell 2017.
21
Crassus’ crucifixion of 6,000 defeated slaves (App. B Civ. 1.120), Catiline’s ill treatment of the
province of Africa which provoked a senatorial praeiudicium (a preliminary decision in the Senate
that suggested the line a jury might take if a case was brought) (Asc. 85, 86–7, 89C) and Metellus
Creticus’ harshness towards Cretans whom Pompey wished to spare (Plut. Pomp. 29.3–5; Dio Cass.
36.18.1–19) arouse consideration of Roman imperial policy at this time. Even on Cicero’s showing in
the Fifth Verrine, Verres was comparable with his friends but less extreme. Cicero deals with the
phenomenon by proclaiming his severity tyrannical and his lenience corrupt and by blaming Verres
for the inconsistency!
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Index
Accius, L. Aquillius, M’. (cos. 129 bc), 42

author of fabula praetexta entitled Brutus, Aquillius, M’. (cos. 101 bc), 308
275–6 Arruntius, L. (cos. 22 bc), 82
Aemilius Lepidus, M. (cos. 78 bc), 109 Asconius Pedianus, Q. (Roman historian),
Aemilius Lepidus, M. (triumvir), 168 172, 215
Aemilius Philemon, M. (freedman on assassination of Clodius and its
of M. Lepidus), 121 aftermath, 121
Aemilius Scaurus, M. (pr. 56 bc), 72 on C. Cornelius’ dismissal of contio
Alexander the Great (67 bc), 243
likeness of Pompeius to, 75 on C. Manilius’ occupation of Capitol (67 bc),
Annaeus Florus, L., 59, 196 240–3
Annaeus Lucanus, M. on Cato, 169
on Sulla’s surname Felix, 297 Asinius Pollio, C. (cos. 40 bc), 89
Annaeus Seneca, L. (the Younger) Ateius Capito, C. (tr. pl. 55 bc), 165
on Sulla’s abuse of felicitas, 297 incident concerning falsification of auspices
Annius Luscus, T. (cos. 153 bc) (55 bc), 183–202
attack on Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, 39 political motives, 185
Annius Milo, T. (pr. 55 bc), 306 Atilius Serranus Gavianus, Sex. (tr. pl. 57 bc), 84
murder of Clodius and indictment, 121–2 Augustus, 145, 213, see also ‘Octavian’
trial of, 165–74, 177–8 Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, M.
Antistius Rheginus, C. (legate of Caesar in (emperor, 161–180 ad), 75
Gaul), 81 Aurelius Cotta, L. (cos. 144 bc), 42
Antonius Hybrida, C. (cos. 63 bc), 217 Aurelius Cotta, C. (cos. 75 bc), 304
Antonius, L. (tr. pl. 44 bc), 116 Aurelius Cotta, L. (cos. 65 bc), 312
summoning of contio (May 44 bc), 72 auspicia, augury
Antonius, M. (cos. 99, cens. 97 bc), 27, 217 ‘auspices of departure’, 187–8
Antonius, M. (cos. 44 bc), 93, 115, 116, 201 and the Senate, 54
‘chief mourner’ for Caesar, 255 falsification of the auspices (auspicia ementiri),
and the legio Martia, 89 183–202, 214
Appian of Alexandria, 192, 250 hazards associated with, 185
representation of M. Antonius, 89 obnuntiatio, 188–9, 194, 195–6
source for Ti. Sempronius Gracchus’
speeches, 41 Battakes (Phrygian priest), 112
Appuleius Saturninus, L. (tr. pl. 103, 100 bc), 43, Bocchus, king of Numidia, 74
44–5, 51, 172, 269
maiestas populi Romani, 57 Caecilius Cornutus, C. (pr. 57 bc), 114
popular tribune, 48 Caecilius Metellus Creticus, Q. (cos. 69 bc), 303,
Appuleius, M., 82 309, 313
Appuleius, P. (tr. pl. 43 bc), 115 friend of Verres, 308
Apronius, Q. (official serving under Verres Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, Q. (cos. 143,
in Sicily), 305 cens. 131 bc), 43, 213
345
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346 Index
Caecilius Metellus Nepos, Q. (cos. 57 bc), 74 self-identification as an Epicurean, 156–7
campaign against Cicero, 114 speech to consilium at Antium
Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, Q. (cos. 109, (early June 44 bc), 256, 262
cens. 102 bc), 45 Cassius Longinus, L. (pr. 66 bc), 76
exhortation to return to ‘traditional’ censor, censorship
practice, 98–9 and lectio senatus, 211
Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, entrusted with compiling, 203, 205
Q. (cos. 52 bc), 171 diminishment of role, 216–17
Caecilius Metellus, L. (cos. 251 bc), 208 election of plebeian censor (339 bc), 207
Caecilius Metellus, L. (cos. 68 bc), 303, 309 evolution of role, 217
Caecilius Metellus, M. (pr. 69 bc), 303 census, 203, 217
Caecilius, Q. (potential prosecutor of early link with cura morum, 208
Verres), 303 citizenship, Roman
Caelius Rufus, M. (pr. 48 bc), 80 individual grants, 130–1
opposition to lex Pompeia de ui, 169 principles of, 132–3
supporter of T. Annius Milo, 121 Claudius Caecus, App. (cens. 312, cos. 307,
Caesetius Flavus, L. (tr. pl. 44 bc), 85 296 bc), 208
Calpurnia (daughter of Piso Caesoninus, lectio senatus of 312 bc, 209, 210
wife of Caesar), 150 Claudius Marcellus, M. (cos. 51 bc), 178
Calpurnius Bibulus, M. (cos. 59 bc), 47, 60 Claudius Pulcher, App. (cos. 54, cens. 50 bc), 111,
appearance before contio (57 bc), 111–12 112, 120, 183–202
member of ‘Cato’s circle’, 165 censure of C. Ateius Capito
