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Ushering in a New Republic Theologies of

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Ushering in a New Republic Theologies of Arrival at
Rome in the First Century BCE Trevor S. Luke Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Trevor S. Luke
ISBN(s): 0472052225
Edition: online
File Details: PDF, 4.35 MB
Year: 2014
Language: english
Page xi →

Abbreviations
Abbreviations of Latin authors and their works follow the conventions of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford,
1982), ix–xx. Those of Greek authors and their works follow the conventions of Liddell, Scott, and Jones' A
Greek–English Lexicon (Oxford, 1948), xvi–xxxviii.

The abbreviation of scholarly journals follows the conventions found in L'Année Philologique. Other
abbreviations of modern collections and other works cited in the notes are listed here for your convenience:

BMC Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum. Ed. H. Mattingly. 6 vols. London, 1923–.

BMCR Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Ed. R. Hamilton, J. J. O'Donnell, C. MacKay, and R. Ferri. Bryn Mawr,
1990–.

CAH Cambridge Ancient History. 12 vols. Cambridge, 1923–39. 2nd ed. 1970–.

CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. 2 vols. Berlin, 1863–.

Dittenberger Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. Ed. W. Dittenberger. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1915–24.

FGrH Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Ed. F. Jacoby. 3 vols. Berlin and Leiden, 1923–58.

FUR Forma Urbis Romae. Ed. R. A. Lanciani, L. Salomone, and E. Hoepli. Mediolani, 1893–1901.

ILLRP Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae. Ed. Attilio Degrassi. 2 vols. Florence, 1957–72.

ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. Ed. H. Dessau. 3 vols. Berlin, 1892–1916.

Inscr. Ital. Inscriptiones Italiae. Ed. Atillio Degrassi. Vol. 13. Rome, 1947.

Page xii →

LSJ A Greek–English Lexicon. Ed. H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones. Oxford, 1948.

LTUR Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. Ed. E. M. Steinby. 5 vols. Rome, 1993–2000.

MAR Mapping Augustan Rome. Ed. L. Haselberger, D. Romano, et al. Portsmouth, RI, 2002.

MRR Magistrates of the Roman Republic. By T. Robert S. Broughton. 3 vols. New York, 1951–60.

NTDAR A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. By J. S. Richardson. Baltimore, 1992.

OGIS Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. Ed. W. Dittenberger. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1903–5.

OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary. Ed. P. G. W. Glare. Oxford, 1968–82.

RIC The Roman Imperial Coinage. Ed. C. H. V. Sutherland and R. A. G. Carson. 10 vols. London, 1972.

RIC2 The Roman Imperial Coinage. Ed. J. Kent, P. Bruun, and H. Mattingly et al. Rev. ed. 10 vols. London,
1984–2003.

RRC Roman Republican Coinage. Ed. M. H. Crawford. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1974.

SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Ed. A. Chaniotis, T. Corsten, et al. 45 vols. Amsterdam, 1923–.

Syd. The Coinage of the Roman Republic. Ed. E. A. Sydenham. London, 1952.

TDAR Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. By S. Platner and B. Ashby. London, 1929.
Page 1 →

Introduction
Performance, Political Theology, and Arrival

This monograph explores how some of the principal figures of the Late Republic behaved as religious performers
in their departures from and returns to the city of Rome and how they constructed personal political theologies
around those events. Its central claim is that the religious performances and narratives associated with certain
departures and arrivals contributed to the evolution of the Republic in the period from the Social War to the death
of Augustus. This span of time is often identified as the period in which the Republic ended. The present
examination was inspired by the idea that such junctures of great constitutional change might instead be identified
as the advent of a distinct Republic, hence the title, Ushering in a New Republic.1 New constitutions were not
isolated from the performances and ideological statements that helped bring them into being.2 This monograph
focuses on the latter elements more than on details of law and reform. After interpreting important arrivals and
departures of certain major players of the Late Republic, the discussion concludes by proposing that the
interaction between the Res Gestae, the Forum of Augustus, and Augustus' funeral instantiated a theology of the
Principate that had a substantive impact on the beginning of Tiberius' reign.

The words religion and theology figure prominently in this discussion, so it is necessary to spend a moment at the
outset to define how they will be used. For the purposes of the present discussion of late-republican Rome, Page 2
→ religion is defined as those activities that relate to both individuals' and collectives' interactions with gods,
whether through rituals or in claims of divine manifestations. Roman religion was a complex collection of
phenomena that could be instrumental in organizing opinion and collective action, articulating identity, and
distributing prestige and power.3 Although the present discussion centers on the activities of individuals of the
elite and their impact on the Roman state, the model of Roman religion here adopted is Bendlin's market model.4
According to this model, Rome's religious environment was characterized by a plurality of choices that competed
to attract the devotion, participation, and contributions (stipes) of the city's inhabitants. Some of these choices had
the advantage of hoary tradition and elite support, but this did not prevent new gods, cults, and religious activities
from developing and taking hold.

The great figures of the Late Republic who are the subject of this study were big players in this complex religious
market, and they creatively crafted religious performances and narratives with the aim of competing with other
Roman elites both in establishing and maintaining their own social and political preeminence and also in
addressing the crises of their times. Such religious activities could form a personal political theology. Such a
theology constituted an elite Roman's efforts at rationally arranging and deploying a particular constellation of
religious claims and activities in response both to personal and collective needs of the time and also to the
interests of historical legacy.5 Individual creativity in religious expression had a substantive impact on the shape
of Roman society and politics. Potentially coherent and comprehensive, personal political theologies could
significantly shape the ruling ideology or even effectively constitute such an ideology, at least in Page 3 → part.6
The personal political theology of Augustus, for example, represented a large part of the ruling ideology of the
Julio-Claudian Principate.

A brief overview of the significance of religion both as an elite endeavor and as a means of governing and
preserving the state is provided in this introduction, in order to proffer the existence of a perceived relationship
between religious self-representation, rituals of departure and return, and the welfare of Rome. The balance of the
introduction lays out the basic parameters of the discussion and elucidates the salience of the relationship between
religious thought and performance for understanding how elite Romans negotiated cultural, social, and political
change. This introduction also makes the case for the prominent place of the ceremonies of departure and arrival
in articulating the relationship between the individual Roman magistrate and the city, as well as for the
significance of these processes in reflecting on the constitutional makeup of Rome. The main chapters of this book
then proceed to examine the significant instances of civic arrival and, to a lesser extent, departure and their
representation in the careers of some of the pivotal figures of the Late Republic.
The Elite Roman as Religious Performer
At the end of his life, Rome's first emperor, Augustus, reportedly asked those around him to applaud if they felt he
had played his part well.7 We Page 4 → do not know whether Augustus actually spoke these words, but they
would have been entirely appropriate, since the life of the elite Roman male was a type of performance. One notes
the effort that Cicero and Quintilian put into fashioning and teaching the art of performing through oratory. The
right turn of phrase and the proper gesture were not viewed as ancillary but, instead, as vital to expressing the
inner nobility of the speaker and thus persuading the listener.8 Competency in performance and uprightness in
character went hand in hand. The most persuasive speaker was the vir bonus dicendi peritus, whose inner
character could find optimal expression thanks to the instruction offered by such experts as Quintilian.

Religion was similar to oratory as an area of elite expression in ancient Rome, though the connection between
performance and character therein has elicited less comment. A Roman man's mastery of relations with the gods
was a mark of his suitability to obtain the highest honores (magistracies) in the state.9 In Roman religion, mastery
of divine-human relations was demonstrated through religious expertise and virtue.10 Written religious law and
historical anecdotes (exempla) were available to provide guidance to the elite man seeking such mastery. Ancient
exempla even suggested that incompetence in dealing with divine matters, as in the case of the Alban king
Romulus Silvius or Rome's own Tullus Hostilius, could prove deadly.11 Page 5 → According to legend, both of
these kings botched their ritual interactions with the god Jupiter and were destroyed by lightning. Canny and
competent interactions with the gods led some of Rome's greatest rulers and heroes, men like Numa and Camillus,
to become masters of divine things through founding, embellishing, and preserving religious institutions that
established and maintained peace with the gods (pax deorum) and, therefore, preserved Rome's imperium.12

Despite the fact that some Romans embraced the political philosophy of the Hellenistic period, they never
separated the proper working of the urbs and its empire from the religious activities of the state and the favor of
the gods who were believed to sustain it.13 Indeed, Romans turned to religion to bring about success in their
endeavors, particularly when normal human agency and other tools were perceived to be at their limits.14 The
logic at work in cults associated anciently with technologies seemingly driven by mysterious forces—technologies
such as smelting or seafaring—was also applied to the city, an incredible technological feat in its own right. As
Blakely has argued regarding the cultic aspects of metallurgy, “ritual and symbol bridge social need and practical
action, and thus contribute to the survival of the technology; in the indigenous perspective, they are
inseparable.”15 The welfare and success of something as complex as the ancient city was subject to countless
forces and vicissitudes that human beings sought to master with the assistance of the gods. The ritual and
ceremonial Page 6 → performances through which Romans attempted to do so contributed both to the city's
survival and to its negotiation of the tensions between tradition and change.

Considered crucial to the welfare of the state, religious responsibilities were an indispensable part of the city's
highest political offices.16 Even areas of endeavor usually considered entirely political in nature by modern
students of Roman history were steeped in important religious responsibilities. Pina Polo has shown how Rome's
highest magistracy, the consulship, involved vital religious duties in Rome's ritual and ceremonial cycle, in which
official departures and arrivals featured prominently.17 In other words, the senatorial career was as religious in its
nature as it was civic and martial; ceremonial departures and arrivals were a natural part of its rhythmic
structure—and of the city's rhythmic structure too.

A magistrate's travels, including his departures and arrivals, involved consultations and manifestations of the
divine will. Divine-human communication was, after all, one of the key areas of concern in Roman religion as
practiced by its elite on behalf of the interests of the state (and the elite's own interests also). This took various
forms, including prayer, divination, and epiphanic encounters. The discussion here will focus on that side of the
communication process traditionally attributed to the agency of the gods. Romans were especially dedicated to the
expert cultivation of religious technologies whereby they could accurately interpret messages from the gods and
act on those messages with properly conducted rites. This divinatory system was intended to preserve the pax
deorum and Rome's continued possession of the power to command (imperium).18 The complexity of the Roman
system of rites and divination and the state's reliance on certain Page 7 → boards of experts therein (augurs,
haruspices, quindecemviri), as well as the habit of carefully observing the conduct of rituals to prevent errors that
might offend the gods, demonstrate a devotion to expert administration of technically elaborate religious
processes.19

Epiphanies and wonders represent another form of Roman relations with the divine community.20 Unfortunately,
ritual and ceremonial action have long dominated perceptions of Roman religion, to the near exclusion of
consideration of experiential narratives such as divine epiphanies.21 Roman literature, however, abounds in stories
of miraculous manifestations. A number of these miraculous experiences belong to the stories of the foundations
of various Roman cults. These narratives of wonders may be viewed as belonging to the body of Rome's myths.22
Many of these myths took the form of exempla—anecdotes about ancient Romans that provided a lens through
which Romans could reflect on issues of identity, character, values, and the institutions and constitution of
Rome.23 Numerous exempla show heroic Romans demonstrating uprightness of character and mastery Page 8 →
of divine things in their interaction with the community of the gods—gods who allow these heroes to prevail
against enemies of Rome or to compete with their fellow Romans.

Consider the story of the miracle experienced by Quinta Claudia, a noblewoman despised on account of
accusations of sexual immorality.24 In proof of her virtue, she alone was able to guide the ship bearing the
goddess Cybele, with almost no effort, to the goddess' new seat at Rome. The story of Claudia adorned the history
of the Claudian gens with prestige, but it also reminded Romans of the importance of successful dealings with the
gods in matters concerning the welfare and success of the state as a whole. The Sibylline Books had tied victory in
the war against Hannibal to the Great Mother. Negative exempla of wonders could convey a similar lesson. Tullus
Hostilius botched the ritual to expiate a prodigy of stones raining on the Alban Mount, with the result that the god
sent lightning to kill Hostilius and burn down his palace.25 Failure to expiate the bad omen of raining stones on
the site of the recently conquered Alba Longa would mean a rupture in the pax deorum, perhaps endangering the
city at a time when Rome was vulnerable to attacks from its neighbors.

One figure embodies more than any other the ideal of proper relations with the gods: Rome's second king, Numa
Pompilius. His deftness in divine relations and his piety made him the perfect prototype for the Roman priest-
magistrate.26 As a result, his creative use of religion informed the construction of the personal political theologies
of a number of elite Romans.27 A person of exceeding piety in the private sphere, Numa was elected by the Senate
and acclaimed by the people to serve as Rome's second king and then, upon his arrival at Rome, was inaugurated
as such with the approval of Jupiter.28 As king, he single-handedly established and systematized Page 9 → many
of the city's religious institutions, including colleges of priests, rites and festivals, religious law, and the calendar.
He also interacted with the gods on a personal level in the interests of the state. Different versions of Numa's story
depict him either sleeping with the nymph Egeria to procure instructions for Rome's rites or, in the rationalizing
version, pretending he had received from the nymph ritual procedures that he himself had invented.29 He captured
the gods Picus and Faunus to experience a manifestation of Jupiter and talk with the god.30 In the subsequent
exchange, Numa was able to sidestep the god's apparent demand for human sacrifice through creative
reinterpretation and thus secured from the god a pledge of empire (pignus imperii) in the form of the divinely
crafted shield (ancile) that fell from heaven.31 This portrait of Numa, which has roots at least as deep as the
Middle Republic and continued to develop through the Late Empire, illustrates well the ambiguity regarding the
priority between technological mastery, shamanic ability, and even pious fraud in establishing the state's cultic
apparatus for navigating relations with divine powers.32 The persistence of a portrait of Numa that combines both
artifice and charisma suggests that the Romans held both qualities to be consistent with the behavior of a great
statesman.

While it appears extraordinary, almost to the point of being sui generis, the myth of Numa's personal interaction
with Jupiter bears on the way some Romans conceived of the interactions of their leaders with divine powers. The
myth has its historical counterpart in the religious claims of Scipio Africanus. Indeed, that Numa's popularity was
on the rise following the period when Scipio Africanus was at the peak of his career is probably not coincidental.
During Scipio's bid for the aedileship, rumors spread of Scipio's private Page 10 → conversations with Jupiter in
the Capitoline Temple.33 Later, during his siege on Carthago Nova, Scipio claimed that Neptune had appeared to
him in his dreams to tell him how to cross the city's bay and attack the walls at a place where the defenses were
weak.34 Polybius presented Scipio's dream as canny artifice, reminiscent of Numa's art, crafted to inspire
confidence in his soldiers.35 These aspects of Scipio's biography show how interactions with the gods, even
dubious ones, were deemed worthy material for constructing one's public image. Such interactions worked hand in
hand with technical, cultic competence to establish a reputation for mastery of divine things, for the purposes of
obtaining higher honors and furthering the interests of Rome. Livy, in fact, saw these dubious tales of divine
activity as justified, if not demanded, in certain circumstances.36 A divine aura, even a dubious one, lent great
institutions and achievements the appropriate auctoritas. The applicability of this principle to Augustus' religious
profile could not be clearer.

As the example of Scipio Africanus suggests, the cultivation of a reputation for competence in dealing with the
gods might serve to advance one's political ambitions. In the competitive arena of politics, any attribute that
promised to benefit Rome might help one's prospects for success. Such a reputation might also be cultivated
through the scrupulous observance of cults, the proper and reverent execution of religious responsibilities attached
Page 11 → to magistracies, and membership in a major priestly college.37 In an effective captatio benevolentiae
offered in his prosecution of Verres, Cicero made much of his eagerness to put on the games during his term as
aedile.

Nunc sum designatus aedilis; habeo rationem quid a populo Romano acceperim; mihi ludos
sanctissimos maxima cum cura et caerimonia Cereri Libero Liberaeque faciundos, mihi Floram
matrem populo plebique Romanae ludorum celebritate placandam, mihi ludos antiquissimos qui
primi Romani appellati sunt, cum dignitate maxima et religione Iovi Iunoni Minervaeque esse
faciundos, mihi sacrarum aedium procurationem, mihi totam urbem tuendam esse commissam; ob
earum rerum laborem et sollicitudinem fructus illos datos, antiquiorem in senatu sententiae dicendae
locum, togam praetextam, sellam curulem, ius imaginis ad memoriam posteritatemque prodendae.38

[Now I am aedile designate; I take stock of what I have received from the Roman people: it is my
duty to put on the most sacred games of Ceres, Liber, and Libera, with the greatest care and
reverence; by me Mother Flora must be appeased for the Roman people and plebs through the
celebration of games; by me those most ancient games of Jove, Juno, and Minerva, which were the
first called “Roman,” must be celebrated with the greatest dignity and piety; my duty it is to watch
over the sacred temples of the gods and guard the entire city; in return for my effort and pains in these
duties, the following benefits have been given: a more honorable place for speaking my opinion in the
Senate, the toga praetexta, a curule chair, and, for my legacy and my posterity, the right of exhibiting
my image.]

Page 12 →

Cicero expressed such piety in court because he thought it would be effective. His speech also shows the
connection Romans made between pious action and magisterial honors. According to Cicero's own formulation,
honors carrying real political clout and lasting prestige were due him because he would piously execute the
religious duties with which he had been entrusted.39 Moreover, his acquisition of the ius imaginis points to the
development of his religio-political persona, which belonged in both the private and public spheres and was
potentially subject to state injunction.40 When considering the religious significance of Cicero's ius imaginis, it is
useful to recall the placement of Scipio Africanus' imago in the Capitoline Temple and to consider its role in either
commemorating or inspiring stories of Scipio's intimacy with Jupiter Optimus Maximus.41 As Flower
hypothesizes, the location of Africanus' mask allowed his family to incorporate the Capitoline in its funeral
processions, creating a stunning effect when these processions descended the Capitoline through Africanus'
arch.42
The behaviors of both Cicero and Scipio Africanus, though different, belonged to the practice of establishing
personal political theologies to obtain political advantage, construct a distinctive personal legacy, and promote the
interests of the state.43 Such personal theologies combined both private and civic expressions of religious identity
and were assembled, magpie-like, from family history, ancient exempla, personal omens and epiphanies, ritual
participation, priestly and magisterial ceremonial roles, and relationships to sacred sites and structures. An
individual's unique combination of these and similar elements made his personal theology distinctive in a
competitive Page 13 → field. Elements could be emphasized or elided as needed44—for example, Julius Caesar
could easily emphasize his descent from Iulus of Troy, while Cicero, a new man from Arpinum, would rarely, if
ever, mention his royal Italian ancestry.45 In all of this variety, however, the personal political theologies of the
Late Republic consistently connected self-aggrandizement with the aggrandizement or welfare of the state—a
standard Roman cultural theme.46

Due to modern views about skepticism, belief, and concepts of the self, the complexity and contradictions of the
religious activities and expressions of elite Romans such as Scipio and Cicero have given rise to numerous
questions and uncertainties. The Roman elites' personal political theologies, as conceived for the present
discussion, were not static or even necessarily internally consistent. Such theologies were ever evolving.
Furthermore, since Roman elites were comfortable with the notion of adopting personae suitable for a particular
performative context or genre, one cannot expect complete consistency (or anything close to it) in all religious
expressions and in every performative context or text. This untidy richness has been noted particularly in the
tumultuous life and vast corpus of Cicero.47 Behaviors and statements of the Roman elite shift according to
situation, Page 14 → despite the fact that qualities like constantia were certainly revered. Thus the present
discussion is concerned not with such questions as what Sulla or Octavian “believed,” an issue Feeney has
addressed elsewhere, but with how religious personae were constructed in performance and text to meet the
challenges of the late-republican crisis.48 Because such theological personae evolved, this discussion is historical.
At the same time, this discussion treats the specific events as shaped by a culturally determined narrative arc that
the Romans themselves found “good to think with”—that of departure and arrival.49 These events belonged to the
realm of Roman ceremony and public spectacle, through which Romans took part in the broader ongoing cultural
discourse regarding Roman memory, identity, and the negotiation of power.