opposition to triumvirs, 118–19 criticised in Cic. Div. 1.29–30, 199
Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, L. (cos. 58 bc), 72, reasoning for, 199–201
149–51, 198, 239 expulsion of C. Ateius Capito from senate
concern for security, 150 for falsification of auspicia, 214
Epicurean beliefs, 149–51 final Republican lectio senatus (50 bc), 214
and political style, 151 highly respected for augural knowledge, 199
esteemed ancestry, 149–50 Claudius Pulcher, App. (son of praetor of
executor of Caesar’s will, 151 56 bc), 82
oratory Cleopatra, 117
lack of engagement in public oratory, 150 Clodius Pulcher, P. (aed. 56 bc), 48, 51, 111,
only attested contional speech (58 bc), 150 134, 219
relationship with Caesar, 150–1 aftermath of assassination, 121–2, 166
Calpurnius Piso Frugi, L. (cos. 133 bc), 73 assassination, 121
adversary of C. Sempronius Gracchus, 42 habitual use of contiones, 114
Calpurnius Piso, C. (cos. 67 bc), 110, 243 political battle with Cicero, 114, 119–21
Calpurnius Piso, Cn. (cos. 7 bc) coetus, 236–51
supposed cursing of Germanicus, 193 definition of, 236–8
Campus Martius, 70 in Livy, 240
location for census, 286 in writings of M. Tullius Cicero, 238–9
Cannutius, Ti. (tr. pl. 44 bc), 116 label for official gatherings, 238–41
Cassius Dio, 56, 115, 120, 166 pejorative synonym for ‘contio’, 244–5
on C. Ateius Capito, 185, 186, 192 significance of term, 242
on Cicero’s reputation, 111 comitia (formal voting assemblies), 37
Cassius Longinus, C. (cos. desig. 41 bc), ratification of compromises achieved
156–9, 164 at contiones, 38
abandonment of Epicurean principles Comitium, 69
and assassination of Caesar, 159 communication, political
ambition, 159 restrictions on, 38–41
connection with C. Vibius Pansa, 158 consilium, consilia
correspondence with Cicero regarding as a setting for debate and dialogue, 263–4
conversion to Epicureanism, 157–8 at Antium (early June 44 bc)
early career, 156–7 disorder of, 258
pardoned by Caesar, 157 family nature of, 262
Index 347
format of, 256–7, 258 rare intervention of foreigners in, 112
at Rome (25 July 43 bc) under the influence of the Roman elite, 22
flirtation with treason, 260, 262 very rare intervention of women in
definition of, 252 Sempronia (101 bc), 112–13
format of, 261 Cornelius Balbus, L. (cos. suff. 40 bc), 135, 141
presence of women at, 255, 256, 262–3 praefectus fabrum under Caesar in Spain, 138
private and/or domestic, 252–64 Cornelius Chrysogonus, L. (freedman of Sulla),
process whereby opinions could be expressed 140, 291
at, 256 Cornelius Cinna, L. (cos. 87, 86, 85, 84 bc), 51
consul, consulship Cornelius Cinna, L. (cos. suff. 32 bc), 48, 73
and contiones, 108–10 confusion with Helvius Cinna, 84–6
exposure to public ridicule, 24–5 Cornelius Dolabella, P. (cos. 44 bc), 115, 201
in ‘debt’ to the populus, 26–7 Cornelius Epicadus (freedman of Sulla), 140
majesty of, 24 Cornelius Fronto, M. (cos. suff. 142), 75
contio, 15, 72–3, 93, 107–25, 205, 277, 278 Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, Cn. (cos.
‘subversive’ element of, 24 72 bc), 305
and coetus, 236–51 Cornelius Lentulus Lupus, L. (cos. 156, cens.
arena for campaigns advocating restitution 147 bc), 213
of tribunicia potestas, 109–10 Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, P. (cos. 57 bc),
as a mechanism to attack the status quo, 22–3 74, 142
as public spectacle, 21–6 Cornelius Lentulus Sura, P. (cos. 71 bc), 217
audience, 108–9, 272–3 Cornelius Lentulus, P., 43
favourable to triumvirs, 118–19 Cornelius Rufinus, P. (cos. 290, 277 bc)
contio as a ‘legitimising term’, 245–50 expulsion from senate, 211
definition of, 236–8 Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, P. (cos. 147, 134,
effective use of a contio to embarrass cens. 142 bc), 78, 124, 213, 286
consuls, 21–3 appearance at contio, 108–9
failure at, 37 Cornelius Scipio Africanus, P. (cos. 205, 174 bc),
fluid nature of, 37 33, 212
function of, 107 Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, L. (cos. 190 bc), 33
delivery of news of public interest, 37 Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, P. (cos. 138 bc),
hierarchical order of communication at, 38 29, 56, 74
important tool for pursuants of cursus appearance at contio, 108
honorum, 107 claim concerning murder of Gracchi, 43
invitation, see also ‘producere in contionem’ Cornelius Scipio Nasica, P. (cos. 191 bc), 208
means of discrediting adversary, 107, 119 Cornelius Scipio Pomponianus, P. (RE 357), 74
means of gaining popularity, 107 Cornelius Scipio, L. (cos. 259, cens.
medium for reaching social consensus, 39 258 bc), 208
only institutionalised venue by which populus Cornelius Scipio, L. (pr. 174 bc), 213
could be directly addressed, 107 Cornelius Sulla Felix, L. (cos. 88, 80 bc), 11, 83,
oratory 283–98, 313