Theologies of Arrival, Salvation, and Restoration

The political theologies of the Late Republic spoke to the problems of the day: disorder in Italy, a crumbling
Republic, and foreign threats to Rome's empire. A common theme of the theological arguments the major
historical figures of the Late Republic crafted in text and performance was that of the leader as a divinely
appointed savior of Rome. The ceremonial and theological elements that some of these leaders employed in
crafting their autobiographical narratives prompted this monograph's investigation and inspired its organization.
The memoir of Sulla and the Res Gestae of Augustus share the use of departure and arrival ceremonies as both
programmatic devices and focal points for articulating the distinctive political theologies of each man.

Sulla arguably gave birth to monarchy at Rome when, independent of Page 15 → any external authority and as an
exile and enemy of the state, he portrayed himself to be the embodiment of Republican legitimacy and took it on
himself to march on Rome to restore order.50 In doing so, Sulla became a sovereign, or as Schmitt put it, “he who
decides on the exception,” the exception being “any kind of severe economic or political disturbance that requires
the application of extraordinary measures.”51 Sulla implicitly abdicated this monarchy when his position was
legalized via the dictatorship.52 Still, from the time he was declared a hostis until his dictatorship, he held an
unusual position that demanded an apologetic. He provided one in his autobiography, which offered an argument
of divine legitimization for his actions, or a political theology. In doing so, he set a dangerous precedent.
Subsequent appeals to the chaotic state of the Republic would be used by Cicero, Pompey, Caesar, Antony, and
Augustus to justify the extreme measures they took on behalf of the state, all the while calling into question the
very basis of the Republic and requiring creative religious rhetoric and performances to maintain the credibility of
the idea of the Republic's continuity.

Sulla's theological self-presentation was highly influential on subsequent political theologies, through the
prominent role it allotted to Sulla's departure and arrival and the connection of those events with a divinely
mandated time frame. In the dedication of his autobiography to his friend Lucullus, Sulla described a remarkable
prodigy of fire erupting at Laverna, which haruspices, speaking in a context abounding in signs of a change in
saecula, had said heralded the appearance of a new ruler of the coming age, Page 16 → which Sulla then
interpreted as a sign that he would save Rome.53 According to the Etruscan concept of saecula, each city or
people was allotted a fixed number of saecula (periods identified, by prophecy, as equal to the lifetime of the
longest living person of a generation), after which the city or people would end.54 The haruspices reported this
omen near or during the time of Sulla's departure (profectio) for his command during the Social War. Thus, in his
memoir, Sulla connected his departure for war to a contemporary divine narrative regarding the saecula. Thein has
argued that Sulla's memoir ended with his triumph.55 If this is true, Sulla's memoir, though it encompassed the
bulk of his life, began in the same manner as the opening of a Roman magistrate's campaign, in a profectio, and
ended in a military ceremony of civic entry, the triumph.56

Since the traditional triumphal procession ended at the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, it is possible that Sulla's
memoir ended in front of the charred remains of that edifice, which symbolized, in so many ways, the existence
and security of the city.57 If so, Sulla may have used the destroyed temple to point to the transition from the last
age (saeculum) to a new beginning, thereby connecting the fire that consumed the temple with the Lavernan
prodigy.58 Divine signs and ceremonies potentially served as the bookends Page 17 → of Sulla's heavily
theological account of his life. Blending Etruscan secular doctrine with the magistrate's departure and arrival
appears to have been Sulla's own innovation.59 His theological argument combined the familiar patterns of Roman
government with a larger cosmic framework at a time when Rome's imperial horizons had greatly expanded while
its governmental structures remained fundamentally those of a classical city-state. As a result, whether
intentionally or not, he expanded the possibilities of personal leadership at Rome to include the notion that one
could be not only the savior of Rome but also the savior of the empire and the inaugurator of a new age. Sulla thus
stands at the head of a list of men in the first century BCE—including Pompey, Cicero, Caesar, P. Lentulus Sura,
and Augustus—who either would claim to be or would be considered by others as the “man of the saeculum,” a
savior figure who was appointed by the gods and could bring an end to the great struggles of the age.60

Augustus built on Sulla's theological foundation. In his career retrospective, the Res Gestae, Augustus used his
ceremonial arrivals at Rome to depict his evolution from dynast during civil war to princeps.61 Allusions, in two
successive sections of the document, to Rome's two founding kings, Romulus and Numa, imbued the process with
a certain sense of historical logic. At the outset of his work, Augustus recounted his arrival to free the city from
the domination of a faction using Caesarian and Romulean allusions.62 As Augustus' account progresses, the
character of his arrivals shifts from one of martial celebration to one of cultic foundation, and allusions Page 18 →
to the figure of Numa come to the foreground.63 Not only did Augustus' use of ceremony and exempla in crafting
his own personal career justify his actions through ancient precedents, but, more importantly, his narrative
articulated the emergence of a new, revolutionary Augustan religious order, which was nevertheless built on a
traditional foundation. Like Sulla's narrative, Augustus' account of the ceremonial performance of the Roman elite
man in the Res Gestae becomes the means of re-establishing the state anew at the dawn of a new era.

The choice of Sulla and Augustus to use ceremonies of departure and arrival to express their unique political
theologies was not arbitrary. Centuries of Hellenic cultural tradition regarding remarkable arrivals stood behind
them, informing their choices both directly and indirectly.64 Numerous anecdotes dating as early as Homer attest
to a widespread belief in the power of timely, epiphanic arrivals of individuals or groups at the city as a solution to
stasis.65 Undoubtedly the most famous of these stories was the divinely aided return of Odysseus to Ithaca, which
brought an end to the societal and political chaos reigning in the form of the suitors. Herodotus recounted the story
of Peisistratus' arrival at Athens in the company of Athena in a time when the city was split into three competing
factions.66 For a time, the arrival of Peisistratus in the company of the goddess seemed to resolve the issue, and
Peisistratus was established as the tyrant of the city. Other stories in Greek literature portray the arrival of a priest
or religiously charismatic individual as bringing an end to stasis.67 After Alexander the Page 19 → Great, the
solution to local problems would be the arrival of the king (parousia, epidêmia), who would be looked to as the
benefactor (euergetês) and savior (sotêr) of the polis and would receive divine honors in return.68 In the
Hellenistic period, the epiphanic arrival also pertained to the construction of a great empire. Arrian's account of
the arrival of Alexander the Great at Gordium, wherein Alexander demonstrates his destiny to rule over Asia by
cutting the Gordian knot, shows how the old myths of arrival resolving civic stasis were reworked to lay claim to a
divine sanction for empire.69 Midas had ridden a wagon to Gordium to become its king and thus fulfill an oracle
to end stasis in the city; Alexander cut the knot on the same wagon and thereby signaled that he would rule Asia.

Romans had firsthand experience dealing with stasis in the Greek polis. Roman patrons had intervened in stasis in
Greek poleis through the application of law and Roman authority.70 Some Romans were even greeted as the
divinely appointed savior who would bring an end to the problems of the polis.71 The same concept of the positive
effects of an epiphanic arrival would exert its influence on Latin historiography. In imagining Rome's early
history, Romans inserted the figure of Numa, who combined technical adeptness with shamanic abilities, to
constrain the rabble of Romulus—a group that threatened to fly apart into multiple factions.72 Numa's arrival
resulted in the creation of a religious system that would hold Rome together on an enduring basis. This vision of
Numa's role is especially apparent in Livy's account, in which disputes between rival parties followed the
departure of Romulus as king: patrum interim animos certamen regni ac cupido versabat; necdum ad singulos,
quia nemo magno opere eminebat in novo populo, pervenerat: factionibus inter ordines certabatur (“A desire for
and dispute over kingship was agitating the minds of the senators. It had not yet arisen among individual citizens,
because no one in this young citizenry Page 20 → stood out exceedingly; instead factions among the different
orders of society were vying with each other”).73 The accession of Numa to the throne resolved these disputes.
Plutarch would later marvel at the fact that there had been no factional strife during the reign of Numa.74

One of the practical causes of civil unrest in antiquity was the departure and lengthy absence of a large portion of
the adult male populace for military campaigns. This problem was treated in the nostos tales of the Greek epic
cycle, as in the story of Penelope's suitors disrupting the house of Odysseus during his absence.75 The chaos that
ensued in the absence of the warrior required a type of refoundation of the community upon his return. Tales of
domestic disorder during the campaigning season were also present in the Roman tradition. For example, Sextus
Tarquin's early return from battle to rape Lucretia brought a premature end to the dynasty of the Tarquins.76

Rome's campaigning season shaped its culture of departure and arrival in distinctive ways.77 Consider the ritual
cycle of the consulship. At the beginning of the consular year, the consuls were granted imperium by a lex
curiata.78 The consuls were then inaugurated, took their vows on the Capitoline, and met with the Senate in the
same temple. Humm has remarked on the symbolism of refoundation associated with the inauguration of the
consuls as a kind of renewal of city, or inauguratio urbis, commenting that it is “as if the foundation of the city
was symbolically renewed each time the imperium passed into other hands.”79 In the consuls' first meeting with
the Senate, the great issues of the year were set out and discussed; appropriate provinciae were identified, and
assignments were made by sortition. The Page 21 → consuls then had the duty of expiating the prodigies of the
previous year, officiating at the Feriae Latinae, and perhaps also sacrificing at Lavinium before they left for their
provinciae. As they prepared to leave for their provinciae, they would perhaps take new vows and the auspices,80
they would don the paludamentum, and their lictors would fix the axes on the fasces.81 Upon returning to the city,
the magistrate would change back into the toga, dismiss his lictors, and thus end his command by crossing over
the pomerium.82 If the magistrate sought a triumph, he would linger outside the pomerium until the Senate granted
or refused him the honor.83 If the honor were granted, the triumphator could cross the pomerium with all of the
accoutrements of a magistrate exercising imperium militiae. Only when he mounted the Capitoline at the end of
the triumphal procession would he deliver up his triumphal garb to the god and thus end his command.

The religious significance of this cycle is apparent. Livy was attuned to the fact that the return completed a
process that the departure initiated and that both were part of a religious cycle: consul proficiscens praetorve
paludatis lictoribus in provinciam et ad bellum vota in Capitolio nuncupat: victor perpetrato bello eodem in
Capitolium triumphans ad eosdem deos quibus vota nuncupavit, merita dona portans redit (“The consul or praetor
departing for his province and war, and accompanied by lictors wearing the paludamentum, takes vows on the
Capitoline; after he has finished the same war, the victor returns in a triumphal procession to the Capitoline and
the same gods to whom he made his vows, bearing them the gifts they earned”).84 Even the magistrate who did
not triumph would fulfill his vows at the Capitoline Temple.
The magisterial cycle, with its clear beginnings and endings, also readily lent itself to narrative and was thus easily
relatable to other stories. Roman myths concerning the departure and arrival of great leaders show how Romans
Page 22 → used such narratives to grapple theologically with issues regarding the nature of the city and the
interaction between gods and humans in constructing the urbs, its power, and the power of individuals within it.
One readily notes the miracle-laden stories of foundation and arrival among the stories of Rome's kings, beginning
with Romulus.85 The arrival of one monarch marked the foundation of the city; the departure of another marked
the beginning of the Republic.86 In the latter case, Romans related the myth of Tarquin's departure to the
celebration of Regifugium on February 24, the day after Terminalia.87 Thus an archaic ritual in which the rex
sacrorum fled after sacrificing in the Comitium was related to the mythical event of Tarquin's departure as well as
to the constitutional shift from monarchy to the Republic. None of these relationships likely has a basis in
historical events.88 The connection between the myth, the ritual, and the political transformation from monarchy
to Republic constitutes a political theology in the form of an exemplum. As an exemplum, the story of the flight of
Tarquin cultivated an emotional attachment to a Republic under consuls as a system superior to regnum. The
commemoration of the event in the annual celebration of the Regifugium (as well as numerous other devices)
inculcated an aversion toward reges.

The relationship between departure, entry, and Rome's political constitution is also explored in the exemplum of
Genucius Cipus. This anecdote provides an excellent demonstration of the theological reasoning that might be
established and transmitted through exempla, as Rüpke has elsewhere shown regarding the exemplum of
Horatius.89 When the praetor Genucius Page 23 → Cipus departed for a campaign and went through the Porta
Raudusculana while wearing the paludamentum, horns sprouted from his forehead.90 In Ovid's version, a
haruspex interpreted this sign to indicate that Cipus would become king if he should reenter the city.91 Cipus
instead chose self-exile to prevent the return of monarchy at Rome. In this way, he demonstrated supreme regard
for the Republic. To commemorate his piety and patriotism in perpetuity, his bronze effigies was placed on the
Porta Raudusculana. While the story of Cipus may have earlier origins (specifically, the promotion of the gens
Genucia, a plebeian clan of Etruscan origins, in the fourth century BCE), the extant versions date to the Early
Empire and demonstrate the story's applicability to interlocking issues regarding the role of magistrates, their
presence and absence from the city, and the constitution of Rome.92

The Cipus story is particularly striking in the way it supports the current challenge to numerous modern
assumptions regarding Roman institutions. First, a close examination of the story reveals the surprising fact that
therein the pomerium does not appear as the boundary traditionally assumed to distinguish the city from its
surroundings. In modern scholarship, the pomerium features prominently in any discussion of the departure and
return of imperium-bearing magistrates and promagistrates. In the Cipus story, the important passageway between
city and territory, ritually speaking, is the porta, not the pomerium.93 Recent discussion of the pomerium and
imperium supports the idea that the pomerium does not represent the stable and clear marker that it was once
assumed to be.94 Of course, given the name Page 24 → of the hero Cipus, which is so close to the word for
boundary stone (cippus), some version of the Genucius Cipus story may have concerned the origins of the
pomerium. In that hypothetical version, perhaps Cipus gave his name to the markers of the boundary he laid to
prevent others from re-entering the city with a regal imperium militiae, as he might have done had the horns not
warned him. In any case, the Cipus story suggests that the will of Fate, the intervention of gods, and human
decisions and actions could all contribute to the definition and identity of the city in its monuments, landscape
features, boundaries, and political constitution. Sulla's extension of the pomerium and Tacitus' claim that this was
the traditional ritual action of those who extended Rome's imperium do not settle the question of its significance.95
The story of Cipus and that of Sulla's extension of the pomerium each represent different data points revealing the
power of performances, as well as of narratives about those performances, in molding, reinterpreting, and
constructing Roman space, power, and landscape.

Recent scholarship has also highlighted the degree to which individual commanders might improvise in a
ceremonial context to construct their own religious statements. Among ceremonies of return, the most obvious
Page 25 → example to cite is the triumph, a topic that has been extensively interrogated in the work of Beard. One
of Beard's most important conclusions is that the modern portrait of the triumph as a static, rule-bound ceremony
is problematic.96 While it would be equally problematic to claim—and Beard does not—that the triumph had no
traditions or boundaries that made it distinctive from other victory celebrations, the history of the triumph
provides plentiful evidence of individual expression in the spectacle, including its religious aspects. During his
celebration of a triumph, Claudius Marcellus, departing from tradition, dedicated the only firmly historical spolia
opima to Jupiter Feretrius. Marcellus' dedication of the spolia opima in the context of his triumph attests to the
legitimizing power of religion in constructing an individualized ceremonial performance.97 When the Senate
refused a triumph for Appius Claudius Pulcher (cos. 143 BCE), he celebrated one at his own expense. His
daughter Claudia, a Vestal priestess, walked by his side up the Capitoline and thus prevented a tribune from
obstructing his procession. The reader is perhaps to understand that the sanctitas of the Vestal trumped the
tribune's sacrosanctitas.98 As in the case of Marcellus, Pulcher's strategic deployment of religious institutions
(even a family member's priestly office) demonstrates the latitude one might exercise in religious expression in
order to bolster one's image and navigate competition.

The choice of patron gods was no less important an element of theological choice than the details of the
performance of ceremonies and rituals. Noteworthy is the relationship between the imperium-bearing magistrate
and Jupiter, since this god was cast as the guarantor of Roman imperium in Roman myth.99 The consul-elect (or
praetor-elect) received imperium with Jupiter's approval, and he would make his vows as commander and
magistrate to Jupiter. He discussed the pressing issues of the day with the Senate in Jupiter's presence on the
Capitoline, and he received his provincial command before the god. The consul was required to officiate at a
banquet of Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount before he could head out for his campaign. When the campaign
was finished, he fulfilled his vows to Jupiter, and if he was both successful and politically fortunate, he might
celebrate a triumphal procession that mounted the Capitoline Hill and there perform Page 26 → sacrifices to
Jupiter costumed in the Jovian fashion (ornatus Iovis). Although the precise meaning of the phrase ornatus Iovis is
unknown, it is clear that some relationship with Jupiter is denoted thereby.100 Even if the magistrate were not
granted a Roman triumph, he might decide to triumph on the Alban Mount, before Jupiter Latiaris.101 Even after a
triumph in monte Albano, the commander would fulfill his vows on the Capitoline, albeit not as a triumphator.

While the primary rituals and ceremonies of the consular cycle revolved around Jupiter, individual consuls and
other bearers of imperium militiae could, of course, invoke, receive, and celebrate the help of other gods.
Commanders often made vows to other deities before they departed for a campaign, or they might make a vow to
a deity while on a campaign. If the god granted his petition during the campaign, the commander was bound by
religious obligation to fulfill that vow upon his return. During the Middle Republic, the fulfillment of such vows
sometimes led to the construction of votive temples, which increasingly crowded the city of Rome as reminders
(monumenta) to the city's inhabitants of the successes and piety of particular commanders, as well as the
beneficence of the gods.102 Interactions with the gods during warfare manifestly and permanently changed the
religious landscape of Rome. The choice of deity contributed to the distinctiveness of the individual commander
and his achievements. One commander might owe his victory to Salus, another to Minerva. Immediate or more
general circumstances in the campaign might drive the decision to seek a particular god's assistance. In the Late
Republic, the personal religious claims of the commander became more consequential, since his army,
increasingly dependent Page 27 → on and thus loyal to him, sought and relied on signs of his divine favor.103
These claims sometimes involved a commander and a particular deity in a special, ongoing relationship that was
not limited to a particular vow or campaign. Victorious arrival at the city was nevertheless a particularly
appropriate time for commemorating the deity to whom the victor owed his success. In the late Hellenistic period,
it was also a time for performing one's own divine identity.104

Structure of the Argument

As the preceding discussion has sought to show, the Romans had a rich repertoire of practices and narratives from
which to draw in constructing their arrivals at Rome in such a way as to maximize the sense that an arrival would
have the greatest positive impact on the city. In the last century of the Republic, when the continued existence of
the city and the Republic was in doubt, the prolonged sense of crisis plaguing Rome presented an unusual
opportunity to the great commanders to represent themselves as city saviors and refounders who, like the founders
of the regal period, partnered with the gods in setting up the city on an enduring basis or even in transforming it
into something markedly new. As already noted at the outset, the personal political theologies that these men
constructed through performance and narrative are the subject of the present monograph. In particular, this
discussion will look at significant arrivals in the careers of Sulla, Pompey, Cicero, Caesar, and Augustus. While it
is true that the personal theologies of other political players (e.g., Sextus Pompey and Antony) played a crucial
role in the events of that time period, a wealth of evidence Page 28 → attests to the efforts of the men discussed in
this book to style themselves as divinely chosen refounders and saviors of the city through their arrivals at Rome.
For these same men, there is also plentiful evidence of what they did to follow through on their promises to reform
or refound Rome after that arrival and, thus, evidence of how their subsequent actions (and, in some cases,
writings) continued to shape perceptions of their arrivals. Particularly in Augustus' career, one sees how a ruler
might continue to revisit his earlier arrivals over the course of his career and reshape them to suit his purposes. As
this monograph will seek to show, Augustus' theological representation of his arrivals in the Res Gestae played a
substantive role in the creation of the Principate.