means of demonstrating leadership ‘arch enemy of Roman society’, 292
and ratifying auctoritas, 122 changes to senate and cursus honorum, 71
successful examples of, 108–9 conflict with C. Marius, 74–5
performance for populus, 124 debate over legacy, 56
physical arrangement of, 111 defeat in praetorship elections, 80
potestas contionandi, 107, 113, 122, 250 failure to limit institutional opportunities
producere in contionem, 107 available to tribunes, 48
almost exclusively used by tribunes, 123 Felix, felicitas
as a means of pressure, 108–13 abuse of, 293-94
in Late Republic (140–40 bc), long lasting repercussions of, 297
evidence of, 125–7 and the salus rei publicae, 285–7
no evidence of refusal to attend, 123–4 in context of a Roman triumph, 286–7
of private persons, 111–12 awarded corona graminea during Social
potential for embarrassment, 108–9, 123 War, 284
348 Index
Cornelius Sulla Felix, L. (cont.) elite, senatorial, 15–19, 29–34
claim to after Sullan reforms, 78–9
disputed by later authors, 296–8 attacks against popular tribunes and
essence of, 293 reformers, 48
first Roman to adopt name Felix, 283 attacks on, 43–4
inner circle, 140 damage to authority, 47–8
lectio senatus of, 215 obstructionism, 48–9
reforms, 71 perception of res publica, 52–3
restrictions on tribunate power, 109 self-interest of, 47–8
violation of the salus rei publicae, 287–90, 294 symbolic response to murder of Gracchi, 43
mass execution of inhabitants of Praeneste, Ennius, Q., 212
289–90 Epidius Marullus, C. (tr. pl. 44 bc), 85
massacre of citizens in Villa Publica, 287–8 Equitius, L.
proscriptions, 288–9 claim to be son of Ti. Sempronius
consequences of, 291–2 Gracchus, 113
Cornelius Tacitus, P. Erucius, C. (prosecutor), 291, 292
Annales, 247 exemplum, exempla, 228, 267–82
contio of Germanicus (ad 14), 244 family
Cornelius, C. (tr. pl. 67 bc) common strategy in forensic oratory,
defended by Cicero, 269–71 267
dismissal of contio, 243 effective means of discrediting
Crinagoras of Mytilene, 143 opponent, 268
cura morum (Republican popularis tradition of, 267
regimen morum), 212, 213, 216, 217
Curiatius, C. (tr. pl. 138 bc), 29, 56, 108 Fabius Buteo, M. (cos. 245 bc)
Curius, Q. lectio senatus of 216 bc, 208
expulsion from senate (70 bc), 217 Fabius Maximus Eburnus, Q. (cos. 116, cens.
108 bc), 214
Demetrius of Gadara, 140 Fabius Pictor, Q.
dignity, 36 first of the annalists, 212
cultural obsession, 20 Fabius Quintilianus, M.
lictors as enforcers of, 26 Institutio Oratoria, 307
state protection of consular, 25 Favonius, M. (aed. 52 bc), 167, 171
Diodoros Pasparos, 130 member of ‘Cato’s circle’, 165
Diodorus Siculus Favorinus (orator), 99
on the Livii Drusi, 272 Flaminius Nepos, C. (cos. 223, 217 bc), 187
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 191, 193, 197 Fonteius, P.
Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cn. (cos. 96 bc) adoption of P. Clodius Pulcher, 112
in Cicero’s exempla, 269–70 Forum Romanum, 69, 71, 101
known for his popularis tribunate, 269 during election campaigns, 76
Domitius Ahenobarbus, L. (cos. 54 bc) freedmen
as quaestor during Manilian episode (67 bc), wealthy descendents of, 23
240–3 Fufius Calenus, Q. (cos. 47 bc), 111
member of ‘Cato’s circle’, 165 Fulvius, L., 213
Domitius Calvinus, Cn. (cos. 53, 40 bc), 154 Furius, P. (tr. pl. 99 bc), 45
Duronius, M. (tr. pl. 97 bc), 45, 204
Gabinius, A. (tr. pl. 139 bc)
elections carried the first ballot law in 139 bc, 23
‘valence issues’, 232 humble origins of, 23
competition in, 17–18 Gabinius, A. (cos. 58 bc), 118, 198
failure in, 17 Gellius Publicola, L. (cos. 72 bc), 305
paucity of formal speeches by electoral Gellius, A., 210
candidates, 222 Noctes Atticae, 98
suspension of, 118 general, generalship
voting, 226–7 representation, 228–30
Index 349
Germanicus Julius Caesar, 193 Julius Caesar, L. (cos. 64 bc), 92
Granius Licinianus, 109 Junius Brutus, L.
as an exemplum gentis, 274–82
Helvius Cinna, C. Junius Brutus Callaicus, D. (cos. 138 bc), 29
mistaken identity, 73, 84–6 appearance at contio, 108
Helvius Mancia Junius Brutus, M. ‘accusator’ (RE 50)
attack on Pompeius, 32, 33, 279 dispute with L. Licinius Crassus, 100–3
Hirtius, A. (cos. 43 bc), 152 Junius Brutus, M. (RE 52), 279–81
Hortensius Hortalus, Q. (cos. 69 bc), 33, 120, Junius Brutus, M. (pr. 44 BC), 167, 171, 281
168, 303 and Pompeius, 281–2
‘master of the courts’, 300 contio following Caesar’s assassination, 59
defence of Verres, 306–9 Pro Milone, 172
Pro Verre, 307 Junius Brutus Albinus, D. (cos. desig. 42 bc), 81, 95
formidable opponent of Cicero
in Verrine case, 300 Laetilius, L., 303
lectio senatus, 203
ideology model for the ciuitas, 211
definition of, 267 of 216 bc, 208–9
ideological discourse of 70 bc, 217–18, 309
family exempla in, 268 legislation, 212, 214
Idomeneus of Lampsacus, 149 and the Senate, 53
ignominia, 215, 216, 220 law of the ten tribunes, 177
imperium, 28–9, 227 leges de prouocatione, 46
indignity, 19–20 leges sumptuariae, 204
ability of populus to inflict, 21 lex Acilia repetundarum against malfeasance
consular exposure to, 25 in public office (123 bc), 215
failure to match ancestral honours, 19 lex Aurelia, 310, 312
failure to win popular votes, 19 lex Clodia, 219
necessity of avoidance of, 20 lex Cornelia de proscriptione, 289
infamia, 215, 216 lex de iure magistratuum, 177, 179
iudicia populi, 215, 216 lex de prouinciis, 179
iudicia publica, 216 lex Gabinia, 47
lex Hieronica, 304, 307, 309
Jugurtha, 74 lex Latina tabulae Bantinae, 216
Julius Caesar, C. (cos. 59 bc), 73, 80, identified with lex Apuleia de
88, 244 maiestate, 216
ability to cultivate loyalty, 162 lex Licinia de sumptu minuendo,
adherent of Epicureanism?, 159–60 45, 204
aftermath of assassination, 115 speech in support of, 99–100
and Epicurean philosophy at Rome, 148, lex Ouinia (plebiscitum Ouinium), the Ovinian
159–64 law, 203, 216
and triumvirate, 118 lex Pompeia de ui, 167, 169, 172, 174
associated himself with legacy lex Rupilia, 304
of C. Marius, 76 lex Terentia Cassia, 307
auction of Pompeius’ property, 294–6 lex Trebonia, 165, 185
autonomy of decision-making, 161 lex Tullia de ambitu, 76, 224
compatibility with Epicurean principles lex Varia de maiestate, 273
and adherents, 162–3 lex Voconia, 212
intimates of, 161–2 Oppian law, 204
patron of Roman Epicureans, 163 libertas, 58–9
summoning of contio (62 bc), 111 and the populus, 58–9
tactical use of friendship, 163 and the Senate, 58
the ‘Kanzlei’ of, 141 Licinius Crassus, L. (cos. 95, cens. 92 bc), 27
unilateral decisions concerning election defence of Cn. Plancus against M. Junius
of magistracies, 153 Brutus (RE 50), 276–8
350 Index
Licinius Crassus, L. (cos. 95, cens. 92 (cont.) Manlius Torquatus, L. (cos. 65 bc), 159
dispute with M. Junius Brutus (RE 50), 100–3 Manlius Torquatus, L. (pr. 49 bc)
speech on court jury composition (106 bc), 27 interlocutor in Cicero’s De finibus, 151
Licinius Crassus, M. (cos. 70, 55, cens. 65 bc), 49, Marcius Philippus, L. (cos. 91 bc), 29, 67
50, 71, 183–202, 218 speech on the res publica, 52
and triumvirate, 118 Marius Gratidianus, M. (praetor, dates
and Verres, 309–13 uncertain)
cooperation with, 303 recognition of, 82–3
ignoring of C. Ateius Capito’s obnuntiatio, 195–9 Marius, C. (cos. 107 bc), 43, 74, 131, 234
special command against Spartacus, 300 attack on nobility, 43
Licinius Geta, C. (cos. 116, cens. 108 bc), 213 military reforms, 44
Licinius Lucullus, L. (cos. 74 bc), 140 reputation, 77
Licinius Macer, C. (tr. pl. 73, pr. 68 bc) Matius, C. (RE 1)
author of historical work, 110 friendship with Caesar, 161–2
Licinius Murena, L. (cos. 62 bc), 33, 235 Memmius, C. (tr. pl. 111, pr. 104 bc), 43, 112
endorsement by a body of citizens, 227 Memmius, C. (pr. 58 bc)
endorsement by his former soldiers, 227–8, 233 and Epicureanism, 153–6
representation as homo nouus, 230 corruption and failed consular campaign,
lictors, 26, 72 154–6
Livius Drusus, M. (cos. 112 bc), 271–4 dedicatee of Lucretius’ De rerum natura,
Livius Drusus, M. (tr. pl. 91 bc), 29, 30, 48, 271–4 153
Livius Salinator, M. (cos. 219, 207, cens. relationship with Caesar, 155–6
204 bc), 215 squabble with Patro concerning house
Livius, T. (author of history of Rome), 29, 212, 215 of Epicurus, 154
coetus in, 240 Minucius Thermus, M. (pr. 81 bc), 130
comparison with contiones, 247–50 Mithres, dioikētēs of King Lysimachus, 149
on the effect of political change upon mos maiorum, 47, 60, 203–21, 267
the Romans, 35 and contiones, 41
source for elections, 222 and mores ciuitatis, 209
Lollius Palicanus, M. (tr. pl. 71, pr. 69 bc), 312 and the Senate, 53
sought consulship of 66 bc, 110 continuity of, 204
Lucceius, L. definition of, 203–4
advisor to Cn. Pompeius Magnus, 137 enforcement of, 210
wealth and political influence, 137 fundamental to notion of optimi, 220–1
Lucilius, C. (satirist), 204 perceived continuity of, 220
Lucretius Carus, T. shared by both patricians and plebeians,
De rerum natura, 92 207
Lucretius Ofella, Q. (prefect) values of, 35–6
publicly executed under Sulla, 289 Munatius Plancus, Cn., 101
lustrum, ritual of purification, 207 defended by L. Crassus, 276
Lutatia, gens Munatius Plancus, T. (tr. pl. 52 bc), 49
reputation, 269 campaign against T. Annius Milo, 121
Lutatius Catulus, Q. (cos. 102 bc), 269 trial of, 173–4
Lutatius Catulus, Q. (cos. 78, cens. 65 bc), 47,
112, 218, 269–71 nobiles, nobilitas
appearance before contio (62 bc), 111 ideology
continuity of mores essential to, 204, 211
Maccius Plautus, T. (playwright), 204 continuity with and glorification of
maiestas, 57–8 aristocratic past, 212
Manilius Cumanus, Q. (tr. pl. 52 bc) criticism of, 204–5