This monograph is divided into three parts. Part I covers the Sullan Republic. The first chapter looks at Sulla's
self-representation as savior and refounder of the city in response to Marius and to the challenges of the decade of
the eighties. Chapter 2 argues that Pompey and Crassus set out to reform the Sullan constitution, not only to
address continuing problems in Rome, but also to accommodate Italians who had long waited to obtain the
privileges Rome had promised in pursuit of an end to war in Italy. The prominence of Hercules in Pompey and
Crassus' religious activities gave cultic expression to such aims. Chapter 3 examines Cicero's different methods
for theologizing his exile and return to Rome both as a confirmation of a divine mandate for his acts as consul of
63 and also as a divine plan that he serve as censor to save the Republic from its (his) enemies.

Part II covers the period from the fall of the Sullan Republic to the end of the Sicilian War. Chapter 4 argues that
Caesar's ovatio in late January 44 should be interpreted as a response to the challenge to Caesar that Cicero issued
in his Pro Marcello. Cicero argued that Caesar's one purpose was to restore the Republic, but he also seemed to
suggest that doing so would make Caesar's own position obsolete. Caesar answered this challenge by presenting,
in the Feriae Latinae and his ovation, his own vision of a Republic with himself as master of ceremonies. Chapter
5 interprets Octavian's return from the Sicilian War in 36 as his attempt to frame the event as the triumph of
Apollo over Neptune and the end of civil war between Pompeians and Caesarians. The religious honors Octavian
received at the time, which emphasized the commemoration of his victorious return and asserted that he had
replaced Sextus Pompey as champion of the plebs, laid the initial groundwork for the Principate.

Page 29 →

Part III reinterprets Augustus' Res Gestae and its political theology through the lens of arrival practices. Chapter 6
looks at the form and placement of the inscription in comparison with a handful of other documents, including
Pompey's inscription in front of the delubrum Minervae, Caesar's silver tablets, the bronze tablet of Capys, the lost
books of Numa, and the fictional golden stele of Zeus Triphylius. Chapter 7 examines the inscription's use of the
metaphor of arrival to provide a theological rationale for the Principate. While Octavian's early arrivals are
depicted in language reminiscent of Romulus and Caesar, his arrivals after Actium conform to the model of
Numa, Rome's peaceful king. Augustus' itinerum Numae in chapters 9 through 13 of the Res Gestae is the subject
of chapter 8. Despite his emulation of others, Augustus staged, performed, and subsequently wrote about
ceremonial arrivals that were both innovative and distinctive. As a new kind of ruler over a new Republic in
Rome, Augustus necessarily arrived at the city in a different way and thus set precedents for the practices of
subsequent emperors. The discussion in this monograph concludes with a brief look at the theology of the Forum
of Augustus and how the Res Gestae read the Forum to construct Augustus as a unique deity whom, it is
suggested, his successors were not intended to attempt to equal.

1. Flower 2010.
2. The present argument thus seeks to contribute to our understanding of how so-called symbolic capital
translated into structural change. See Hölkeskamp 2010, 107–24.
3. For an accessible overview of Roman religion in the Republic, see Rüpke 2007, 3–38.
4. Bendlin 2000, 134.
5. For a literary example of the rational arrangement of religious ideas and divine personalities to create a
certain effect, see the discussion of Hor. Carm. 1.30 in Rüpke 2007, 3–5. Rüpke (5) writes, “[T]he divinities
are invoked in deliberate combinations, some of them, such as the pairing of Venus and Amor, familiar,
others, such as Iuventas and Mercury, unusual, indeed unique. In such contexts, the speaker (or poet)…is
evidently free to make his or her own decisions. He or she knows, or claims to know, how to match deities
in particular ways for particular ends, and thus bring them to bear on this situation now.” Roman authors
writing on religious subjects could thus be said to be theologizing, albeit not in the systematic mode
traditionally associated with Christianity. See Beard 1987 for the idea that Rome's philosophical and
scholarly literature on religious topics was a form of genuine religious expression.
6. This view of the intersection between theology and ruling ideology is informed by Sourvinou-Inwood's
2000 discussion of religion as polis ideology and Shaw's 1985 discussion of Stoicism as imperial ideology.
Of polis religion, Sourvinou-Inwood (22) wrote, “The Greek polis articulated religion and was articulated
by it; religion became the polis' central ideology, structuring, and giving meaning to, all the elements that
made of the identity of the polis, its past, its physical landscape, the relationship between its constituent
parts. Ritual reinforces group solidarity, and this process is of fundamental importance in establishing and
perpetuating civic and cultural, as well as religious identities.” Writing of Stoicism under the empire, Shaw
(52) observed, “Stoicism, much more than merely justifying or underpinning new social relations, was one
of the signposts on the road to the exercise of novel forms of political power and the social relations
inherent in them. To continue the metaphor, members of a ruling class do not require such obvious
signposts during all their social existence,…[b]ut in moments of doubt,…Stoic philosophy was one
consistent means of obtaining a sign.” The personal political theologies of the figures discussed in this book
served ideological functions similar to those proposed for polis religion and philosophy by Sourvinou-
Inwood and Shaw, respectively.
7. Suet. Aug. 99.1; D.C. 56.30.4; Swan 2004, 304; Breebaart 1987, 89–91; Kessissoglu 1988, 385–88.
8. Quint. Inst. 1. pr. 9: oratorem autem instituimus illum perfectum, qui esse nisi vir bonus non potest,
ideoque non dicendi modo eximiam in eo facultatem, sed omnis animi virtutes exigimus. On the relationship
between performance, training, and character, see Gunderson 2000, 7–8, 15, 59–86.
9. The close relationship between magistracy and priesthood has been dubbed the “civic compromise.”
See Gordon 1990, 194–97. According to this model, the elite exploit the slippage between priestly and
political roles in order to achieve “ideological domination.” The present discussion adopts the central
observations of this position, viewing the elite's use of religion not as completely determinative of Rome's
religious system but, rather, as a way of exercising great influence and persuasion in the “religious market”
of Rome. See Bendlin 2000.
10. Such a relationship between oratory and religion is unsurprising, since rhetoric was thought to have
sprung from magical enchantments. See DeRomilly 1975, 11–20. A similar display of prowess in divine
affairs is mixed with wisdom in the performances of the Seven Sages. See Martin 1998, 115–28. Cicero
placed great emphasis on the importance of virtue in carrying out religious acts, in Leg. 2.15, 19–22. See
also Dyck 2004, 283; Wiseman 1994; Tatum 1993. The expertise of sacerdotes is an important part of this
formula for proper religious observance. Cf. Cic. Leg. 2.20–21.
11. Both Silvius and Hostilius were killed by lightning for offending Jupiter in the way they conducted his
rites. On the death of Silvius, see Liv. 1.3; D.H. 1.71.3; D.S. 7.5.10; Zonaras 7.1D; Ogilvie 1965, 45; Smith
1895, 203–10. On the death of Hostilius, see Liv. 1.31; D.H. 3.35.2; Plin. Nat. 2.140, 28.14; Zonaras 7.6;
Ogilvie 1965, 124–25.
12. On the centrality of preserving the pax deorum in Roman religion, see Wissowa 1912, 390–94; Latte
1960, 40–41; Bayet 1969, 58–60. This would remain true throughout the course of the empire, even when
the god in question was the Christian one. On the pax Dei, see Tabbernee 2007, 309 n. 6.
13. Cic. Catil. 2.13.19; Dom. 56.143; Sest. 23.53; N.D. 2.3.8; Sal. Jug. 14.19; Hor. Carm. 6.1–6; Liv.
5.51.9–10; Prop. 3.21–22. Polybius (6.56) views religiosity as one area in which Roman political society is
superior to all others. Posidonius expresses a similar view. Cf. Ath. 6.274; D.S. 36.13.3.
14. Malinowski 1948, 8–15. Malinowski writes about magic as a tool employed alongside technical
expertise in so-called primitive societies to address problems that cannot be controlled by technical
expertise alone. He distinguishes between magic and religion in a manner that no longer has general
scholarly support. Some Roman religious activities could perform a function similar to the one Malinowski
attributes to magic.
15. Blakely 2006, 69–71.
16. Holders and former holders of high office populated the Roman Senate. Beard (1990, 30–34) has
argued that the Senate, in fact, “mediated” between the citizens and gods in Roman religion. Brennan
(BMCR 02.02.01) and Thomas (2005, 130–31) argue against this view. Nevertheless, the priests of the state
religion were drawn exclusively from the senatorial order. The state cult belonged to that “political center”
where, in the words of Geertz (1983, 124), “there is both a governing elite and a set of symbolic forms
expressing the fact that it is the truth governing.” There, he continues, “[the elite] justify their existence and
order their actions in terms of a collection of stories, ceremonies, insignia, formalities, and appurtenances
that they have either inherited or, in more revolutionary situations, invented.” Rome's crisis-filled first
century BCE saw an explosion in the creative adaptation and deployment of these things.
17. Pina Polo 2011a, 21–57.
18. Brent 1999, 17–54.
19. On ritual error as a cause of rupture in the pax deorum and, thus, military defeat for Rome, see
Rosenstein 1990, 54–91.
20. Platt 2011, 1–24; Feeney 1999, 104–7; Versnel 1987; Lane Fox 1986, 102–67.
21. Smith (1990, 34 n. 58; 1992, 96–103) explains how the characterization of classical pagan religion as
empty ritual results from Protestant bias against the Catholic Mass. See also Phillips 2011, 18.
22. Traditionally, Rome has been thought to lack myth because Greek mythology has been taken as
normative. See Bremmer and Horsfall 1987, 1–11. Recently, views have begun to shift, thanks to increasing
acknowledgment of the mythological function of Roman historical narrative. See Wiseman 2008, 10–12. As
Wiseman (11) explains, “The Romans were not a people without myths. They too had stories to tell about
their gods, their forefathers and the achievements of their city. They were indeed profoundly influenced by
Greek ideas, but not just in the artificial, antiquarian sense that Wissowa had in mind.” See also Feeney
1999, 27–28.
23. Rüpke (1992, 71–72) discusses the use of religion in exempla that establish and transmit a “hierarchy of
norms.” Using the story of the duel of the Horatii and the subsequent murder of Horatius' sister, Rüpke
notes that “the people acquit the son by referring to his bravery (virtus), not law.” According to the
reasoning implicit in the exemplum, ritual purification substitutes for punishment or acquittal in resolving
the conflicts presented by the murder, because such purification is in the interest of the community at large
and reflects the priority it gives to virtus demonstrated on its behalf. Rüpke sees the period of the Gracchi
and Sulla as two chronological settings in which this particular exemplum would have been most salient in
dealing with extraordinary extrajudicial murders of citizens. See also Mueller 2002, 1–21, on religious
exempla. On the role of miracles in Ovid's exemplum of Philemon and Baucis, see Fabre-Serris 2009. For
the power of exemplarity in constructing Roman identity and rooting that identity in the city's landscape, see
Roller 2004.
24. Ov. Fast. 4.300–28; Liv. 29.10.4–11.8, 14.5–14. On Claudia and Cybele, see Scheid 2001; Borgeaud
2004, 59–71.
25. Liv. 1.31.
26. Liv. 1.18–21; D.H. 2.58–76; Plu. Num. Levene (1993, 134) argues that it is only in Livy that Numa's
piety is a central feature of his character.
27. Among them, naturally, were those Romans who claimed descent from Numa, such as the Aemilii,
Calpurnii Pisones, Marcii, and Pomponii. See Farney 2007, 22–25, 79, 112–14.
28. According to Livy (1.18.1), Numa was chosen because of his inclita iustitia religioque. On the election
of Numa, see D.H. 2.57–58; Liv. 1.17–18; Ov. Met. 15.1–4, 479–81; Plu. Num. 2–6. For Numa's
inauguration, cf. Liv. 1.18. For discussion of the inauguration, see Linderski 1986, 2256–96.
29. Liv. 1.19; D.H. 2.60.5–61.1; Ov. Met. 15.482–84; Plu. Num. 4, 13, 15.
30. Ov. Fast. 3.297–322; Plu. Num. 15.3–4. See Ov. Fast. 4.649–70 for Numa's sacrifice to Faunus and the
god's subsequent epiphany in a wood sacred to Pan. Pasco-Pranger (2002, 304–8) proposes Varro as the
source of Ovid and Plutarch's accounts of Numa's encounters with Picus and Faunus and with Jupiter.
31. Ov. Fast. 3.323–80; Plu. Num. 15.5–6.
32. On Numa as pious fraud, see Lee-Stecum 2010, 257–62; Breebaart 1987, 91–92. Of the three types of
theology (poetic, philosophical, and civic) of which Q. Mucius Scaevola (cos. 95) wrote, the civic, in his
view, was sometimes false but was expedient for ordinary people to believe: expedire igitur existimat falli
in religione civitates (August. C.D. 4.27). Penwill (2004) argues that Livy highlights Numa's religious
deception in order to address the issue of Augustus' manipulations. On the term shaman in modern
scholarship, see Hutton 2007.
33. Liv. 26.19.3–9; Gel. 6.1; De vir. ill. 49. On Scipio's claims to special divine communications, see
Walbank 1985.
34. Liv. 26.45.6–9.
35. Plb. 10.11.7–8. Livy, too, was cognizant of the ruses and saw in them Scipio's similarity to Numa. See
Feldherr 1998, 66–76.
36. Liv. pr. 6–9. See Feeney 2006, 14–16. Feeney notes that Livy consigns these myths to the realm of the
poetic. Livy cites them without personal endorsement, so that he can establish the auctoritas of Rome while
avoiding compromising his own auctoritas as an historian. In doing so, he employs the traditional
historiographical trope of dividing myth from history according to chronology. At the same time, his
language at pr. 7 raises questions: datur haec venia antiquitati ut miscendo humana divinis primordia
urbium augustiora faciat (“an allowance is made for antiquity in order to make the human origins of the city
more august by mixing them with the divine”). The bolded allusion to Augustus leaves open the possibility
that the determinant of where such allowances are acceptable is not chronology but, rather, the nature of the
acts and actors involved. The polyvalence of the word antiquitas allows for this play. It refers not only to
ancient times, which are constantly being re-presented in Rome through various narratives and
performances, but also to the conditions that prevailed and the character of the people who inhabited that
past. In other words, antiquitas always had the potential of being contemporary, particularly in the Augustan
restoration.
37. Of the usual advantage of religious observance, Yakobson (1999, 198) writes: “The prestige of the
nobles was enhanced by the ceremonies and rituals of the state religion.” See also Jocelyn 1966. Jocelyn
(93) points out the tendency for promising scions of the great families to enter priesthoods early in life as a
first stage in their march to political prominence. The appearance of major priesthoods in elogia inscriptions
stands as strong evidence of the importance of priesthoods for family prestige. See ILS 886 = CIL X.6087.
The elogium of L. Munatius Plancus (cos. 42 BCE) mentions his membership in the VIIviri epulonum. The
position of pontifex maximus was among those honors considered greatest. The elogium of P. Cornelius
Scapula (ILLRP 1274a) lists this as the man's sole honor, doubtless for effect. See Flower 2000a, 181;
Sempronius Asellio fr. 8 P: Is Crassus a Sempronio Asellione et plerisque aliis historiae Romanae
scriptoribus traditur habuisse quinque rerum bonarum maxima et praecipua: quod esset ditissimus, quod
nobolissimus, quod eloquentissimus, quod iuris consultissimus, quod pontifex maximus.
38. Cic. Ver. 2.5.36. For discussion, see Taylor 1939 and Spaeth 1996, 89.
39. On the significance of Cicero's antiquiorem in senatu sententiae dicendae locum as aedile designate,
see Ryan 1998, 249–50.
40. On the significance of the ius imaginis in this passage, see Flower 2000a, 53–59. Flower argues that
this is a custom and not a legal right as such. The issues surrounding ancestral imagines are complex and
cannot be thoroughly explored here. There were imagines that would be displayed in the funeral and the
atrium of a Roman house, but there were also imagines that served as objects of familial cult, such as the
wooden busts of the Casa del Menandro. Cf. ibid., 42–46.
41. V. Max. 8.15.1–2; App. Hisp. 89; Flower 2000a, 48–52. Valerius goes so far as to suggest that the
Capitoline Temple was a kind of atrium for the living Africanus.
42. Flower 2000a, 48–49.
43. Every appeal to divine legitimization of power contributed to the evolution of political theologies at
Rome. Feeney (as quoted in Lowrie 2005, 43) has said regarding cultural systems, “Every intervention
reconfigures the matrix.”
44. One is reminded of the instructions from Menander Rhetor (378.31–379.2) to orators speaking at the
arrival of a governor. Menander explains how an array of accomplishments, heroic ancestry, or favorable
comparisons with others could be emphasized or ignored according to the strengths and weaknesses of the
person addressed.
45. On Caesar's public recital of his illustrious ancestry at his aunt Julia's funeral, see Suet. Jul. 6.1. The
funeral was, of course, the proper public context for such references. See Flower 2000a. Plutarch (Cic. 1.2)
mentions that some traced Cicero's ancestry to the Volscian king Tullus Attius. Cicero evidently did not do
so.
46. Batstone 2011, 554–55.
47. The richness of the Ciceronian concept of the persona is useful for coming to terms with the apparent
contradictions in our evidence regarding the religiosity of leading Romans of the first century. Among the
leaders displaying these contradictions are Caesar, who places little divine activity in his commentaries but
was given and accepted divine honors, and Cicero, who gave voice to apparent religious skepticism in his
writings but built a temple for his deceased daughter. Bartsch (2006, 220) argues that one must “understan[d
persona] in terms of propriety and impropriety, or in terms of Roman civic performativity” (emphasis
added). Burchell (1998, 107–8) writes, “Cicero's image of this second persona is not that of the interior
personality of modern psychological common-sense, an integrated selfhood from which one becomes
dissociated by traumatic forces bearing from the outside. Rather it is of a finished artifact which has to be
deliberately fashioned out of the uneven raw material of our impulses…and capacities (Off. 1.111).”
48. Since there is no ancient discussion of such a persona, the term theological persona has been coined for
the purposes of the present discussion. Arguably, the non-unitary concept of the ancient self, when taken in
conjunction with the formal philosophical discourse on personae, makes the construct of a theological
persona both justifiable and useful for discussing the personal political theologies of the Late Republic.
Mauss (1985, 15–16) proposes a history of the concept of the persona that includes cultic identities (Hirpi
Sorani etc.) and the use of masks, leading him to coin the term religious personae. On religious belief, see
Feeney 1999, 12–46.
49. This phrase is borrowed from the discussion of totems. See Levi-Strauss 1963, 89; Hamnet 2000,
54–55.
50. For the declaration of Sulla as hostis, see App. BC 1.73, 77, 81. On Sulla's pose of Republican
legitimacy, see Keaveny 2005b, 98–99. On the notion of Sulla's theology, see Fears 1981c, 790–96. Fears
(796) explains, “[I]t is no exaggeration to state that in ideological terms charismatic monarchy at Rome
became a reality under Sulla. The well-being of the state, its political order, and the seminal virtue of
victory were seen to be concentrated in the figure of the dictator.” Of course, Sulla would only become
dictator after he took the city for the second time, upon his return from the East. The signs and wonders that
Sulla used to supply credence to his theological vision reached back to the time of the Social War.
51. Schmitt 1985, 5, with translator's explication of the term exception in n. 1. See also Lowrie 2005,
44–46.
52. In Schmitt's theory regarding sovereignty and law, law replaced the miracle as the basis for sovereignty.
See Schmitt 1985, 36. In Sulla's case, an account of miracles was provided to defend against the conclusion
that his constitution was divorced from the recognized foundations of the legitimate Roman Republic. The
alternative was to accept the possibility that the Republic had ended.
53. Plu. Sull. 6.6–7. Valgiglio (1960, 29) compares this prodigy to Sulla's oracle and dream about
Aphrodite. Cf. App. BC 1.97.
54. On secular doctrine in the first century BCE, see Weinstock 1971, 191–97; Du Quesnay 1999, 296–97.
On the length of a saeculum, Censorinus (DN 17.1) writes, saeculum autem est spatium vitae humanae
longissimum, partu et morte definitum. See also ibid. 17.5: initia sic poni saeculorum; quo die urbes atque
civitates constituerentur: de his, qui eo die nati essent, eum, qui diutissime vixisset, die mortis suae primi
saeculi modulum finire. eoque die, qui essent reliqui in civitate, de his rursum eius mortem, qui
longissimam aetatem egisset, finem esse saeculi secundi. Sic deinceps tempus reliquorum terminari.
55. Thein 2009, 100–101.
56. As Pittenger (2008, 283) notes regarding the profectio and triumph, “Triumphal ritual perfectly
mirrored the profectio imperatoris,…because the power of an imperator emanated from the center,
precisely so that he could take it out across the sacred boundary to the periphery, use it well in his provincia
on behalf of the whole SPQR, and then return to the point of origin on the day of his triumph to lay down
his arms, proudly and patriotically vouchsafing the glorious benefits of his res gestae, both material and
symbolic, for the community that had sent him out as its champion in the first place.” For profectio as a
literary device, see Feldherr 1998, 77–78.
57. Flower 2008, 84; Mastrocinque 2005, 141. See map 1 in the present book for the location of the
Capitoline Temple.
58. See Flower 2008, 80–83, for the idea that the destruction of the temple represented the end of an age or
the possible fall of Rome.
59. For the significance of the saeculum in connection with the Social War, the First Mithradatic War, and
the civil war between Marius and Sulla, see Mastrocinque 2005.
60. Du Quesnay (1999, 297) uses the categorization “man of the saeculum” and offers this list, excepting,
oddly, Sulla. Du Quesnay identifies this concept as a Roman innovation to the traditional idea regarding the
end of the saeculum, transmitted by Censorinus (see n. 54 in the present chapter), that the death of the oldest
individual of a generation marked the end of this period. The association of the saeculum with a particular
leader may be correlated with the increasing popularity of astrology, dreams, and personal omens, such as
we encounter in Sulla. Barton (1996, 149–51) provides a useful, brief description of the shift from state
prodigies to omens concerning individual leaders. Although the Roman saeculum became a fixed number of
years, this did not end the fascination with identifying its end with a particular man's death. In 49 BCE, M.
Perperna (cos. 92) was identified as the last man of his generation (D.C. 41.14.5).
61. RG 4, 11–12.
62. RG 1.1: annos deviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi, per quem rem
publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in liberatem vindicavi.
63. See chapter 8.
64. Dufraigne (1994, 30–32) draws attention to the experience of Roman commanders abroad, beginning
with Scipio Africanus, in being treated like divine beings and Hellenistic monarchs. In his Pro lege Manilia,
Cicero draws on this tradition in describing Pompey descending from heaven like a deity.
65. On stasis in the classical polis, see Gehrke 1985. A study of examples closer to Rome in Magna Graecia
and South Italy can be found in Berger 1992. For a recent discussion of images of stasis in Greek literature,
see Fisher 2000.
66. Hdt. 1.59.3–60.5. See Sinos 1993; Lavelle 1991.
67. Herodotus (7.153) also recounted the story of Telines, who obtained a priesthood of Demeter and
Persephone in Syracuse by returning exiles to the city. He accomplished this feat through the use of sacred
objects of the goddess, which, according to a scholiast to Pindar Pythian 2.27, were brought to Sicily from
Triopium. On this episode, see Munn 2006, 91–92. In other stories, the gods brought a new ruler to the city
to end stasis or bring about synoecism. See Pausanias' account (7.19.1–10) of how the arrival of Eurypylus
at Patras effected synoecism and Arrian's account (An. 2.3.1–6) of how Midas' arrival at Gordium ended
stasis.
68. Strootman 2007, 289–305.
69. Arrian (An. 2.3.1–8) places the arrivals of Midas and Alexander back to back. The arrival of Midas
ended stasis at Gordium, while the arrival of Alexander and his severing of the Gordian knot was interpreted
as predicting his rule over Asia.
70. Covino 2013.
71. Plu. Ant. 24.3–4. Antony would be hailed as a beneficent New Dionysus and then, later, regretted as a
malignant one.
72. Of course, religion was not the sole means of preventing stasis. In covering secessions of the plebs,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (7.66) credited Roman oratory in preventing the kind of harm that occurred in
Greek revolutions. On this point, see Pelling 2009, 255.
73. Liv. 1.17.1.
74. Plu. Num. 20.5.
75. Nagy 2008, 79–80.
76. Liv. 1.57–59.
77. On the profectio, Livy (42.49.1) writes, consul votis in Capitolio nuncupatis, paludatus ab urbe
profectus est. See Sumi 2005, 35–41. On the religious aspects of the profectio, see Rüpke 1990, 125–43,
242–43. On the adventus, see Benoist 2005, 27–35; Dufraigne 1994, 35–39; Halfmann 1986, 113;
Weinstock 1971, 289–90. On the imperial adventus, see Benoist 2005, 36–101; Lehnen 1997; Dufraigne
1994, 41–92; Halfmann 1986, 111–56; MacCormack 1981; Koeppel 1969.
78. On the ceremony and cult associated with the consul's assumption of office and departure for the
provinces, see Pina Polo 2011a, 17–35.
79. Humm 2012, 77; Magedelain 1968, 67–69; 1977, 16–22.
80. See Fest. 276 L on the auspices associated with the profectio. In this case, interestingly, this was a
praetor taking auspices before departure to assume leadership of the Latin League. As Orlin (1997, 39–40)
notes, the vows associated with the profectio are to be distinguished from the vows taken upon entering
office. Cf. Liv. 21.63.7–9.
81. Rüpke 1990, 125–43, 242–43; Humm 2012, 79–80.
82. On the cessation of the command (imperium militiae) upon crossing the pomerium, cf. Cic. Ver. 2.5.34.
83. Beard 2007, 202–5. The triumph has been the subject of numerous studies. Noteworthy recent
contributions are Pittenger 2008, 127–43, 275–98; Beard 2007; Versnel 1970.
84. Liv. 45.39.11.
85. Liv. 1.4–7; D.H. 1.77–88; Plu. Rom. 3–12.
86. Liv. 1.57–60; D.H. 4.64–85.
87. Ov. Fast. 2.685–856; Plu. Q.R. 63; Fest. 347 L: Regifugium sacrum dicebant, quo die rex Tarquinius
fugerit a Roma.
88. Fowler 1899, 327–30; Scullard 1981, 81–82. Forsythe (2012, 17–18) considers it an end-of-year rite. If
the suggestion of Merrill (1924, 37–38) regarding the origin of the five-day interregnum in the period
between Regifugium and March 1 is correct, perhaps the rite instead marked the end of the supreme
magistrate's term of office. Forsythe (18) finds merit in Merrill's view. Clearly, however, many Romans
accepted the myth and associated it with the February 24 rite. Lipka (2009, 33 n. 96) notes, “Whatever its
actual origin, I cannot imagine that it ever meant anything else to a Roman, despite the fact that modern
scholars, perhaps in order to save the purely ‘religious’ character of the feriale, have tried to discard this
‘political’ interpretation.”
89. As Rüpke (1992) argues, including religion in exempla could serve to establish a hierarchy of norms
when normal legal or constitutional criteria did not suffice. Such creative use of religion in exempla to
reason through difficult issues of norms, power, and the organization of the state are the essence of what is
meant by theology in the present discussion. As in the Cipus story, the Horatius tale Rüpke discusses
involves the reditus of an important Roman who had been recently been in the field of imperium militiae.
90. V. Max. 5.6.3; Ov. Met. 15.565–621; Plin. Nat. 11.123.45. The present discussion is concerned mostly
with Valerius' version, which is an exemplum of pietas erga patriam. See Galinsky 1967, 183; Guillaumin
2008, 168.
91. Ov. Met. 15.581–85. The salutation of the haruspex (“Rex”, ait, “o! salve! Tibi enim, tibi,
Cipe…namque urbe receptus rex eris et sceptro tutus potiere perenni.”) purposely recalls the royal
acclamations addressed to Caesar as he returned to Rome in ovation from the Alban Mount in January 44.
92. Wiseman 1995, 109–10.
93. Guillaumin 2008, 169: “La porte est alors emblématique du passage de l'état de guerrier à celiu de civis
et inversement.”
94. Beard 2007, 202–5; Pina Polo 2011a, 4–5. Recently, two scholars in particular, Giovanni and Drogula,
have challenged Mommsen's formulation of two kinds of imperium—militiae and domi—and the
significance of the pomerium as the dividing line between them. According to Giovanni (1983), the
distinction between domi and militiae involved the nature of the task, not the location of the person
exercising it. Drogula (2007) argues that the magistrates exercised potestas within the pomerium and
exercised imperium outside it. The only time the pomerium served as a crucial boundary for the traveling
magistrate was when he was petitioning for a triumph. Reentry before the granting of a triumph voided the
opportunity to celebrate one, most likely because of the ceremony's significance as a reentry ritual. Pittenger
(2008, 283) notes that the defining moment of the ritual was always, particularly according to the formulaic
language of Livy, the moment of entry: “triumphans urbem inire or invehi, or triumphans in urbem regredi
or redire.” See also Versnel 1970, 384–88; Phillips 1974a and 1974b; Richardson 1975, 59–60; Plattus
1983; Beard 2007, 204–5.
95. Cato (Orig. 1.18a) reported the ritual for laying down a pomerium in the founding of a city. It is not
clear, however, that Roman tradition credited Romulus with establishing Rome's pomerium, as Cornell
(1995, 203) points out. Instead, Servius Tullius was thought to have established Rome's pomerium, and
Sulla extended it. One reason Sulla did so was perhaps to imitate Servius Tullius. Keaveny 2005b, 159;
Santangelo 2007b, 221. The idea that the right to extend the pomerium fell to those who expanded Rome's
imperium is attested only in Tacitus. Hinard (2008, 69–70) argues the appealing and probably correct
position that the scholarly emperor Claudius is responsible for this fiction. Hinard proposes that Sulla
 extended the pomerium in connection with the extension of Roman citizenship to Transpadane Italy. To this
proposal, one could add that Sulla may also have sought to stress his role as a refounder by carrying out a
ritual action normally undertaken during the founding of a colony.
96. Beard 2007, 187–218.
97. Plu. Marc. 8; Flower 2000b, 35–41.
98. Cic. Cael. 14; Suet. Tib. 2.
99. On Jupiter and the Roman state, see Stewart 2013, 30–32; Fears 1981, 3–55.
100. Liv. 10.7.10: Iovis optimi maximi ornatu decoratus. Versnel (1970, 56–93) proposed to resolve the
dispute over whether the triumphator in his costume was supposed to represent the rex or Jupiter by arguing
that he was both. See also Pittenger 2008, 277 n. 8. Beard (2007, 219–38) found the evidence for the
triumphator's Jovian pose unpersuasive. Rüpke (2012, 62–75) has proposed that the triumphator's red-
painted face is meant to assimilate him to his honorific statue. The present argument does not adopt or
propose any particular origins for the costume but instead assumes its visual polysemy, which allowed
people, from antiquity to the present, to interpret the vestis triumphalis as Jovian in appearance.
101. On the Alban triumph, see Brennan 1996.
102. On votive temples, see Weigel 1998, 119–42; Orlin 1997; Ziolkowski 1992. Orlin demonstrates the
involvement of the Senate in votive temples, thus tempering Ziolkowski's (235) view that, “a temple could
be founded without the state's participation,” but the role of individual initiative was still significant.
103. Late-republican commanders not only cultivated evidence of their felicitas but also employed new
sources of divine knowledge. Marius took the exotically costumed Syrian prophetess Martha on campaign
(cf. Plu. Mar. 17.1–3), and Sertorius kept an oracular doe (cf. Plu. Sert. 11). Upon learning of a victory,
Sertorius would garland the doe and produce it as a sign of a victory as yet unannounced by a human
messenger.
104. The earliest noteworthy Roman example is perhaps Marius, who took up drinking from the cantharus
of Dionysus during his return to Rome. Cf. V. Max. 3.6.6; Plin. Nat. 3.11. Perhaps the most dramatic early
Hellenistic example is the hymn to Demetrius, wherein he is called a theos epiphanês. The hymn was sung
at the welcoming reception of Demetrius Poliorcetes at Athens in 290 BCE. See Ath. 7.253c–e. In the first
century BCE, Mithradates Eupator was welcomed as a savior god. Cf. D.S. 37.26.