supporter of T. Annius Milo, 121 observation of mos maiorum, 204
Manilius, C. (tr. pl. 66 bc), 245 nota, notati, 217–18
accusations of violence during occupation Numerius Magius, 141
of Capitol (67 bc), 240–4 Numerius Rufus, Q. (tr. pl. 57 bc)
indictment, 110–11 misidentification of, 84
Index 351
Octavian (C. Julius Caesar Octavianus), 72, Plato, 220
116–17, see also ‘Augustus’ Plautius Hypsaeus, P. (RE 23)
and political rivals, 116–17 and Pompeius, 175
condemnation of M. Antonius, 116 Plinius Secundus, C. (the Elder), 74, 210
defection of legio Martia to, 89 Historia Naturalis, 100
oratory on Sulla’s claim to felicitas, 297–8
contional speech against M. Antonius Plutarch, 166, 175, 312
(Nov 44 bc), 116–17 Life of Pompey, 312
contional speech concerning successorship on C. Ateius Capito, 186, 193
to C. Julius Caesar (May 44 bc), 116 on Cato, 179
political obscurity of, 73, 116 on Theophanes, 142
presence in Rome (signficance of), 117 his credibility as a historian, 129
shrewd political operator, 117 source for Ti. Sempronius Gracchus’
Octavius, Cn. (cos. 76 bc), 21 speeches, 41
appearance at contio, 109 political career
Octavius, M. (tr. pl. 133 bc), 39 and physical characteristics, 73–4
Opimius, L. (cos. 121 bc), 43 political participation, 69–87
optimi, optimates figures for, 69–70
application of term by contemporary sources, political system, Roman
36, 62–3 as a mechanism for generating honour
criteria for identification as ‘optimus’, 208–10 and dignity, 20
rhetoric of, 51–4 contact between politicians and citizens, 72
struggle with populares, 214 dissimilarity to modern system, 35
underpinned by observation of the mos popular aspect of, 17
maiorum, 206 requirement to seek legitimacy before the
oratory populus, 117
auctoritas, 108, 109 violence, 49
role of the gods in, 88–104 politician, politicians
use of the gods in, 201 desire and strategies for recognition, 72–8
Ovidius Naso, P., 85 physical representation of, 74–6
Ovinius (tribune), 205 recognition of, 80–3
Pompeius Basiliscus, Cn., 312
Papirius Carbo Arvina, C. (tr. pl. 90 bc), Pompeius Chlorus, Sex., 312
271 Pompeius Festus, Sex. (grammarian)
contio, 271–4 source for the lex Ouinia (Ovinian law), 205–6
Papirius Carbo, C. (tr. pl. 131 or 130, cos. 120 bc), Pompeius Macer, Q. (grandson of Cn. Pompeius
108–9 Theophanes), 144
Pedanius Fuscus Salinator, Cn., 42 Pompeius Magnus, Cn. (cos. 70, 55, 52 bc), 49,
people, the Roman people, populus Romanus, 15, 50, 124, 227, 228
214, 215 ‘teenage butcher’, 32
attacks on political rights of, 48 after defeat at Pharsalus, 142
definition of, 17–18 and felicitas, 293
hostility towards Caesar’s assassins, 255 and triumvirate, 118
liberty of, 26 and Verres, 309–13
maiestas of, 46 appearance before contio (Jan 61 bc), 111
new perception of their own power, 218 assailed by Helvius Mancia, 32
plebs urbana (‘urban plebs’), 35 command of grain supply, 114
political participation, 69–87 indictment of Milo (52 bc), 122
powerful consensus of, 210 inner circle, 139–41
uoluntas, 232, 233 intellectual standing, 130
petitio, 18, 19 production of terracotta statuettes of, 75–6
Philodemus of Gadara, 149 public recognition of, 80–1
philosophy, Epicurean relationship with M. Porcius Cato, 165–80
in Republican politics, 147–64 responsive to criticism, 174–5
352 Index
Pompeius Magnus, Cn. (cont.) Porcius Cato, M. (pr. 54 bc), 33, 47, 49, 72, 76,
speech summarising Pompeius Theophanes’ 165–80, 253
merits, 131–2 ‘Cato’s circle’, 165
third consulship (52 bc), 166 cooperation with Pompeius, 167–8, 173
Pompeius Philo, Cn., 312 opposition to Triumvirate, 165
Pompeius Rufus, Q. (tr. pl. 52 bc) allied with Q. Hortalus Hortensius, 168
campaign against T. Annius Milo, 121 contional speech (59 bc), 118
Pompeius Strabo, Cn. (cos. 89 bc), 74, 131 defence of Milo’s slaves, 122, 170–1
Pompeius Theodorus, Cn., 312 filibuster tactics, 49
Pompeius Theophanes, Cn., 128–46 named Pompeius a dictator, 118
and Sextus Pompeius, 143 unsuccessful consular campaign, 176–7
appointed praefectus fabrum in Pompeius’ verdict (trial of T. Annius Milo), 169–70
army in 49 bc, 138 Posidonius of Rhodes, 313
close personal connection with L. Cornelius Potamon of Mytilene, 143
Balbus, 135 relationship with Caesar and Octavian, 143
confidant of Atticus, 134–5 prosopopoeia, 274, 278, 280
contribution to debate after Pharsalus, 142 prouocatio ad populum, 214
exceptional legal position of, 132 Pseudo Asconius, 308
honoured on monument at Mytilene, 143 Pythodoros of Tralles, 132
in Cicero’s correspondence, 133–4, 143
intermediary political role, 134–5 Quinctius Flamininus, T. (cos. 198, cens.
literary work, 128 189 bc), 212
pardoned by Caesar, 142 Quinctius, L. (tr. pl. 74, pr. 67 bc), 110
persuaded Pompeius to grant Mytilene
immunity, 130 repulsa (electoral defeat), 19