Page 30 →
Page 31 →

PART I
The Sullan Republic
Page 32 →
Page 33 →

CHAPTER 1
The Theology of Departure and Arrival in Sulla's Memoir
The victory of L. Cornelius Sulla in his civil war against Marius and Cinna was a watershed moment in Roman
history. Certainly Sulla saw it that way; in his memoir, he depicted himself as a divinely appointed savior of the
state inaugurating a new age for Rome.1 His memoir, rich in political theology, was his response to a shared sense
of crisis at Rome; and his depiction of his role in that crisis built on a foundation of narrative and performative
acts pioneered by other Romans before him. Principal among these forerunners was his opponent Marius, whose
propaganda Sulla would seek to overturn.2 Sulla rose to prominence at a time when Rome was in the midst of a
bitter war with the Italians. The war had a strongly religious component, and there were assassinations of Roman
magistrates, as well as unsuccessful Page 34 → plots against them, at festivals in Italian towns.3 Prophecies of a
change in saecula circulated, and prodigies were seen in great number.4 To hopeful Italians, the situation
portended an eclipse of Roman power and the rise of a new hegemon in Italy. In the East, Mithradates flooded
Asia with a vision of himself as a messianic figure who would rid the East of Roman oppression and usher in a
new age.5 The slaughter of thousands of Italians at the hands of Greeks must have seemed to many Romans to be
further evidence that the cosmos was in disarray. The people of Rome may have looked for a savior who would
turn aside the chaos and bring the city and its empire a new lease on life.

This chapter examines the theological self-fashioning and performances through which Sulla sought to prevail
against the various challenges that threatened Rome and his own position therein. To show himself able to meet
the challenges at hand, Sulla presented himself as favored by the gods. Anointing himself as the favored champion
of Rome necessarily required distinguishing himself from competitors, particularly Marius. The present discussion
begins with an examination of the theological and performative portrait of Marius that is preserved in the extant
sources. Although the nature of the sources makes it more difficult to distinguish confidently between Marius'
own efforts at self-fashioning and his legend, anecdotes about Marius' arrivals and departures illustrate what Sulla
may have been responding to in constructing his own theological position. After all, for some time before the
death of Marius, the two sides had been competing with each other in presenting their respective leaders as men
favored of the gods.6

Marius: Reditus cum Felicitate

Gaius Marius rose to prominence through his military leadership in the Jugurthine War and his rescue of the city
from the Cimbri and Teutones, who threatened to invade Italy. Thanks to victories over enemies who conjured
Page 35 → memories of such past existential threats to the city as the Gauls and Hannibal, Marius held a string of
consulships, many of which he obtained from the people.7 Marius' felicitas, that quality that seems to bring
abundance and success to its bearer, was evocative of the memory of Scipio Africanus' charisma.8 It inspired
jealousy among the members of the old nobility, whose collective incompetence in meeting the same threats had
inspired the people of Rome to look elsewhere for leadership.9 Marius' competitors within that nobility, including
Sulla, were thus forced to adapt by forwarding their own personal theologies of power, which drew on pre-
existing family lore but also included the emergence of novel theological expressions. In monument and text, one
of Marius' competitors, Q. Lutatius Catulus, who fought alongside Marius at Vercellae, promoted a view of his
role in the Battle of Vercellae that emphasized the role of a special Fortuna in his victory.10 Catulus built a
dazzling and innovative temple to this god, Fortuna Huiusce Diei, who had manifested on the battlefield to give
him victory, and he wrote of the events in his autobiography.11 Clearly Marius' popularity and achievements were
prompting his peers to invent new ways of promoting themselves as charismatic leaders.

In examining Marius, the present task is to consider the theological portrait that he and his followers constructed
to explain his success and to demonstrate how he was the right man to meet the challenges of his time, since his
competitors necessarily engaged this theology. Central to understanding the emergence of the new performative
and theological model of Roman leadership is Marius' self-presentation as Rome and Italy's savior.12 Because of
difficulties with the sources, the subject can only be discussed in terms of a Marian tradition preserved in a variety
of sources through which the material is refracted in the service of each author's own agenda. For the purposes of
the present argument, however, the positive representation of Page 36 → Marius, as it exists or can reasonably be
extrapolated from the negative portrait, will be accepted provisionally as at least generally accurate in reflecting
efforts to fashion a pro-Marian myth. That myth began to take shape in Marius' lifetime, through his efforts and
with his approval. Marius' success in war elevated him in the eyes of Romans to a mythic level that placed him on
par with Romulus and Camillus as a founder of the city and that made him the first attested example of a living
Roman who received unofficial cult in Rome.13

According to the pro-Marian tradition, the first intimation of Marius' special fortune occurred after the siege of
Numantia. When the younger Scipio Africanus was asked who would succeed him as leader in the next
generation, Africanus tapped Marius on the shoulder and said that young warrior would perhaps be the one.14 The
story is highly significant because it uses, much in the manner of the stories of the close association of the
Diadochoi with Alexander the Great, the personal intimacy of two successive generations of leaders to symbolize
the transfer of leadership and its Page 37 → attendant charisma.15 Here, Marius, although not of the family of
Cornelius Scipio, is marked out as the successor to the special mystique of the two Africani (perhaps in specific
response to Sullan claims to be the heir of the Cornelian mystique). In Aemilianus' case, this mystique may have
included a prophecy of world rule, if one accepts the authenticity of the Clunia oracle reported by Suetonius.16

The tap on Marius' shoulder is reminiscent of the scene in which Valeria plucks cloth from the mantle of Sulla and
explains that she wanted a piece of his felicitas.17 Scipio's gesture of tapping Marius may also signify a special
endowment of felicitas.18 Plutarch remarks that Marius viewed the incident as prophetic. It is also interesting that
the event occurs in connection with the successful end of the long siege of Numantia, a city that had been a thorn
in the side of the Romans for years during the war in Spain. One of the crowning expressions of a leader's felicitas
was his ability to conquer a city successfully. The conquest of Numantia, having been particularly difficult, was
further evidence of the surpassing felicitas of Scipio, the man who destroyed the ancient city of Carthage. The
setting of this symbolic transfer of charisma seems to have been calculated to indicate the promise of Marius as a
leader of similar ability and divine felicity.

The consultation of the gods before departing on an important journey was a standard feature of Roman military
practices, but remarkable examples marked out men destined for greatness. When Marius was serving under
Metellus in Africa, a haruspex, reading the entrails of the sacrifices made to the gods of Utica, told Marius that he
should test his fortune (fortuna) as often as possible, since everything he set out to do would turn out well (cuncta
prospere eventura).19 This consultation parallels scenes in Page 38 → the life of Sulla on the eve of Sulla's
marches on Rome, as will be shown later in this chapter. Marius, greatly desiring to be consul, decided to return to
Rome to seek the office, which he did despite Metellus' resistance.20 The declaration of the haruspex directly
before Marius' successful bid for the consulship perhaps addressed the sense that Marius lacked either the noble
heritage or extraordinary success that Rome expected in their highest magistrates.21 Furthermore, the special
emphasis on the declaration of the haruspex may address theologically a perceived disparity between Marius'
lowly background and his remarkable success. Even though he lacked the noble background of men like Metellus
or even a distinguishing achievement, Marius was shown to possess a divine gift of fortune or endowment of
felicitas that compensated, allowing him to obtain not just one consulship but, eventually, a total of seven.

Elected consul, Marius returned to Africa as commander in Metellus' place. After Marius' victory in the Jugurthine
War, Marius put on a triumphal performance that was as transgressive as it was unique. Returning to Rome, he
took to drinking from a cantharus cup in imitation of the god Dionysus, conqueror of the East.22 He further timed
his triumph to land on the Kalends of January, the same day he would assume the consulship for the third time.
When Marius called the Senate into session for the first meeting of the year, he appeared in triumphal robes, thus
offending his fellow senators.23

Marius was then called on to face the threat of the Cimbri and Teutones, Page 39 → after the catastrophe at
Arausio—which had been the worst Roman defeat since Cannae and had awakened memories of invading Gauls
and Hannibal. The end of Rome seemed to be a real possibility. Marius availed himself of all forms of divine
guidance that he thought might help him in the campaign and instill confidence in his men. He kept an exotically
costumed Syrian prophetess named Martha in his train, on whose orders he would offer sacrifice.24 This
prophetess was perhaps a devotee of Atargatis, the divine patron of the rebel Eunus. Other evidence suggests that
Marius favored the eastern Great Mother of the gods. A priest of Cybele from Pessinus, Battaces, came to Rome
to announce that the goddess had declared that the Romans would be victorious against the invaders.25

Subsequently, Marius effectively destroyed the northern threat and was widely regarded as Rome's savior. As he
returned to Rome, Marius played the role of world conqueror by again drinking from a cantharus as though he
were Dionysus or perhaps the god's most famous protégé, Alexander the Great.26 Fittingly, the people hailed
Marius as third founder of Rome and brought food and drink offerings to the victor and the gods from their
homes, where they were celebrating their salvation.27 Although Marius had won the ultimate victory at Vercellae
with the proconsul Catulus, the people credited Marius alone, perhaps since he was consul and the more militarily
successful man. The people went so far as to demand that Marius celebrate the triumph by himself, something he
wisely declined to do.

Extant accounts of Marius' returns to Rome reveal a man innovatively styling himself as a charismatic conqueror
who enjoyed divine favor.28 Of particular interest here is his strategic use of the triumph as a tool for amplifying
his charisma. While it was customary to use the laureled letter and adventus speech to advertise one's martial
successes, in hopes of gaining a triumph and obtaining subsequent election to high office, Marius went further by
adopting a Dionysiac pose and timing his triumph to coincide with the first day of his next term as consul.29
Although it is not explicitly Page 40 → stated, the timing of his triumph would have allowed him to process up
the Capitoline as a triumphator and then immediately make the New Year's vows of the consul before proceeding
to his first meeting with the Senate.30 None of this would have necessarily been problematic, if Marius had not
decided that, instead of delivering his triumphal robes to Jupiter as was customary, he would continue to wear the
vestis triumphalis during his first meeting with the Senate.31 This gesture was offensive in that, first, Marius
appeared to be exercising his imperium militiae in carrying out his domestic duties and, second, his triumphal
costume had both regal and divine associations.32 Perhaps it appeared to Marius' peers that he was presenting
himself as a king or even Jupiter in the Curia, just as he had taken on Dionysiac trappings on his journey to Rome.
It is also likely that Marius never dismissed his lictors—such dismissal being the traditional act symbolizing the
end of one's imperium—since he went straight from triumph to inauguration.33

Sulla: A New Theology of Power

Marius' success as both commander and self-promoter excited envy in others and inspired attempts to outdo him.
This sparked even more emphasis on an already existing tradition of theological self-promotion and competition
among members of the Roman elite. Marius' colleague at Vercellae, the proconsul Catulus, made every effort to
capture some of the credit for the Page 41 → victory against the Cimbri, both by carefully tallying his army's
successes in the aftermath of the battle and by promoting his role in the victory once he was back at Rome.34 It
was, however, Sulla, lieutenant of both Marius in Africa and Catulus on the day of victory over the Cimbri, who
most effectively exploited the lessons of theological representation that he learned from his former commanders,
to fashion a portrait of himself as the savior of Rome in a time of national crisis.

Sulla's theology of power can be accessed principally through Plutarch's use of Sulla's memoir.35 When Sulla set
out to write his memoir, he faced the challenge of providing for posterity a justification of the war he had waged
against Rome. In nearly five centuries of the history of the Republic, he had been the first and only commander to
cross the pomerium with Roman soldiers and fight a pitched battle within the city. Although he subsequently
reformed the Roman constitution through the special legal authority he obtained as dictator, the manner in which
he had seized power threatened to undermine the legitimacy of his actions.36 Historians and scholars have drawn
attention to this contradiction, yet the slender remnants of anti-Sullan propaganda in antiquity may suggest that the
dictator's self-justification was remarkably successful, at least among those authors whose work remains. Cicero
does not directly speak of Sulla's rise to power in negative terms until the time of the conflict between Pompey
and Caesar.37 After the death of Caesar, Sallust wrote his speech of Lepidus in which he implicitly compared
Sulla's march on Rome with Peisistratus' conquest of Athens and disparagingly called Sulla iste Romulus.38
Doubtless, Sulla's detractors were not in short supply, but the minimal extant criticism of his early career suggests,
at the very least, that Sulla's legacy and the Sullan Republic's ruling class were deeply intertwined and that this
post-Sullan ruling class generally upheld the legacy of the man to whom it owed so much.

Among the factors that contributed to the pervasive influence of Sulla's Page 42 → political theology over the rest
of the first century, two in particular bear on the current discussion. First, Sulla rose to political prominence during
a conflict that was already viewed as having epoch-changing significance: the Social War. Second, Sulla
successfully presented himself to others as a person whose divine favor and destiny qualified him to save Rome
and its empire at a time of chaos and calamity. The shared sense among Romans and Italians that there was indeed
a great historical change in the offing afforded Sulla the opportunity to make a case that he was the destined savior
that Rome needed at that critical juncture. This section of this chapter will elucidate the circumstances that gave
Sulla an opening to make his unusual case justifying his ruthless acts and then will look more closely at the details
of the theological argument Sulla presents through the wonders that occurred as he set out for war and returned to
liberate Rome from the Cinnan faction.

Sulla's budding reputation got a big boost from Bocchus of Mauretania when Bocchus built a monument depicting
himself handing over Jugurtha to Sulla to bring an end to the drawn-out and embarrassing Jugurthine War.39 One
might argue that Sulla's role in securing Jugurtha was, in a sense, the beginning of the Sullan myth, but there was
another event that, though less tangible, Sulla chose to signify as the first in a chain of events that led ultimately to
Sulla's victory at the Battle of the Colline Gate and his subsequent dictatorship. That event was the Lavernan
prodigy. Near the time that Sulla set out to fight in the Social War, a chasm opened near Laverna, and fire shot
heavenward out of the earth.40 Plutarch's account of the prodigy is taken from Sulla's dedication of his memoir to
Lucullus, or, in other words, the opening of the memoir.41 The haruspices interpreted this sign as indicating Page
43 → that a man of virtus with a striking appearance would take control of the government and free the city from
its current woes.42 Sulla, with his mottled complexion, gleaming gray eyes, and record of brave deeds, believed
the omen applied to him.43 It appears almost as though the haruspices tailored their interpretation so that one
would hardly have thought of anyone else. Of course, this sense of inevitability is likely the product of Sulla's
own, ex eventu fashioning of the story.

The Lavernan prodigy occurred during Sulla's profectio, a time when Romans customarily looked out for
omens.44 Commanders and governors setting off on assignment sacrificed and sought signs indicating divine
approval for their exodus from the city. Those who set out after having failed to obtain the right signs or to carry
out the right rituals risked the anger of the gods—and future failure. Consider the account of Flaminius, who failed
to attend to the cycle of rituals through which a man entered his consulship and prepared to leave on campaign.
Flaminius instead secretly departed the city to take up his command and was, unsurprisingly, then defeated at the
Battle of Lake Trasimene.45 Cicero wrote of the horrible signs that attended the departure of Crassus for the East;
Crassus was defeated, and both he and his son were brutally tortured and killed by the Parthians.46

In comparison, promising signs observed before a properly conducted departure portended great success. Looking
back on his career after retiring to Cumae, Sulla saw in the Lavernan prodigy an excellent point of departure for
the story of how he came to control the government and settle affairs for both Rome and Italy. The significance of
the location of the omen is fairly obvious. The grove of Laverna was located on the Via Salaria, which branched
out from Rome at the Porta Collina.47 It was, in other words, located near the place where Sulla's forces would
clash with and defeat the Samnites in the Battle of the Colline Gate. This battle was Sulla's last struggle before he
gained control of Rome; the defeat of the Samnites was, according Page 44 → to Sulla's reckoning, the final clash
of the Social War. Sulla's report of the Lavernan prodigy at the opening of his memoir therefore points forward to
his victorious reditus in defeating the Samnites at the Porta Collina and to his subsequent triumph.48 Lucullus,
who was perhaps present for Sulla's departure and the prodigy but only heard of the Battle of the Colline Gate
from Asia, would have immediately grasped the significance of placing the Lavernan prodigy at the opening of
Sulla's memoir.

Modern readers who approach an understanding of the Lavernan prodigy through the brief account in Plutarch's
biography of Sulla may easily miss the prodigy's larger significance. But Sulla would have expected his readers to
understand it in the context of other prodigies and wonders at that time, concerning the eruption of the Social War
and the advent of a new saeculum.49 Plutarch may have followed Sulla in folding the declaration of a new
saeculum into the conflict between Marius and Sulla, when its historical Page 45 → significance initially
concerned the Social War.50 The secular prophecy of Vegoia—which addressed Italian anxieties concerning
property rights, a prevalent concern in the relations between Rome and the Italians since the time of the
Gracchi—likewise looked forward to the imminent end of the saeculum. The prophecy of Vegoia was probably
circulated before 88 BCE and thus forms part of the context in which Plutarch, following Sulla, placed the
declaration of the new saeculum's advent.51 Sulla took hold of the related Lavernan prophecy and applied it to
himself perhaps as early as the time of the Social War, and it would continue to inform his self-presentation as the
divinely chosen savior of the city during the civil war and all the way up to the end of his life.52 Indeed, the
connection between the Lavernan prodigy and the declaration of a new saeculum in 88 was likely even clearer in
Sulla's memoir than it is in Plutarch's account.

To modern readers, Sulla's manipulation of a prophecy related to Italian unrest in order to connect his advent to
the opening of a new saeculum may seem ridiculously self-aggrandizing. Yet the struggle between Marius and
Sulla was ultimately played out, at least in part, through exploiting the continuing grievances of the Italians.53
After Sulla's departure to fight Mithradates, Octavius expelled Cinna from Rome for trying to distribute the new
Italian citizens throughout the thirty-five tribes, and Cinna and his allies stirred up Italian cities to revolution.54
Marius promised to grant the Samnites everything they could not get from Caecilius Metellus, in order Page 46 →
to end their hostilities against Rome.55 According to Dio Cassius, the Samnites wanted citizenship.56 Although
Dio's account looks suspiciously like an interpolation added at a much later date, it provides a rationale for the
otherwise unusual brutality of Sulla's slaughter of Samnites in the Villa Publica after his victory in the Battle of
the Colline Gate.57 The census was conducted in the Villa Publica, and, according to the fragmentary version of
Dio, Sulla reportedly stated his intention to gather the prisoners as if they were going to be enrolled as citizens.58
Sulla's brutal execution of Samnites was an inversion of what Marius had promised to give them. Instead of
becoming Roman citizens, they were cut down in the very place where men were enrolled as such. While this
slaughter was being perpetrated, Sulla addressed the Senate in the Temple of Bellona.59 The senators could hear
the cries of the Samnites being butchered as Sulla calmly addressed them. Those senators who had been Cinna's
allies would have found this spectacle especially chilling. Soon they would experience their own horrific
“enrollment” in the proscriptions.60

Sulla's decision to weave his own career into the grand tapestry of secular time had an impact every bit as
profound as his decision to march across the pomerium with his legions. In fact, one might argue that Sulla drew a
connection between his march on Rome and the opening of a new saeculum in such a way that advancing on
Rome was rendered a more attractive strategy for subsequent revolutionaries. The breaking of such a taboo
required a powerful rationale, and one could hardly provide one stronger than a divine destiny to take up the
government of Rome and inaugurate a new age. The act of breaking the taboo readily lent itself to being
understood as a sign Page 47 → indicating a monumental turning point in history. After all, the founding of Rome
was indelibly connected with Romulus' first wall on the Palatine and Remus' death. Sulla would break the taboo
against crossing the pomerium under arms, but then he would extend the pomerium as an act of refoundation.61
The refoundation of the city may be interpreted as implying that the city was in a dilapidated state prior to Sulla's
intervention, thereby further suggesting that the crossed pomerium was not intact in the first place. The
transgression thus anticipated the act of salvation and therefore provided a contradictory but compelling form of
justification. Furthermore, since various concepts of time were malleable—birth, death, saeculum, and aetas were
subject to human perception and acts of signification—the profectio and adventus, in which concepts of space and
time were closely wedded together in a living performance, served as fitting strategies for demarcating the passage
from one age to another.62 In Sulla's memoir, by the careful design of the dictator, the eschatological ideas
contained in the saeculum were joined to the departure and arrival of one man, the secular savior and refounder of
the city.

The success of Sulla's strategy as an apologetic for the acquisition and exercise of supreme power can be
measured by the extent to which subsequent dynasts and would-be dynasts utilized the same narrative of a
prophesied leader and savior of Rome who would inaugurate a new age. When Marius and Cinna marched on
Rome, the prophecies of Cornelius Culleolus were circulating in the city, probably in support of the Sullan
cause.63 Page 48 → The Culleolus in question may have been an ancient prophet of the gens Cornelia, whose
predictions were called into service at a time when divine support for a Cornelius was desired.64 One of these
prophecies may have predicted the rise of a “Third Cornelius” to rule in Rome, such as the prophecy that surfaced
two decades later in support of the claims of Cornelius Lentulus Sura during the so-called Catilinarian
conspiracy.65

Events of the sixties may shed more light on the eighties. According to Cicero's account of the Catilinarian
conspiracy of which Sura was allegedly a part, the plot to take over Rome involved an act of arson that was billed
as a kind of ekpyrosis, a cosmic conflagration that would bring about a renewal of things.66 In 88, a time of great
anxiety about the saeculum's end, Sulla, who had identified himself as the savior figure portended by fire coming
out of the earth, threatened to use fire on private houses during his own invasion of the city, to chase citizens off
the roofs from which they had been throwing projectiles at his men.67 Sura thus seems to have drawn on the
savior images pioneered by Sulla, to promise the building of a new age after the destruction of the old world.
Indeed, Cicero's account of the Catilinarian conspiracy, with its negative allusions to prophecy and eschatological
ideas, may be a continuation of the theological competition that occurred in the eighties. In styling himself as the
Third Cornelius of prophecy, Sura viewed both Cinna and Sulla as his predecessors.68

Page 49 →

In the war of competing images and invective between the factions of civil war in the eighties, Cinna and Marius,
the ultimate losers, came off worse, as one might expect. Although they, too, made claims to being saviors of
Rome and Italy, the extant ancient sources depict the two men as sacrilegious murderers instead of divinely
appointed saviors. By contrast, one of their victims is fairly described as a holy man. After the ejection of Cinna,
the Senate elected the flamen Dialis, Lucius Cornelius Merula, to take Cinna's place.69 One is prompted to ask
whether the Romans were convinced by the circulating Cornelian prophecies that Rome needed a Cornelius in the
consulship at this time.70 When Cinna returned, the Senate hesitated to depose Merula on account of his priestly
office, and although Cinna had promised not to harm Merula, he brought up charges against him.71 Merula, driven
by this persecution to commit suicide by opening his veins over the altar of Capitoline Jupiter, called curses down
on the heads of Marius and Cinna as his life slipped away.72 He piously removed his flamen's cap before doing so.

The Conquest of Athens and the New Age

As depicted in his memoir, divine signs of success and the inauguration of a new epoch attended both of Sulla's
marches on Rome. On his first return, organized to chase off Sulpicius and Marius for trying to steal his campaign
against Mithradates, Sulla hesitated to lead his men on Rome, until the haruspex Postumius read the omens and
agreed to undergo any punishment at Sulla's hands if the attack did not come off successfully.73 Sulla also had a
dream in which he saw the goddess Bellona handing him thunderbolts to strike down his enemies.74 Predictions
by a haruspex and a slave ecstatically prophesying again pointed to victory in Sulla's return and war against the
Page 50 → Cinnans. These were not, however, the only city conquests that Sulla framed as epoch-making events.
Sulla later saw divine significance in the timing of his conquest of Athens: the Kalends of March.75

Before the shift of the inauguration of new consuls to the Kalends of January, the Kalends of March had marked
the beginning of the ancient Roman New Year. Plutarch's biography contains the further observation that Athens
had fallen at the time of the Chytroi ritual in the month of Anthesterion, when Athenians celebrated the receding
of the waters of the flood sent by Zeus that destroyed all but Deucalion and his wife.76 Whether this fact was
mentioned by Sulla or originated in Plutarch is unclear. The tyrant Aristion had held out on the Acropolis up until
that day, but thirst finally forced him to surrender. Plutarch remarks that as soon as Aristion was brought down
from the Acropolis, the god sent rain that fell on the Acropolis and filled it with water.77

Even if Plutarch provided a Greek interpretation of the significance of this rain miracle based on his knowledge as
a religious expert and scholar, miraculous weather manifestations of this kind appeared numerous times in Roman
military narratives. More specifically, it is reminiscent of the divine aid that P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus
received from Neptune during the siege of Carthago Nova, wherein the god lowered the tides so that his soldiers
could cross through the shallows to attack the city at a vulnerable point.78 Aemilianus, Sulla, Cinna, and, later,
Sura all seem to have appealed to the memory of the mystique surrounding Africanus. If Sulla did not associate
the rainstorm after the surrender of Aristion with Chytroi, he most likely still offered his own testimony of the
miracle that Jupiter performed in withholding rain until the surrender of Aristion, which Plutarch then
reinterpreted in his own Hellenic terms. Similar miracles are later attributed to Titus in the Jewish War, to Hadrian
during his visit to Africa, and to Marcus Aurelius when he was campaigning in Dacia.79

Page 51 →

There is, however, some reason to think that the detail of the Chytroi was contained in Sulla's own memoir.80 The
flood was, like the trumpet blast announcing the end of the eighth saeculum, an epoch-marking event, here
specifically the cataclysm that signaled the conclusion of the Age of Bronze. Since Sulla opened his memoir with
the programmatic gesture of referring to the sign that indicated his role in inaugurating a new age, he may have
continued the theme of axial shifts as he recounted the story of his siege of Athens. Sulla may also have been
responding to Mithradates' self-styling as a messianic savior of the East from the power of Rome. Sulla would
steal Mithradates' thunder as the true savior and allow Mithradates to fulfill his role as the new King Xerxes I.81
Accordingly, he would lay the blame for the destruction of Athens at the feet of this most recent Xerxes through
the irresponsible and blasphemous actions of his puppet Aristion, while he depicted the support he received from
the gods Apollo and Zeus in securing safety for the West from the threat of the new Persian king.82

On his second visit to Athens, Sulla would receive pledges of loyalty from the Athenian elite and go through
initiation in the Eleusinian Mysteries.83 The Athenians, in return, honored him with a statue and games in his
honor, the Sylleia. Santangelo suggests that these games, which were strikingly similar in form to the Theseian
games honoring Athens' founder-hero, were actually celebrated in conjunction with the Theseia.84 Once the
Athenians had celebrated Sulla as a new founder, he was perhaps inspired to recontextualize his conquest of the
city in light of such an honor. Returning to Rome, Sulla re-centered world empire at its new seat on the Tiber.
There he instituted Ludi Victoriae Sullanae, which would bear a striking resemblance Page 52 → to the Theseia.85
It is possible that when the Athenians celebrated Sulla as a new founder, it inspired him to continue to present
himself as such in Rome.86

The Invasion of Italy

Important prodigies pointing to Sulla's ultimate success marked the path of his campaign against his Roman and
Italian enemies. Sulla's interactions with the gods in this narrative point toward the effort he invested in
representing his invasion of Italy as divinely ordained and supported. When Sulla landed near Tarentum, a
haruspex examined the liver of the sacrificial victim and found a laurel wreath with two fillets on it, signifying
victory.87 At Silvium, an Apulian town on the Via Appia, the slave of the Samnite commander Pontius Telesinus
fell into a prophetic trance and reported to Sulla that Bellona had foretold his victory and triumph but that the
Capitoline Temple would burn down on the sixth of July if Sulla did not hasten to Rome.88 The army of Sulla's
lieutenant Lucullus was miraculously showered by flowers in such a way that it appeared to be crowned with
garlands.89 The night before Sulla encountered the young Marius at Signia, he had a dream in which the older
Marius told the younger Marius that he would experience a calamity on the following day.90 When Marius
attacked Sulla's men as they were pitching camp on the next day, Sulla and his men warded him off, and Marius
fled to Praeneste, where he later committed suicide. During the Battle of the Colline Gate, Sulla took out a little
statue of Apollo that he carried with him, kissed it, and prayed to it in desperation over his flagging fortunes in the
battle.91 Upon taking Rome, Sulla met with the Senate in the Temple of Bellona, while his men slaughtered
Samnite prisoners in the Villa Publica.92

Page 53 →

An examination of the struggle between Sulla and Marius (and Sulla and Cinna) in terms of the performance and
representation of a theology of power yields a number of interesting insights that greatly enhance one's
understanding of how these Roman leaders used the relationship between gods and men to think through imperial
power relationships in Rome, Italy, and the Mediterranean. Both Marius and Sulla sought to carve out a unique
position for themselves in domestic and broader imperial politics through performances and representations of
their relationships with the gods. What particularly set the careers of these two men apart from their predecessors
was the fortuitous conjunction of their mutual competition in the Social War and the threat of Mithradates during
the momentous transition from one saeculum to another. Both Marius and Sulla were probably aware of the
significance of this timing, although the extant evidence explicitly attests only to Sulla's conscious use of the
theme. By his own testimony, Sulla saw the turning of saecula as a crucial juncture for settling issues of power
and the relationship between Rome and its empire. According to this view, a special leader would be able to
inaugurate a new age by weaving together an empire out of the diversity of the Mediterranean world, with Rome
as its head. This kind of theology found its most successful proponent in Sulla.93

The most crucial theological relationship in the city of Rome was between the city and its tutelary deity Jupiter
Optimus Maximus. The triumph offered a unique opportunity for a leader to demonstrate his special relationship
with the god who conferred imperium, by displaying his surpassing success to the city, by performing an identity
that likened the triumphator to the god, and by both sacrificing and dedicating offerings to Rome's chief tutelary
deity. Both sides of the civil war between Sulla, on the one hand, and Marius and Cinna, on the other, seem to
have realized the importance of showing a special relationship between the leading faction and Rome's chief
patron deity. Marius had attempted to express his special claim Page 54 → to imperium and his unique
relationship with Jupiter by joining his triumph directly to his inauguration as consul and his first meeting with the
Senate. What appears to be an unwitting gaffe was actually a provocative assertion of a preeminence over his
peers, which they sternly rejected. As a Cornelius, Sulla exploited the legacy of Scipio Africanus' special
relationship with Jupiter. The god had delivered his thunderbolts to Sulla through the agency of Bellona, and she
had warned him that unless he hastened to Rome, the Capitoline Temple would burn down, which it did.