political and historical significance of, 144–6 Rhetorica ad Herennium, 57, 268, 272,
political involvement at Rome, 133 274–81
regarded as local benefactor by Roscius, Sex. (the Younger), 290
Mytileneans, 130 Rostra, 112, 118, 119, 123, 271
Roman citizenship, 130, 144 Rutilius Rufus, P. (cos. 105 bc), 297
senior advisor to Pompeius, 135, 137, 144
unique contribution to Pompeius’ cause, Saepta Iulia, 69
140–1 Sallustius Crispus, C. (tr. pl. 52 bc), 43, 63,
Pompeius, Sex., 82, 117, 143 304, 313
Pomponius (in App. B Civ. 4.45), 82 Bellum Catilinae
Pomponius Atticus, T., 282 account of Catilinarian contio (62 bc),
as interlocutor in Cic. Leg., 220 246–7
interactions with Cn. Pompeius Theophanes, on the political situation at Rome, 51–4
134–5 campaign against T. Annius Milo, 121
relationship with Cicero, 114 expulsion from senate, 214
populares, 45–8, 214, 270 Histories, 21
‘masters of the assemblies’, 49 Oratio Lepidi, 140
‘popular’ exempla, 47 Scipionis, nomen, 72, 78, 208, 209
‘popular’ identity, 46–7 Scribonius Curio, C. (cos. 76 bc), 21, 34,
application of term by contemporary sources, 80, 120
36, 63–7 appearance at contio, 109
political language, 47 Scribonius Curio, C. (pr. 49 bc), 80, 165
rhetoric of, 54–6 opposition to triumvirs, 118
senatorial adversaries, 47–8 Scribonius Libo, L. (cos. 34 bc), 139
Porcius Cato, M. (cos. 195, cens. 184 bc), 31, Sempronia, sister of the Gracchi, 113
212, 213 Sempronii Gracchi, Ti. and C., 16, 41–4, 51, 64,
emphasis on collective achievement 214, 269
of the Roman people, 209 representation as public enemy by senatorial
model censorial speech (184 bc), 212 elite, 43
on the censorial lustration (lustrum), 285 rhetorical eloquence, 41
Index 353
Sempronius Gracchus, C., 41–2, 55, 73 Servilius Rullus, P. (tr. pl. 63 bc), 48, 239, 270, 279
and the mos maiorum agrarian law, 52
deviation of nobilitas from, 41 Servilius Structus Ahala, C., 282
grain bill Servilius Vatia Isauricus, P. (cos. 48 bc), 165
legitimised via appeal to mos Servilius, M. (tr. pl. 44 bc), 115, 116
maiorum, 42 Sicinius (seditionis auctor [Liv. 2.33.2], tr. pl.
necessity of, 42 493 bc), 23
senatorial view of, 42 Sicinius, Cn. (tr. pl. 76 bc), 21–2, 25, 26, 30,
Sempronius Gracchus, Ti. (cos. 177, 163, cens. 32, 109
169 bc), 109 fate of, 34
Sempronius Gracchus, Ti. (tr. pl. 133 bc), 29, Sosippus of Agrigentum, 302, 311
39–41, 113, 172 Spurius Maelius (Roman plebeian), 249
contional address, 39–40 Sthenius of Thermae
desire to differentiate himself from fellow influence of, 305
tribunes, 72 key to Cicero’s prosecution of Verres, 305
proposal for agrarian law, 39–40 Sulpicius Rufus, P. (tr. pl. 88 bc), 269
speeches Sulpicius Rufus, Ser. (cos. 51 bc), 176, 268
emotive substance of, 41 prosecution of L. Licinius Murena, 222–4,
summoning of contiones, 39–40 232–5
senate representation in Cicero’s Pro Murena,
council of the ‘optimi’, 203 230–1
deposition of consuls fighting Spartacus
(72 bc), 300 Tabula Heracleensis, 216
erosion of authority, 49 Tarula (freedman of Sulla), 140
expulsions from, 211–13, 216–17 Terentius Culleo, Q. (trib. 58 bc), 135
lack of records for, 253 Terentius Varro, M.
legitimacy to rule rooted in observance Antiquitates rerum diuinarum, 93
of mores maiorum, 203 Terentius, Ser., 81
members determined by censors on basis Thucydides
of cura morum, 203 model for Roman orators, 313
power to regulate and restrict political Titius, Sex. (tr. pl. 99 bc), 44
communication, 39 tribune of the plebs, tribunate, 28–31, 44–5
prerogative to debate matters first, 39 and contiones, 108–11, 123
purged by censors in 70 bc, 300 as symbolic representatives of the liberty
senatus consultum, 255 of the Roman populus, 26
senatus consultum ultimum, 58, 214 authority to conduct public meetings, 242
Sentius Saturninus Vetulo (in Val. Max. lacking power under Sulla, 21
7.3.9), 82 restoration of traditional powers under
Sergius Catilina, L., 76, 238 Pompeius (70 bc), 110, 311
conspiracy sacrosanctitas of, 39
and contiones, 245–7 use of contio to challenge consuls publically,
friend of Crassus, 310 23–4, 108
Sertorius, Q. (pr. 83 bc), 77 Triumvirate (first)
Servaeus (tr. pl. desig. 50 bc), 80 enemies, 119
Servilia, mother of Brutus, 253 Tullius Cicero, M. (cos. 63 bc), 24, 72, 124, 206,
consilium at Rome (25 July 43 bc) 243, 251
‘her’ consilium, 259, 261–2 account of censure of C. Ateius Capito
address to, 260 (50 bc), 184
debate surrounding motives of, 263 allegations of religious impiety as a political
interruption of Cicero’s speech, 257 tactic, 183
prominent role at consilia, 258, 262–3 and contiones, 113–16
quoted by Cicero, 257 and Plato, 220
representative for Brutus and Cassius, 258 and populares, 47, 86
Servilius Glaucia, C. (pr. 100 bc), 43 the ‘real’ popularis, 66–7
Servilius Globulus, P. (tr. pl. 67 bc), 243 use of term, 61, 63–7
354 Index
Tullius Cicero, M. (cont.) invitation to private consilia, 253
and the Catilinarian conspiracy, 232, 235 legacy, 72
handling of Catilinarian conspirators, 56 memory of citizens’ names, 71
anti-Greek sentiment, 138 on citizenship, 132–3
avoidance of prosecution cases before on his quaestorship in Sicily, 79
Verres, 301 on maiestas, 58
Brutus, 21, 33, 259–61 on political assassinations, 43
autobiographical, 301 on political institutions, 53
narrow focus of, 261 on Pompeius’ third consulship, 166
Catilinariae, 115 on publicity, 72
characterisation of C. Scribonius Curio, 21 on Sulla’s proscriptions, 290–3
close to family of M. Junius Brutus, 260 on the censorship, 219–20
concern regarding changes to mos maiorum, on the mob, 18
35, 204 on the nature of felicitas, 293–4
consilium at Rome (25 July 43 bc), 259–60 on the situation preceding his exile, 135
rhetorical preparation for speeches delivered Orator, 271
at consilia, 261 oratory
consilium in Antium (early June 44 bc), 254–9 use of exempla, 269–71
contional speeches use of homonymity, 270–1
Contra contionem Q. Metelli, 114 Philippics
Post reditum ad Quirites, 115 First Philippic, 282
speech against P. Clodius Pulcher, 114 Second Philippic, 201, 239, 308
summoned to contio over conduct in Fourth Philippic, 91, 95
Manilius affair (66 bc), 110–11 Fifth Philippic, 94
correspondence with Atticus, 118, 119, 252, Sixth Philippic
254–9, 260–1 delivered to contio (Jan 43 bc), 115
criticism of Caesar’s auction of Pompeius’ Tenth Philippic, 97, 282
property, 294–6 delivered to contio (Dec 44 bc), 115
De diuinatione, 189, 190, 199, 200 Eleventh Philippic, 95
on obnuntiationes, 49 Twelfth Philippic, 95
De finibus, 151, 159 Fourteenth Philippic, 89, 96
De lege agraria, 279–80 political battle with Clodius Pulcher, 119–21
De legibus, 219–20, 241 Post reditum in senatu, 114
De officiis, 238 pragmatic interpreter of his time, 220
on the agrarian laws, 59–60 Pro Archia, 131
De optimo genere oratorum, 313 Pro Balbo, 132
De oratore, 32, 100 Pro Caecina, 132
De prouinciis consularibus, 151 Pro Caelio, 102–3, 274
De re publica, 219–20 Claudian exempla, 268
defence of L. Licinius Murena, 33 Pro Cluentio, 218
discrediting of P. Servilius Rullus, 52 Pro Cornelio, 269–70
Diuinatio in Caecilium, 303–4, 311 Pro lege Manilia, 31, 228
In Pisonem, 149–50, 151, 219, 239, 308 Pro Milone, 167, 170–2, 173
source for philosophy and career Pro Murena, 235, 268, 274
of L. Calpurnius Piso, 149 as a source for the rhetoric of Roman
In Verrem elections, 233–5
delicate nature of Verrine prosecution, 300–1 inside view of electoral campaigning, 223
First Verrine representation of generalship, 228–30
success of, 299 rhetorical strategy, 225–6, 232–3
Second Verrine, 47, 299–313 the consular template in, 226–30
as a work of fiction, 299 use of the sermo castrensis, 227–8
purpose of, 299–300 Pro Plancio, 277
suppression in, 302 Pro Quinctio, 279
use of exempla, 307 Pro Rabirio perduellionis, 47
unlikely tribute to nobilitas, 306 Pro Roscio Amerino, 140, 290–3
Index 355
Pro Sestio, 29, 63, 198–9, 219 Verres, C., 83, 299–313
support for invasion of Italy by Brutus, 262 career in Sicily, 304–6
unaware of conspiracy against Caesar, 253, 260 connection with the Metelli brothers, 303
use of term ‘coetus’, 238–9 cooperation with M. Licinius Crassus during
use of term ‘contio’, 245–6 slave revolt of Spartacus, 306
use of the gods in speeches, 88–98 family background of, 303
Tullius Cicero, Q., 30, 31 trial of
as interlocutor in Cic. Div., 196, 199 literary elision and historical suppression
as interlocutor in Cic. Leg., 23, 29, 220 in, 301–2
Pompeius’ interest in, 301
uirtus, 228 summary of claim against, 304
definition of, 209 Vettius, L., 123
denunciation of alleged conspiracy against
Valerius Catullus, C., 85 Pompeius, 119
Valerius Flaccus, L. (cos. 100 bc), 140 Vibius Pansa, C. (cos. 43 bc), 152–3, 158,
Valerius Maximus, 74, 210 163, 164
accounts of contiones, 108–9 ‘nonentity’, 153
on C. Calpurnius Piso’s interaction with ability to exploit personal relationships, 152–3
Roman populus, 110 clemency, 152
on censors (209 bc), 211 Epicurean beliefs, 152–3
on Pompeius, 32–3 focus on security, 152
on Sempronia’s appearance before contio homo nouus, 152
(101 bc), 112–13 relationship with Caesar, 152–3
on Sulla’s abuse of felicitas, 297 tutored in public speaking, 152
Valerius Messalla, M. (cos. 161, cens. 154 bc), 213 Vibullius Rufus, L., 139
Varius Hybrida, Q., 57, 273 appointed praefectus fabrum by Pompeius
Vatinius, P. (tr. pl. 59, cos. 47 bc), 119, 123 in 49 bc, 141
recognisable by facial deformities, 73 captured at Corfinium by Caesar, 141
Velleius Paterculus, M., 166, 172, 186, 191 Vipsanius Agrippa, M. (cos. 37, 28, 27 bc), 145
on Cato, 169 Volusius, M. (aed. pl. 43 bc), 81, 82