In Sulla's absence, there was a struggle between Cornelii over the consulship. What catches one's attention and
makes this struggle pertinent to the present discussion is that, in the absence of Cornelius Sulla, the consul who
agitated for the enrollment of Italian citizens in the thirty-five tribes was Cornelius Cinna. When the other consul,
Octavius, ejected Cinna, the Senate replaced Cinna with Cornelius Merula, who also happened to be the flamen
Dialis. Because of the restrictions of his priesthood, Merula was of limited value as consul under normal
circumstances, but he was thought to be particularly suitable at a time of chaos in Rome's leadership.94 As consul,
he brought together the Jupiterian mystique of the Cornelian name, the unique access to the god that only a flamen
Dialis had, and the exercise of an imperium that would be safely anchored in Rome. Merula's curse in the
Capitoline Temple may very well have been one explanation provided for the structure's destruction in 83 BCE.95
If so, such an explanation would have been most useful to Sulla in the way it laid the blame for the destruction of
the temple on the Cinnan faction. When Sulla returned to Rome and took the city, he celebrated a triumph. The
returning exiles hailed him as savior and father in the triumphal procession, which took the traditional route up the
Capitoline Hill, even though Jupiter's temple was conspicuously in ruins.96 Sulla's partisan Q. Lutatius Catulus,
son of Marius' co-commander at Vercellae and rival, would rebuild the temple, but the loss of this great edifice
was surely one of the key calamities of the civil war that inspired fear that Rome might possibly come to an end.
The loss of the temple of Rome's patron deity, a structure that was built at the beginning of the Republic, could
easily be taken as an omen of the Republic's end and Rome's fall.97

Page 55 →

Sulla and the Gods of Italy

There is some evidence to suggest that Sulla cultivated associations with Italian gods as he sought to portray
himself as the savior of all of Italy, not just Rome. In doing so, he may have been responding to a pre-existing
Marian claim to the title of savior of Italy, which is mentioned in the story of Marius' flight from Rome.
According to the anecdote recounted by Plutarch, as Marius departed into exile, he was allowed to pass through a
sacred grove of the goddess Marica, where an old man serendipitously declared that Marica would not deny
passage to Marius, the man the locals viewed as the savior of Italy.98 It should be recalled that the first divine sign
of Sulla's memoir, the fire that issued forth from the chasm, occurred at the grove of an Italian goddess. Laverna, a
goddess of thieves, may have been considered a fitting deity to point forward to Sulla's defeat of those Samnites
who had sought, with the help of Marius and Cinna, to usurp the rights of Roman citizenry.99 The haruspices'
interpretation of the prodigy, which mentioned Rome's troubles, would have been viewed as pertaining to the
exercise of Roman power over Italy and, perhaps retrospectively, to the troubled issue regarding Italians and
Roman citizenship. Laverna's sign of Sulla's role as a savior, as interpreted by Sulla in his memoir, thus answers
and improves on the similar Marian claim.

Although Sulla's first sign came through Laverna, Bellona most clearly played the role of divine benefactor to
Sulla, especially in his return to Rome. Most modern discussion about Bellona emphasizes her assimilation to the
eastern goddess Ma, noted by Plutarch, whom Sulla supposedly encountered during his mission to the East in the
nineties.100 The suggestion is attractive, but it is not at all clear why Ma-Bellona should have appeared to Sulla in
connection with his march on Rome. Appius Claudius Caecus built Rome's first Temple of Bellona in fulfillment
of a vow made while fighting Page 56 → the Etruscans and Samnites.101 That Sulla first referred to Bellona close
to the aftermath of his campaign against the Samnites in the Social War suggests that Sulla followed the precedent
of Caecus in seeking the aid of the Italian Bellona, not the Cappadocian Ma he encountered in his eastern journey
of 96.

The references to Bellona in Plutarch's biography of Sulla support the idea that Italian Bellona, rather than Ma,
was the deity Sulla depicted as his patroness in his memoir. During Sulla's consulship in 88, when the haruspices
interpreted the trumpet blast as the opening of the new saeculum, they met with the Senate in the Temple of
Bellona to discuss this prodigy and others.102 During the meeting, a sparrow flew in with a grasshopper in its
mouth. It dropped part of the grasshopper in the temple and left with the rest of it. According to Plutarch, the
diviners interpreted this to refer to a conflict between the city and the country, or between the plebs and the
wealthy landholders. Regardless of the particulars of the interpretation reported by Plutarch, the passage
demonstrates that Sulla established Bellona's significance to the relationship between Rome and Italy at the time
of the Social War and the changing of saecula. Over the course of Sulla's memoir, Bellona would continue to
surface in relation to Italian and Roman issues. When Bellona appeared to Sulla in a dream and handed him the
thunderbolt of Jupiter to knock down his enemies, Sulla was near Nola, a city that was in the sphere of the
Samnites, who continued to resist Rome and who would side with Marius against Sulla.103 Given this
background, Sulla's meeting with the Senate in the Temple of Bellona, although in accordance with the usual
traditions for generals returning in victory, would have taken on new significance as his men simultaneously
slaughtered Samnites in the Villa Publica in fulfillment of Bellona's commission, thereby completing a circle in
Sulla's narrative that began with the report of the secular prodigy during his earlier profectio. Having conquered
the forces of chaos threatening Italy and Rome, Sulla set about the refoundation of the city by becoming Page 57
→ a radical “censor” who killed all those undermining the city by usurping citizenship or betraying it.

Sulla's Theology and Empire

As the discussion of Sulla's conquest of Athens has shown, Sulla's political theology included parts of the empire
beyond Italy and Rome. The pieces of Sulla's memoir that are preserved in Plutarch accordingly suggest that Sulla
conceived of his Mithradatic campaign in theological terms that were an extension of what one would expect of a
Roman commander operating in Italy. In advance of his departure for the East, Sulla dedicated an ax to the divine
ancestress of the Romans, Aphrodite. While traveling in the East, he styled himself “Epaphroditus,” a name that
both suggested the favor of Aphrodite and alluded to Roman descent from the goddess.104 As previously argued,
Sulla saw the circumstances of his conquest of Athens as evidence of the favor of Jupiter that was characteristic of
the Cornelii, whose relationship with the god was evident not only in the Africanus mystique but also in the clan's
regular occupation of the flamonium Diale. In crossing the major boundaries of the empire, Sulla behaved as one
would expect of any Roman commander operating in Italy. He sought divine direction as he crossed major natural
boundaries. He consulted the oracle near Apollonia before he crossed back to Italy.105 Upon landing near
Tarentum, he sacrificed and had his haruspex read the entrails.106 Favorable signs indicated his imminent success
at fulfilling the destiny about which he had learned when he set off for the Social War. The circle was completed
upon his return to Rome, and Sulla thus redrew the map of Roman power through divinely assisted conquests that
took in the vast expanse from Rome to Asia.

Scholars have long considered Sulla to have been an unusually superstitious person. Such a judgment is almost
impossible to prove. Thus it is probably not worth engaging the question of Sulla's relative credulity in the first
place. The evidence does support that, in his memoir, Sulla proffered a religious argument to justify what he had
done in taking Rome by force Page 58 → and in substantially altering its constitution. The theological framework
of that argument was built around the traditional magisterial cycle: Sulla's departure (profectio) from Rome and
return (reditus/triumphus) provided the structure for explaining how his felicitas and divine support eventually
brought about the salvation of Rome as had been predicted during his initial embarkation on campaign in the
Social War. What made Sulla's theology distinctive was his use of secular doctrine to tie the events of his career to
a broader cosmological vision in which Rome played a central role. Sulla was not simply saving the city from
extinction; in his view, he was saving the cosmos from chaos, by ensuring the continuation of Roman hegemony.
The latter view is suggested in his use of a similar axial narrative in connection with his conquest of Athens,
wherein Sulla presented himself as a force for order, acting in concert with Zeus-Jupiter against Aristion and the
destructive forces of chaos. In doing so, he may have been prompted by Mithradates' claims to be a cosmic savior.

The view that the world was on the brink of collapse and needed a divinely appointed savior to prevent disaster
provided a dangerous precedent for the justification of subsequent revolutions at Rome. This framework would
open up the possibility that others would seek to repeat Sulla's attack on the city and employ similar
justification—something that happened almost immediately after his death, in Lepidus' march on the city. Not all
would attempt to follow the Sullan model to the same extent. As will be discussed in the next chapter, Pompey
would be the first successful heir to the Sullan legacy of combining aggressive action to reform/refound the state
and a theological articulation of that action, but he did so without even threatening violence.