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Henriette Van Der Blom, Christa Gray, Catherine Steel - Institutions and Ideology in Republican Rome - Speech, Audience and Decision-Cambridge University Press (2018)

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IN STIT UTION S AND IDEOLOGY I N

This volume brings together a distinguished international group of

henriette van der blom is Lecturer in Ancient History at the

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

List of Contributors page ix

part i modes of political communication 13

part ii political alliances 105

part iii institutions in theory and practice 181

part iv memory and reputation 265

henriette van der blom Lecturer in Ancient History at the

AE (1888–). L’Année épigraphique, Paris.

The Roman Republic, alongside ﬁfth-century Athens, has provided one of

Aristocratic Dignity and Indignity in Republican

Political Communication in the Late Roman

Changes in the Communicative Atmosphere

Political Matters at Stake

136 137 138

Political Participation and the Identiﬁcation

The degree of participation of Roman citizens in politics has been the

Gods, Change and Civic Space in Late Republican

Political Alliances and Rivalries in Contiones

Producere in Contionem as a Means of Pressure

Year Convener Subject

138 C. Curiatius, tr. pl. Both consuls are summoned (producti in

Year Convener Subject

62 C. Iulius Caesar, pr. Caesar summons Q. Lutatius Catulus

Year Convener Subject

52 Munatius Plancus, tr. pl. A freedman of M. Lepidus is brought to the

Theophanes of Mytilene, Cicero and Pompey’s

The Garden and the Forum

Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus

Caius Cassius Longinus

Gaius Iulius Caesar

Cato, Pompey’s Third Consulship and the Politics

In memory of my friend and teacher Martin Stone

Contra Rem Publicam

Falsifying the Auspices in Republican Politics

The purpose of this chapter is to explore what it meant to ‘falsify the

50 bc: Claudius Pulcher

When the Senators Became ‘The Best’

Private Knowledge and Public Image

This chapter explores the intersection between the institutional form of

The Pro Murena’s Mise-en-Scene

Murena and the Consular Template

Sulpicius Rufus: Spin and Flight

Conclusion: The Sound and the Fury

The ‘Wrong’ Meetings?

Literary sources, often inescapably one-sided, can problematise our grasp

quam orationem cum ingressus essem, Cassius interuenit. ego eadem

The much-anticipated new edition of the fragments of the Roman

Like Father, Like Son?

Ideology in the Late Republic has most recently been characterised as ‘a

A Father’s Words, a Son’s Actions: The Livii Drusi

Becoming Brutus: Lucius Junius Brutus as Exemplum Gentis

Good Fortune and the Public Good

In January 81 bc, the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla celebrated

Felicitas and Salus Rei Publicae

Sulla’s Violation of the Salus Rei Publicae

Sulla and the Public Good in Cicero’s Speech for Sextus