1. On the idea of Sulla as a savior (salus rerum), see Sumi 2002b, 422–25. The exiles Sulla marched in his
triumph hailed him as savior and father. Cf. Plu. Sull. 34.1. Lucan (2.221) refers to Sulla as the salus rerum.
Although Lucan is a relatively late source, this title is consistent with Sulla's propaganda.
2. Scipio Aemilianus is another possible forerunner of Sulla in the claim to be a divinely appointed ruler.
The Clunia prophecy (Suet. Gal. 9.2), which predicted the rise of a world ruler in Spain two hundred years
before Galba, quite possibly indicated Aemilianus: virginis honestae vaticatione, tanto magis quod eadem
illa carmina sacerdos Iovis Cluniae ex penetrali somnio monitus eruerat ante ducenos annos similiter
fatidica puella pronuntiata (see Hillard 2005). If so, it would render the stories connecting Aemilianus and
Marius, as well as those about Marius' Dionysiac pose, more intelligible (see discussion later in this
chapter).
3. On a Latin plot to assassinate Roman consuls during the Feriae Latinae, see D.C. 28.96.4; Flor. Epit.
2.6.8; De vir. ill. 66.12. For the murder of the praetor at a festival in Asculum, see D.S. 37.12.
4. Plu. Sull. 7.
5. McGing 1986, 102–5. Lincoln (1983, 143–53) provides insight into the Persian apocalyptic elements of
the construction of Mithradates as a messianic figure.
6. Keaveney 2005b, 36–38; Luce 1968; Frier 1967; 1971. On Marian and Sullan propaganda concerning
Victoria in particular, see Fears 1981c, 786–96.
7. Sal. Jug. 73, 84; Plu. Mar. 11.1, 12.1, 14.7, 28.1. On Marius' popular politics, see Yakobson 1999,
13–19.
8. On felicitas, see Versnel 1970, 361–71; Wagenwoort 1954; 1947; Erkell 1952, 50–66; Ericsson 1943,
89.
9. On Marius' mystique, see Gilbert 1973; Avery 1967. On Sulla's mystique, see Thein 2009; Wiseman
2009a; Keaveney 1983.
10. Plu. Mar. 26.3; Inscr. Ital. 2.179, 488. See Flower 2006, cxii; Evans 1994, 88–90.
11. On the memoir of Catulus, see Candau 2011, 147–54; Marasco 1984. On the temple, see NTDAR s.v.
Fortuna Huiusce Diei, Aedes.
12. On Marius as savior of Rome (implicit in the notion of Marius as Third Founder of Rome) and savior of
Italy, see, respectively, Plu. Mar. 27.5–6, 39.3–4.
13. Ibid. 27.4–5. This is to except, of course, Romulus. Plutarch states that Marius was hailed as third
founder of the city. On Camillus as second founder, see Plu. Cam. 31.2. The historical authenticity of this
identification of Marius as third founder has been rejected by Classen (1962, 182), Muccioli (1994), and
Miles (1997, 104–5) but accepted by Alföldi (1952, 205), Carney (1970, 39 n. 109), and Gabba (1972, 801).
Liv. Per. 68.8 attests to the fact that the primores civitatis confessed that he had saved the state
(conservatam ab eo rem. p.). According to Santanglo (2007b, 216 n. 8), this passage may indicate a decree
of the Senate granting Marius the title of servator r. p. Muccioli (202–5) argues that Plutarch relies on
Posidonius for the reference to Marius as founder, but that Plutarch is both critiquing his source and using
the designation of third founder to emphasize how Marius ultimately fell short of the title. Regardless of
Plutarch's own designs, it is possible that Marius was popularly acclaimed a new conditor of Rome on his
return from defeating the Cimbri and Teutones. It should not be forgotten that the idea of being reputed a
founder is known to Plautus (Epid. 523: legum atque iurum fictor, conditor cluet). Cicero (Catil. 3.2) refers
to Romulus as qui hanc urbem condidit. Sallust (J. 89.4), writing in the late forties BCE, refers to the
Libyan Hercules as the conditor of Capsa. Finally, Marius' self-styling as a Dionysiac conqueror, which
Muccioli also attributes to Posidonius, is consistent with other Hellenistic practices such as hailing the ruler
as founder (ktistês). See n. 22 in the present chapter. In this author's view, however, there is no compelling
reason to discount Plutarch's account of popular acclamations of Marius as conditor on his return to Rome
after defeating the Cimbri and Teutones or to attribute all Hellenistic elements of different accounts of
Marius to a single historian.
14. Plu. Mar. 3.3. Evans (1994), 28: “Thus the story of Scipio's commendation of Marius (Plu. Mar. 3.3)
may simply be a topos, which is found elsewhere, but possibly preserves a memory of sterling deeds by the
young Arpinate.” Cf. V. Max. 8.15.7.
15. Palagia 2000; Sawada 2010, 400–401.
16. Suet. Gal. 9.2.
17. Plu. Sull. 35.4. For Sulla's felicitas, cf. Cic. S. Rosc. 22; Plu. Sull. 6.8–9, 19.8–10, 27.12. For modern
scholarship, see Carcopino 1932, 108–13; Alföldi 1976b; Sumi 2002, 415–16.
18. The presence of elements of the felicitas theme here in Plutarch's biography contradicts a suggestion by
Avery (1967), who views Sallust's portrait of Marius as a possessor of felicitas as the author's own creation,
designed to point toward Marius' future eclipse by Sulla.
19. Sal. Jug. 63: per idem tempus Uticae forte C. Mario per hostias dis supplicanti magna atque mirabilia
portendi haruspex dixerat: proinde quae animo agitabat, fretus dis ageret, fortunam quam saepissume
experiretur; cuncta prospere eventura. [2] at illum iam antea consulatus ingens cupido exagitabat, ad quem
capiundum praeter vetustatem familiae alia omnia abunde erant: industria, probitas, militiae magna
scientia, animus belli ingens domi modicus, lubidinis et divitiarum victor, tantummodo gloriae avidus. The
scene will later serve as the model for Tacitus' account of Vespasian in Alexandria (see Hist. 2.8). Marius'
fortuna has been identified also in a fragment of the Histories, a passage that Konrad interprets as a
description of Marius' landing at Sicily on his return journey to Rome. See Konrad 1997.
20. Evans (1994), 63–66. Farney (1997) argues that it was actually the conviction of C. Galba that gave
Marius hope that he could obtain the consulship, since the conviction marred Galba's chances for obtaining
it.
21. For the funeral's role in building a family's fama, see Plb. 6.53.2, 53.4, 53.7–8. Flower (2000a, 16–31)
discusses the importance of illustrious ancestors in political campaigning, with particular reference to a
campaign speech of Marius at Sal. Jug. 85. She (19) suggests that Sallust may have consulted an actual
Marian speech in crafting his version.
22. V. Max. 3.6.6: iam C. Marii paene insolens factum; nam post Iugurthinum Cimbricumque et
Teutonicum triumphum cantharo semper potavit, quod Liber pater Indicum ex Asia deducens triumphum
hoc usus poculi genere ferebatur, ut inter ipsum haustum vini victoriae eius suas victorias compararet. Cf.
Plin. Nat. 3.11.
23. Plu. Mar. 12.2.5.
24. Ibid. 17.1–3.
25. Ibid. 17.5–6; D.S. 36.13; Rawson 1974, 201–2.
26. Plin. Nat. 33, 11, 53, 150; V. Max. 3.6.6.
27. Plu. Mar. 27.5–6. See n. 13 in the present chapter.
28. See n. 9.
29. Beard 2007, 201–2. On laurelled letters, see Liv. 5.28.13, 45.1.6; Cic. Pis. 39; Plin. Nat. 15.133; App.
Mith. 77. On Marius' speech to the Senate and the Senate's deliberations, see Bonnefond-Coudry 1989,
143–49, 269–74. On his Dionysiac affectations, see n. 22 in the present chapter.
30. Beard (2007, 280) explains, “The connection—however it was originally formed—between triumph
and the consulship went back into the Republic. It points to the Janus-like face of the ceremony, not only a
backward-looking commemoration of past success but an inaugural moment in the political order.”
31. Liv. Per. 67; Plu. Mar. 12.5. Beard (2007, 230) asks, “If the general's costume was properly returned to
the god's statue at the end of the parade, then what did Marius wear to give offense in the senate?”
32. On the Jovian associations of the triumphator's costume and ancient testimonia, see Versnel 1970,
56–62. Beard (2007, 225–38) has questioned the degree to which one can know how literally to take the
regal and divine associations of the vestis triumphalis, but she maintains that the Romans still saw regal and
divine associations in the garb.
33. On the dismissing of lictors as symbolic of laying down imperium, see Cic. Att. 3.9.1; Plu. Fab. 4.2.
34. Plu. Mar. 27.4. Catulus had his name carved on the spears of his soldiers so that, after the battle, he
could count the number of enemy soldiers slain by his men. Arbitrators were called in from Parma to settle
the dispute between the two armies over who contributed most to the victory.
35. Thein 2009, 91–92; Valgiglio 1975.
36. On the legal process to make Sulla dictator through the lex Valeria, see App. BC 1.98–99; Plu. Sull.
33.1; Vell. 2.28.2. For discussion, see Vervaet 2004.
37. Dowling 2000, 306–13; Ridley 1975.
38. Sal. Hist. 1.55.
39. Plu. Sull. 6.1; Sal. Jug. 105–13; Flor. Epit. 36.16–18. Dio's text (26.89.5–6) is very fragmentary at this
point and does not mention Sulla's role.
40. Plu. 6.6–7; cf. App. BC 1.97. See Valgiglio 1960, 29; Keaveney 2005b, 39.
41. The choice to begin with the Lavernan prodigy also made sense in the context of a dedication to
Lucullus, since Lucullus, depending on the date of the Lavernan sign (90 or 89), either was under Sulla's
command at the time the sign occurred or joined Sulla the following year. Cf. Plu. Luc. 2.1. Lewis (1991,
515) places Sulla's statement about his concordia with his consular colleague Metellus, which precedes the
report of the Lavernan prodigy in Plutarch, in Sulla's preface as well. The entire text of Plu. 6.5–7 is,
perhaps, a compressed version of the preface of Sulla's memoir. Livy (pr. 13) would later employ the
profectio theme at the beginning of his work: cum bonis potius ominibus votisque et precationisbus deorum
dearumque, si, ut poetis, nobis quoque mos esset, libentius inciperemus, ut orsis tantum operis successus
prosperos darent. For the profectio as a programmatic device, see Feldherr 1998, 77–78. Thein (2009, 101)
suggests that early memoirs, such as that of Catulus, might have ended with the author's triumph, thereby
showing the positive outcome of a journey that began under favorable auspices.
42. Plu. Sull. 6.7.12–13: εἰπεῖν δὴ καὶ τοὺς μάντεις ὡς ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς ὄψει διάφορος καὶ περιττὸς ἄρξας
ἀπαλλάξει τῇ πόλει ταραχὰς τὰς παρούσας.
43. See Plu. Sull. 2.1 for the author's description of Sulla.
44. Cic. Div. 1. 29–30; Sumi 2005, 37–38.
45. Liv. 21.63.5–9. Simón 2011.
46. Sumi 2005, 37.
47. Var. L. 5.163–64; Hor. Ep. 1.16.10; Fest. 104–5 L; NTDAR s.v. Porta Lavernalis; Lintott 1986, 217.
Cf. TDAR s.v. Porta Lavernalis.
48. Sulla's description of his participation in the Social War appeared in a later book of his memoir than his
instructions to Lucullus. This monograph follows the hypothetical structure that Lewis (1991, 515–16)
proposed for the memoir, in which the first books cover Sulla's instructions to Lucullus and his family
background. Naturally, a detailed account of the Social War would not be possible in those first books. The
Laverna episode belongs in the first book, with Sulla's instructions to Lucullus, because the episode sets up
the importance of felicitas to his life and is the pivotal event for establishing a divine commission for Sulla's
leadership. On the place of felicitas in his instructions to Lucullus, Lewis (515) writes, “Felicitas, in fact,
was clearly one of the dominant and recurrent themes of the whole work, and there is no difficulty in
supposing that in Book I Sulla gave it considerable emphasis and elaboration, with a suitable array of
examples, not least by way of advice to Lucullus never to ignore divine presages of all kinds, but most of all
to heed those conveyed in dreams.” For discussion and bibliography on Sulla's felicitas, see Sumi 2002b,
414–16.
49. Plu. Sull. 7. Other lists of prodigies announcing the coming war appear in Cic. Har. 18; Div. 1.99; Plin.
Nat. 2.199, 7.34–35, 8.221; Obseq. 54; Oros. 5.18.3–9; August. C.D. 3.23. The transition from one
saeculum to another was announced by ostenta saecularia, which had to be interpreted by priests. See Van
Son 1963, 272; Serv. ad Buc. 9.46; A. 8.526; Plu. Sull. 7; Censorinus DN 17.5–6; Thulin 1909, 67–68. The
dream of Caecilia Metella (Cic. Div. 1.4), daughter of Balearicus, which prompted the Romans to restore
the sanctuary of Juno Sospita in response to anxieties over Latium during the Social War, occurred in 90
BCE. See Schultz 2006a, 207–27. The suggestion of Poe (1984, 61–64) that expiatory rites to Juno may
have influenced the Secular Games may indicate a more direct connection between Caecilia's dream and the
opening of a new saeculum. In these rites, however, Regina was the Juno to whom matrons appealed. The
preference for Sospita of Lanuvium over Regina on the Aventine in this circumstance had to do with the
need to appeal to the Latins, whose defection from the Italians would prove a decisive factor in the outcome
of the war.
50. The obscuring of the significance of the saeculum for the Social War may be due partly to Appian's
lack of interest in religious matters during that period, a point that is noted by Schultz (2006a, 207):
“[U]nlike the prominence accorded religious events in some treatments of the Hannibalic War, divine
matters in general are outside the scope of treatments of the Social War—in all likelihood a reflection of the
absence of religious themes from Appian BC 1.150–231, our most important source for the war.”
51. Heurgon 1959; Jannot 2005, 13; Valvo 1988. Adams (2003, 182) dates the prophecy to the imperial
period, but that dating does not exclude the possibility that the imperial version was based on an earlier
Republican-era tradition.
52. Turfa (2006, 82) writes, “Likewise, the temporal quanta of Etruscan belief, the saecula, must have been
discussed with a sharp eye to their applicability to current political changes—certainly they were published
(or outright manipulated) by Sulla as announcing a regime change for the better (Plu. Sull. VII.6–9;
Censorinus DN XVII.6).”
53. The Italian context of the fight between Marius and Sulla is emphasized by Gabba (1972, 805).
54. App. BC 1.64–65.
55. Ibid. 1.68. Plutarch (Mar. 41) briefly recounts Marius' efforts to draw Italians to his cause in Etruria and
elsewhere.
56. D.C. 31.102.8.
57. Str. 5.249; V. Max. 9.2.1; De vir. ill. 75; Luc. 2.197; Sen. Cl. 1.12.2; Liv. Per. 88.2; Flor. Epit. 2.9.24;
D.C. 33 fr. 109.5. Plutarch (Sull. 30.2–3) sets the slaughter in the Circus Flaminius.
58. Var. R. 2.4; Apul. Apol. 1; D.C. 33 fr. 109.5. On this fragment of Dio, see Urso 2010,158–61.
59. Plu. Sull. 30.2–3.
60. Passed in the Assembly, the lex Cornelia de proscriptione gave Sulla a power akin to that of a censor in
that he had the ability to divorce people of citizenship, life, and property, merely by placing a nota next to a
person's name. On the lex, see Hinard 1985, 67–74. Flower (2006, 91–92) compares the proscription lists
with public auctions but then speaks in more general terms not only of the loss of life and citizenship but
also of the family's loss of status. All of this suggests something rather like a perverse census.
61. Sen. Dial. 10.13.8; Tac. Ann. 12.23; Gel. 13.4.4; D.C. 43.50.1, 44.49.1. Cf. Sordi 1987; Gros 1990,
843–44; Ramage 1991, 119–20; Giardina 1995, 135–36; Sumi 2002b, 425–28; Santangelo 2007b, 221–22;
Hinard 2008, 69–70. Tacitus (Ann. 12.23) notes that the only two Romans to extend the pomerium before
Claudius were Sulla and Augustus. If Hinard (2008, 69–70) is correct about Claudius being the originator of
the idea that the right to extend the pomerium followed upon conquest, Sulla and Augustus would fit those
criteria. Hinard argues that Sulla extended the pomerium in response to the extension of Roman citizenship
up to the Transpadane region of Italy. All three men, however, also inaugurated a new age for Rome.
Augustus and Claudius both celebrated the Secular Games. Sulla exploited secular prophecy to promote the
view that, as refounder, he would secure Rome's empire in the transition to a new saeculum.
62. The symbolic connection between arrival and departure with the passage of time is built into the
expulsion of Mamurius Veturius, or “Old Man Mars,” who represented the passing year, to make way for
New Mars, whose birthday the Salii celebrated at the opening of the New Year. See Versnel 1993, 297–98;
Loicq 1964; Illuminati 1961.
63. One cannot, however, exclude the possibility that the prophecy supported the cause of Cornelius Cinna.
Sulla is the likely intended beneficiary of the prophecy because of his established predilection for exploiting
divine signs and prophecies. Cf. Cic. Div. 1.2: ex quo genere saepe hariolorum etiam et vatum furibundas
praedictiones, ut Octaviano bello Cornelii Culleoli audiendas putaverunt. For a brief discussion on
Culleolus as a hariolus, see Wiseman 1994, 58–59. For a recent discussion of harioli, see Santangelo 2013,
151–85. On known harioli, see Montero 1993.
64. Such a prophecy at the time of the Octavian War would have followed the precedent of the ancient
prophet speaking of contemporary events in the conveniently discovered prophecy of Marcius after the
devastating defeat at Cannae during the Second Punic War. See Liv. 25.12.2–15; Macr. 1.17.27–28. The
name Culleolus is suggestive of the punishment visited on parricides, the poena cullei, the brutality and
bizarreness of which had an ominously archaizing character. The appearance of the name L. Culleolus in
Cicero's correspondence is interesting but not necessarily evidence that the prophet Culleolus was alive and
active in the eighties (pace Wiseman 1994, 58–59). See Shackleton-Bailey 2004, 353.
65. Cic. Catil. 3.9; Plu. Cic. 17.5. Surely the idea of a Third Cornelius was a creative variation on the praise
of Marius as Third Founder of Rome.
66. On ekpyrosis in Stoicism, see Mansfeld 1979.
67. App. BC 1.58.
68. Cic. Catil. 3.4.9: Cinnam ante se et Sullam fuisse.
69. App. BC 1.65. To construct an image of the pious Merula, Appian mentions that Merula wore the
flamen's cap at all times, whereas other flamines only wore it at sacrifices.
70. Katz (1979, 164–65) suggests that the election was motivated by the need to choose an innocuous
person and thereby prevent the election of another candidate. The choice of another Cornelius with a
particularly special connection to Jupiter, however, is suggestive of a religious consideration as well.
71. App. BC 1.70.
72. Ibid. 1.74. On the cursing, see Vell. 2.22.
73. Plu. Sull. 9.3.
74. Ibid. 9.4.
75. Ibid. 14.6. On Sulla and the Athenians, see Santangelo 2007b, 35–45.
76. Theopompus FGrH F 347b; Paus. 1.18.7–8; Riu 1999, 81–82. Robertson (1993, 199–203) argues that
mistaken association of Chytroi with the Anthesteria festival is an error propagated in the scholia. Most
scholars attribute the observation concerning the coincidence of the Athenian date of Sulla's conquest of
Athens to Plutarch. See ibid., 201 n. 6. See also Burkert 1972a, 268 n. 16; Nilsson 1900, 137.
77. Plu. Sull. 14.7.
78. Plb. 8.6–9.2, 11.7, 14.11–13.
79. On Titus, see J. BJ 5.409–11; on Hadrian, SHA Hadr. 22.14; on Marcus Aurelius, D.C. 71.8.10; SHA
Marc. 24.4.
80. On Romans' long-standing, nuanced engagement with Hellenic religion, see Feeney 1999, 25–28.
Feeney (27) writes, “Our earliest [Roman] texts show a delight in juxtaposing religious ideas from different
registers, combining Homeric and cult epithets for Jupiter, or turning the epic hero Anchises into a proto-
decemvir who consults sacred books.”
81. On Darius, see App. Mith. 112; Just. Epit. 38.7.1; on Cyrus, Just. Epit. 38.7.1. On the descent from
Achaemenes, see Tac. Ann. 12.18.4; on the descent from one of the “Seven Persians” who destroyed the
Magus, Plb. 5.43.2; Flor. Epit. 1.40.1. On Mithradates' legendary genealogy, see Meyer 1925, 31–38;
McGing 1986, 13, 95.
82. According to Sulla's reckoning, Apollo allowed Sulla access to the god's treasures at Delphi. Cf. Plu.
Sull. 12.5. Sulla consecrated half of the territory of the Thebans to Apollo and Zeus, a strong indication that
he felt he owed his success in Greece to these two gods. Cf. ibid. 19.6.
83. On the second trip to Athens, see Santangelo 2007b, 214–16.
84. Santangelo 2007b, 215–16 n. 6. On the Sylleia, see Raubitschek 1951.
85. Vell. 2.27.6; [Asc.] Cic. Ver. 1.10.13. See Bernstein 1998, 313–50; Behr 1993, 136–43; Keaveney
2005b, 156–57; Latte 1960, 38.
86. Santangelo 2007b, 216.
87. Plu. Sull. 27.4.
88. Ibid. 27.6.
89. Ibid. 27.7.
90. Ibid. 28.4.
91. Ibid. 29.6.
92. Ibid. 30.2–3.
93. The timing during a festival of the initial uprising that became the Social War suggests that there was a
religious component to the motivation behind this rebellion. Not only had the Latins planned to assassinate
the consuls during the Feriae Latinae in 91 (D.C. 28.96.4; Flor. Epit. 2.6.8; De vir. ill. 66.12), prior to the
war, but the murder of a Roman praetor and other Roman citizens in Asculum that sparked the war also took
place during a festival. See D.S. 37.12. As such, the initial attack's timing during a festival might fall into
the pattern of providing a rebellion theological justification, similar to Mithradates Eupator's use of
prophecy in the East.
94. There was, however, no prohibition against the flamen Dialis being a magistrate. See Vanggaard 1988,
59–69. For an opposing view, see Ryan 1998, 164–67.
95. Flower 2008, 80–81.
96. For the acclamation of savior and father, see Plu. Sull. 34.1.
97. Flower (2008, 92) writes, “[The Capitoline Temple's] destruction mirrored the Romans' deepest fears
about the loss of the Republic and of their historical identity.”
98. Plu. Mar. 39.3–4.
99. For Laverna as a goddess of thieves, cf. Hor. Ep. 1.16.60–62; Fest. 104 L: Laverniones: fures antiqui
dicebant. quod sub tutela deae Lavernae essent, in cuius luco obscruo abditoque solitos furta praedamque
inter se luere. Hinc et Lavernalis porta vocata est.
100. Plu. Sull. 9.4: λέγεται δὲ καὶ κατὰ τοὺς ὕπνους αὑτῷ Σύλλᾳ φανῆναι θεὸν ἣν τιμῶσι ῾Ρωμαῖοι παρὰ
Καππαδόκων μαθόντες. Plutarch's interpretation is generally accepted as accurate. Orlin (2010, 168–69)
notes that there is no evidence that Sulla ever attempted to incorporate Ma into Rome's state religion. No
specific shrine to Ma was built in Rome, and no festival to Ma was added to the Roman calendar.
101. On Claudius' vow of a temple to Bellona, see Liv. 10.19.17; Plin. Nat. 35.12; Ov. Fast. 6.205. On the
dedication of the temple, see Ov. Fast. 6.201.
102. Plu. Sull. 7.6.
103. Ibid. 9.3. Nola was also the place where Sulla claimed to have won the corona graminea, a fact
recounted in Sulla's memoir and preserved in Pliny (Nat. 22.12). Sulla's dream of Bellona is perfectly suited
to this context and also suggests that the enemies to whom she referred were not simply Roman ones but
also Samnites.
104. Plu. Sull. 34.2; De fort. Rom. 318D; App. BC 1.97. For an examination of Sulla's use of the name
Epaphroditus in his dealings with the East, see Santangelo 2007b, 206–13.
105. Plu. Sull. 27.1–2.
106. Ibid. 27.4.
Page 59 →

CHAPTER 2
Pompey's Recognitio Equitum
Historians have generally underestimated the importance of the consulship of Pompey and Crassus in the year 70
BCE. The year 71 was significant because the victory of Crassus and Pompey over Spartacus at that time marked
the end of the anxiety that had gripped Rome since the uprising's outbreak. At that time, two Vestals, Fabia and
Licinia, were accused of having broken their vow of chastity with Catiline and Crassus, respectively.1 Such
accusations sometimes followed catastrophes, as the terrible events prompted the Romans to suspect that unusual
wickedness had disturbed the pax deorum.2 The Spartacan rebellion was just such an event, and a number of other
problems at the time only compounded the sense that the gods were angry. So bad was the state of affairs, in fact,
that the crises of the year 73 were considered signs of Rome's impending end.3 Although the Vestals and their
lovers were acquitted, the Roman people were not satisfied that justice had been done.4 Subsequent victories over
Sertorius and Spartacus in quick succession were perhaps harbingers of an end to divine anger and, for Crassus in
particular, a divine acquittal. The victors were presented Page 60 → with an unusual opportunity to complete the
process of restoration by addressing the problems of the decade following Sulla's death through reforms and
through holding a census. The present discussion of their consulship thus begins with the view that Pompey and
Crassus had a definite program to reform the Sullan constitution, enroll thousands of Italian citizens, and use the
same census to purge the state of immoral elements—something left undone thanks to the Vestals' acquittal. The
consular pair's celebration of the god Hercules is then contextualized within their program. The significance of
Hercules within a larger Italian milieu fits the content of the reforms these consuls undertook, and their use of the
god points to a deliberate plan to enlist his divine assistance in supporting their reforms and securing Rome after a
period of crisis and marked religious anxiety.

Over the course of the seventies BCE, Pompey emerged as the charismatic leader to fill the vacuum that the death
of Sulla had created, and although he clearly relied on his military success in promoting himself, he did not follow
the precedents of Sulla and Lepidus in turning his soldiers on the city.5 Pompey was thus not a revolutionary in
that particular mold, as is evident in his later decision to disband his troops after he landed in Italy in 62. Often
employing a variety of political strategies, some arguably reckless, in obtaining what he felt was his due, Pompey
was, nevertheless, comfortably ensconced within the group of leading aristocrats in the seventies. His efforts
during his consulship in 70 seem to reflect trends that were brewing over that period.6 Still, Pompey was of an
independent mind, and early in his political career, he undertook a course that undermined the measures Sulla had
instituted for the protection of the Republic from individual revolutionaries.7 Page 61 → A careful examination of
Pompey's public performances in 70 clearly shows his use of ceremony and cult in articulating changes in the
conception of Rome's relationship with Italy as it was realized under his leadership.

Although the Social War had ended in Sulla's victory at the Colline Gate over a decade earlier, Italian interests
would continue to be an important consideration in almost every civil war or threat thereof down to the victory of
Augustus. Pompey and Crassus were attuned to the opportunity presented to them in continuing Italian discontent.
Both men had recently fought with Italians against Italians in putting down the forces of Spartacus. Furthermore,
Pompey in particular was cognizant of these issues, thanks partly to his family's Italian connections and his own
participation in the Social War. The Pompeii entered the Roman nobility through Pompey's father's consulship.
Pompey's ancestors belonged to the tribe of Clustumina, located northeast of Rome in the Tiber valley.8 The
family had land interests and ties in a number of places in Italy. They seem to have had particularly strong
connections with Picenum, as suggested by Pompey Strabo's military assignment to Asculum during the Social
War and by the appearance of names from the tribe Velina (to which many Picenes belonged) on the lex
Pompeia.9 The family's involvement in the broader Italian milieu without correspondingly deep roots in the
Roman nobility likely led to Pompey's greater awareness of, if not sympathy toward, the perspectives of non-
Roman Italians.

Unfortunately, Pompey Strabo's reputation was marred by treachery and cruelty, so the young Pompey found it
necessary to be creative in order to obtain the consulship and thereby achieve the pinnacle of Rome's political and
social orders.10 He took an excellent gamble in throwing his support behind Sulla when he raised Picene legions
and placed himself at the future Page 62 → dictator's disposal.11 This was the first instance of what would develop
into a pattern for Pompey: the exploitation of a crisis to further his personal career. Undoubtedly, the careers of
Marius and Sulla served as models for such a strategy. In achieving his goals, Pompey not only acquitted himself
well but also demonstrated that he more or less understood and was committed to working with established
members of Rome's senatorial aristocracy.12 The facts of his strong Italian connections and his ability to work
with Roman aristocrats are indispensable for understanding Pompey's role in the reforms of the Sullan system in
70 and the ceremonial performances through which he sought to shape perceptions of his efforts.

After defeating the Sertorians, settling Spain, and then cleaning up the remnants of Spartacus' followers, Pompey
returned to Rome to stand for election to the consulship.13 Spartacus' campaign across the length and breadth of
Italy had had a highly destructive impact on much of the peninsula. It had required cooperation from Italian
communities to put the rebellion down, since a number of poor Italians of non-servile origins were to be found in
Spartacus' ranks.14 Rome's ultimate success against Spartacus, Page 63 → achieved with important Italian
assistance but also over some Italian resistance in the form of a percentage of the rebels themselves, again brought
to the fore the issue of the registration of Italians as citizens of Rome. Pompey emphasized the cooperation of
Rome and Italy in securing these victories, as a coin minted to celebrate his triumph in 70 attests.15 On its reverse,
Roma and Italia clasp hands.

The last significant independent Italian resistance to Rome had ended at the Battle of the Colline Gate, and many
Italians had legally obtained Roman citizenship, but most of them did not effectively possess or exercise that
citizenship, because they had not been enrolled in a Roman census and had not been assigned to one of Rome's
thirty-five tribes.16 Continuing Italian discontentment about their relationship with Rome can be seen in the role
Italians played in various Roman crises down to the so-called Catilinarian conspiracy.17 As a leader with strong
Italian connections, Pompey must have been aware of the opportunities that Italian discontentment over issues
regarding Roman citizenship might present to the shrewd politician, and he likely had the backing of aristocrats
with considerably greater influence.18 So, defying factional resistance from some quarters, Pompey, with the
cooperation of his consular colleague Crassus, determined to hold a census and thus boost his own following by
acting as the patron of nearly half a million Italians who would claim Roman citizenship.19

Page 64 →

Pompey and Crassus: Exaggerated Enmity

Before addressing the issue of the reforms themselves, a word needs to be said about the relationship between
Crassus and Pompey. Too much has been made of the tension between Crassus and Pompey, based on sparse
evidence in an inconsistent portrait of the relationship.20 There can be no doubt that tension did exist. Still,
Plutarch at one point wildly exaggerates the problem, writing of their complete inability to cooperate for the
balance of their consulship.21 Elsewhere, however, Plutarch refers to the various accomplishments that occurred in
the same period, which he then appears to attribute mostly to Pompey.22 The most solid evidence of a rift between
the two men is the reconciliation gesture that was arranged toward the end of their consular term, in which Crassus
made the first move by complimenting Pompey for his achievements and then extending his hand as a conciliatory
gesture.23

Aside from this scene of reconciliation, little militates against a portrait of consistent cooperation between the two
men until late in the year 70. Evidence for conflict over Pompey's presumption during the final stages of the
struggle against Spartacus is lacking. Crassus called for the assistance of Pompey and Lucullus as he sought to
wipe up the remnants of the Spartacan uprising.24 While many would stress the obvious anger Crassus must have
Page 65 → felt for being upstaged by Pompey in the latter's report to the Senate (in which Pompey appeared to
take credit for ending the revolt), Crassus' overtures to Pompey in seeking leave from a junior privatus to run for
consul betray insufficient ill feelings to argue that Crassus would compromise his larger political self-interest on
that account.25 Crassus would have had no reason to be sour about his ovation for defeating Spartacus, since he
could not have expected more than that honor for victory over a servile insurrection.26 Besides, Crassus received
the unusual honor of a laurel crown for his victory over Spartacus.27 The two men thus campaigned cooperatively
on a promise to restore the powers of the tribune, and they worked together in following through on that
promise.28 They also cooperated in choosing censors and holding the census.29 These are not minor issues, and
they probably carried the cooperation of the two men well into the late summer of 70. In fact, the precise issue of
conflict between them is altogether unclear.30 Whatever it was, Crassus, in praising the younger man and offering
him his hand, did not appear too opposed to Pompey to seek reconciliation.31

The Consulship of 70: Reforming the Sullan Constitution

Crassus had every reason to support Pompey's political program, since he stood to benefit thereby and since there
was no love lost between Crassus and a number of other Roman aristocrats who opposed Pompey's initiatives.
Page 66 → The census was part of a larger program designed not only to welcome thousands of Italians into
Rome as citizens but also to give these new citizens almost immediate clout once they arrived.32 While consul
designate, Pompey delivered a speech that revealed his plan to reform the Sullan constitution.33 He intended to
reform the tribunate, the courts, and the governing of the provinces.34 All three items would have immediate
impact on the newly enrolled citizens. The purpose of Pompey and Crassus' reform package was naturally not
only to empower Italians but also to expand their own clientele thereby. The heart of the program was the census,
which allowed scores of thousands of Italians to participate in the Roman state on significantly more equal footing
for the first time.35 Among those who were able to come to Rome were men who would directly benefit from
Pompey's reform of the courts.36 The lex Aurelia of 70 changed the composition of Roman juries such that the
equites and tribuni aerarii joined in.37 These new jurists undoubtedly included a number of the men who were
enrolled as citizens in the census of 70. Given that Italians comprised a large percentage of those negotiatores who
were involved in provincial business, this was no small change.38 Now these men would have the ability to judge
the guilt or innocence of Roman governors who were charged with crimes in the provinces—crimes Page 67 →
that could and did impact business. Cicero's prosecution of Verres reflected the spirit of these reforms. Cicero, a
rising novus homo from Arpinum, was the perfect prosecutor to demonstrate the kind of power that inclusion in
Roman courts endowed on new Italian citizens of Rome.39

The resuscitation of the tribunate was another important peg in Pompey and Crassus' program.40 While there were
a good number of relatively wealthy Italians who traveled to Rome for the census of 70, many poorer Italian men
were already on site, poised to lay claim to the privileges in Roman politics that had supposedly been their right
for close to two decades.41 Some had fought alongside Pompey and Crassus against Spartacan rebels.42 Some of
the Italian residents of Rome had watched in horror while Sulla slaughtered his Samnite foes in the very place, the
Villa Publica, where they hoped to be enrolled in the list of Rome's citizens.43 This demonstration undoubtedly
made a terrifying impression on them. Now, thanks to Pompey and Crassus, not only would these men be citizens,
but the traditional protections of the tribunes' full powers would be extended to them. More importantly, they
would be able to vote in the Concilium Plebis on legislation that would be binding on all Romans, including their
senatorial superiors.

Arguing that Pompey and Crassus took substantive steps to reform the Sullan constitution is not to suggest either
that the Sullan constitution was a dead letter or that Pompey and Crassus intended to overthrow all of Sulla's
work. Rather, Pompey and Crassus sought to ameliorate problems brought on by the continued deferral of the
extension of active citizenship to the Italians—and also, of course, to advance their own careers. As concerns the
tribunate, it has rightly been noted that prominent members of the Cotta family had already started to restore the
tribunate some years before.44 It is Page 68 → true that Pompey and Crassus were not independent radicals and
that their actions were in line with initiatives already in motion. At the same time, it is important not to
underestimate the significance of Pompey entering on this course of reforms at this particular time. The Republic
continued to be fundamentally the one that Sulla established, but that fact does not diminish the impact of Pompey
and Crassus' reforms.

In short, what matters for the individual politician's construction of his legacy is not the fact that he is the literal
mastermind and cause of all of the initiatives that occur during his consulship but that his is the name and his the
visage (imago) that is associated with these accomplishments. It is a way of conceiving of the magistracy that is
fully in line with the way that military command brought glory to the possessor of supreme imperium militiae on
the battlefield. Whereas the modern historian instinctively strives to identify the precise causes of the victory or
law in precise detail, the Roman magistrate wanted the credit that was his due as a function of his role as the
holder of imperium under whose aegis the act was accomplished. Naturally, he would use his public performances
to emphasize his role and articulate his vision of its significance.

The Recognitio Equitum

The preceding explication of Pompey and Crassus' reforms provides crucial context enabling one to interpret more
accurately Pompey's dramatic appearance before the censors of 70.45 History has not been kind to Pompey as a
public performer. His most infamous public performance—the triumphal gaffe early in his career in which his
elephants proved too large Page 69 → to fit through the triumphal gate, forcing Pompey to dismount—has left the
distinct impression of Pompey as a bumbler.46 The preservation of this episode as worthy of commemoration is
interesting in itself because the anecdote serves well the purpose of reminding readers that Pompey's imposing
presence, which approached Alexander-like proportions, did not fit comfortably within the city.47 Indeed, some
may view it as a visual parable much like the well-known example of the camel fitting through the eye of the
needle.48 The embarrassing scene of Pompey's triumphal gaffe is one of those moments that seems to stand as a
symbol for the man as a whole. Pompey's achievements outside of Rome consistently appeared formidable, but in
retrospect, his achievements at home, taken in toto, seem much less so, particularly in comparison with Caesar,
Pompey's successor as Rome's leading man. The temptation, which has proven almost irresistible, is to
underestimate the importance of what Pompey did accomplish in Rome, partly because of the power of anecdotes
like the triumphal gaffe.

The truth was obviously much more complicated, and Pompey's career was replete with moments of highly
effective maneuvering, which also included his use of public spectacle. In 70, Pompey ostentatiously participated
in the review of knights (recognitio equitum), which was associated with the census he had brought to pass. In this
review, knights presented themselves with their horses before the censors and were there adjudged worthy or
unworthy of the privilege of the public horse.49 The participation of the consul in this review was undoubtedly a
rare, if not unprecedented, event. The fact that the consulship was Pompey's first magistracy is what made this
possible. Page 70 → After dismounting, Pompey led his mount down into the Forum to present himself for
judgment before the censors at the Temple of Castor, the climactic moment of the review.50 As Pompey drew
within sight of the crowd gathered around the censor's tribunal in the Forum, he told his lictors to allow him
through, thus effectively dismissing them.51 When Pompey took his place before the tribunal, the senior censor, in
accordance with custom, said, “Pompeius Magnus, I ask you whether you have performed all of the military
services required by law.” To this, Pompey replied, “I have performed them all, and all under my own
command.”52 The crowd erupted in enthusiastic cheers, undoubtedly struck by the novelty of the spectacle and
Pompey's words. Plutarch calls it the most agreeable of all the spectacles Pompey offered the people.53

This event has been dismissed as being apocryphal.54 At first glance, it appears to be a little too staged to be
credible. But the fact that it is so typical of Pompey's brash flair arguably supports its authenticity. Surely it is no
less believable than some of the stories about Pompey and Sulla, such as Sulla hailing Pompey as imperator when,
as a young privatus, the latter offered himself and the legions he had raised from his clients to the returning
commander;55 or Pompey's chutzpah in demanding a triumph by telling the dictator Sulla that people cared more
about the rising than the setting sun.56 Page 71 → These stories are usually accepted as factual, and Pompey's
performance in the recognitio equitum fits well with such a portrait. Pompey was the Young Turk who had risen
from a background of familial disgrace to consular prominence through his ambition, daring, ability, and talent for
self-promotion. Pompey's performance on the occasion of his appearance before the censors simply underscores
the unusual nature of his career—a career in which he held imperium without ever having been elected to a
magistracy and, in contravention of the law, skipped all of the lower rungs of the Sullan cursus honorum to
become consul, albeit with senatorial approval.57

If one considers Pompey's performance in the review of knights in terms of its visual and verbal symbolism within
a Roman social and political context, some interesting insights emerge. At the beginning of the scene, one sees
Pompey leading his horse but preceded by lictors, the traditional ceremonial guard of consuls. He was no doubt
dressed in his consular regalia as well.58 His appearance at the time may have approached that of a commander in
triumph or ovation, since a man on horseback with lictors would have combined elements of both rituals, with the
crucial difference being that Pompey was not mounted for the review. As McDonnell has shown, there was a
remarkable ambivalence toward the image of the mounted warrior in the Late Republic.59 To allow oneself to be
depicted as a mounted warrior was taken as a sign of great arrogance, while appearing on foot was viewed as a
sign of civilitas. Thus the depiction of the consul Pompey submitting to the authority of the censors by
approaching them at the Temple of Castor while leading his horse rather than mounted on it is a striking
expression of civilitas in contrast with the gilded equestrian statue of Sulla that stood by the Rostra.60 This image
of civilitas is amplified by Pompey's dismissal of his lictors when he comes into the presence of the censors, a
highly symbolic show of respect and deference to these officials, Page 72 → who, unlike Pompey, did not hold
imperium and thus did not have lictors.61 The overall symbolic message and effect of this gesture was almost
exactly the opposite of Marius' appearance before the Senate in his triumphal costume, a fact that is all the more
interesting since Pompey had celebrated his triumph of 71 the day before he entered his consulship, in a manner
that came close to repeating Marius' back-to-back triumph and inauguration as consul.62

According to Plutarch, the initial response of the crowd to Pompey's appearance before the censors was a stunned
silence, while the magistrates were struck with awe and delight. As Vergil illustrates in his famous epic simile
involving the man of gravitas, the silence of the crowd can represent the respect a great Roman man commands in
others.63 When the censor addressed Pompey, he employed the controversial cognomen Magnus, which harked
back to Pompey's military achievements in Africa and evoked the image of Alexander the Great—a combination
of associations that is reminiscent of Marius' self-representation as a Dionysiac victor after his successes in Africa.
The censor's use of Magnus arguably conferred on the name a quasi-official force. The two censors then
accompanied Pompey to his home as though they were his clientes.64

Since the occasion of this intriguing display was essentially Pompey's own census, there can be no question
regarding Pompey's hand in orchestrating this scene, from his role in arranging for the recognitio equitum to the
departure of the censors in his company. Pompey planned to derive maximum benefit from the opportunity to
associate himself with the first census to occur in over a decade—one through which Pompey triumphed as a
privatus in his twenties and now, for a second time, as consul-elect.65 After celebrating this second triumph,
Pompey could participate in the census' recognitio equitum not only as a knight among his fellow knights but also
as a triumphator and consul.

Page 73 →

There was more at stake, however, than perceptions of Pompey's personal career. Since the end of the Social War,
Italians, many of whom were eligible by wealth to be equites, had been stuck in a citizenship limbo thanks to elite
Roman opposition against registering new Italian citizens. Perhaps the lack of a census after Sulla also reflected
something of the perceived finality of the dictator's arrangement of affairs. If the Sullan constitution, in the broad
sense, was to be viewed as an ideal arrangement, there was no need to hold a census. Those equites who had been
deemed worthy of joining the Senate had already been welcomed into it by Sulla.66 It is important to remember
that the meaning of the census was not restricted to assigning people a place in accordance with their property but
also included scrutiny of the moral standing of Rome's elite orders: the knights and the senators.67 Sulla's
proscriptions represented a kind of radical census carried out under the authority of the dictator.68 What need
could there be of holding a census when the ranks of Roman society had been cleansed and rearranged by Sulla,
the agent of the gods and savior of Rome?

In other words, the failure to hold a census between the civil war and the consulship of Pompey and Crassus was
not simply a way of deferring the incorporation of Italians into the body of the citizenry or protecting the elite
from censure; it grew out of the logic of the implicitly utopian ideology of Sulla's dictatorship. The severe
measures of Sulla's regime had been justified on the grounds that the gods had given Sulla the power to do as he
had done. Bellona had placed a thunderbolt in the dictator's hands and given him both the power and permission to
strike his enemies down.69 Sulla did this in the civil war struggle, but the attendant sense of divine backing also
extended into the execution of the proscriptions. The slaughter of Samnites in the Villa Publica, the writing of the
names of the proscribed on white boards placed out in public view (which represented a kind of reversal of the
enrollment of citizens), and the elevation of select knights into the Senate all involved the Page 74 → symbols,
power, and purview of the censorship. After having witnessed such an extreme example of censure, it would seem
a challenge to Sulla's memory even to raise the possibility of a new census. Finally, Sulla did not allow censors to
be elected for 81, a choice that sent a strong enough message about the census that it ended the practice until 70.70

The dangers of the late seventies, the trial of the Vestals, and a growing perception of senatorial corruption opened
the door for Pompey and Crassus to support holding a new census in 70.71 This census resulted in the expulsion of
an unprecedentedly large number of senators: sixty-four—a number to rival the number of senators who fell
victim to Sulla's proscriptions.72 There can be little doubt that these expulsions represented a political struggle
within the aristocracy. Although some of the expelled were undoubtedly new senators who had been incapable of
keeping up with the financial demands of the senatorial lifestyle, this would not have been true of all sixty-four
men. The expulsion of men like the consular Lentulus Sura, later a major player in the so-called Catilinarian
conspiracy, is solid evidence that prominent men from old aristocratic families fell victim to the power of
Pompey's censors. If the lectio senatus of 70 occurred prior to Pompey's appearance before the censors, the
symbolism of his show of deference to their authority would have been all the more powerful, especially to those
who rejoiced in the comeuppance that certain corrupt senatorial aristocrats had received in their ejection from the
Senate. Pompey's gesture would have been a way of signaling his respect for the very same authority that had
dealt his opponents a sharp blow.

Pompey's appearance before the censors occurred during a ritual associated Page 75 → with the census known as
the recognitio equitum. This review of the knights, which took place in connection with the yearly transvectio
equitum during the festival of Castor and Pollux, served a purpose similar to the lectio senatus in that those who
did not meet the qualifications of the order in question were relieved of the public horse and thus removed from
the eighteen centuries of knights that stood at the top of the Centuriate Assembly.73 These centuries were vitally
important for the privileged place they had in the voting order of the Assembly, which ensured their influence on
the votes of other, lower-ranked centuries. The grounds for dismissal were based on both wealth and morality.74
When knights in these centuries led their horses before the censors, the censors could either tell them to walk on
or command them to sell the public horse. The command to sell the public horse was effectively a dismissal from
the equestrian order in the more restrictive sense—that is, from the elite eighteen centuries. The timing of
Pompey's appearance in such a morally charged ceremony may have helped to remind Romans of the upcoming
trial of Verres by raising an unfavorable memory. Verres had performed some restorations on the Temple of
Castor—the location of the censors during the review—in 74 BCE.75 With the trial less than three weeks away, a
pious display that would contrast with the sacrilegious behavior imputed to Verres may have suggested to others
something of Pompey's opinion regarding Verres' guilt.

The exchange between Pompey and the censors was, in many ways, Page 76 → typical of the interaction between
knights and censors in the review. The censors asked the knights whether they had faithfully fulfilled their decade
of service, and the knights responded accordingly. This ritual not only indicated the completion of required
military service by the knight in question but also carried the positive implication that he had never been found
unworthy of his place. Furthermore, it provided proof that the knight was eligible to stand for election to a
magistracy, something that, in Pompey's case, was a foregone conclusion, given that he was already serving his
term as consul at the time of the recognitio.76 The review of knights was an ideal showcase in that it allowed
Pompey to appear as an upright and dutiful commander in stark contrast with those who fell to his census or
would, soon, in the courts. It also allowed him to highlight the fact that he had attained the highest honors at
precisely that moment when most knights would have only begun to mount the cursus honorum. Finally, as will
be shown shortly, the review allowed him to combine the symbols of the consulship and the celebration of victory
in a manner that practically inverted Marius' earlier triumphal gaffe.

Since the review of knights took place as part of the transvectio equitum, the review allowed Pompey to exploit
the latter's associations with victory in ways that were reminiscent of the ovation and the triumph. In the
transvectio, the knights gathered outside Rome at the Temple of Mars on the Via Appia on the day of the festival
of Castor and Pollux, the heroes who had saved Rome at the Battle of Lake Regillus and who then rode to Rome
to announce the victory over those who had sought to reinstall Tarquin as Rome's king.77 During the transvectio's
procession, which stopped at the Temple of Honos and Virtus on its way into the city through the Porta Capena,
the knights, riding on horseback, clad in the toga trabea, and decorated with the olive crown, filed past the
censors, who were seated on the platform of the Temple of Castor in the Forum; the knights then sacrificed Page
77 → before they made their way up the Capitoline Hill.78 This destination made the transvectio similar to the
triumph, as did the special garb of the participants. Cavalry dressed in this costume also participated in ovations.79
The transvectio was, in short, an event that yearly commemorated Roman victory and the triumph of the young
Republic over monarchy, through the parading of its knights, whose divine patrons, Castor and Pollux, had
secured the freedom of Rome from tyranny at Regillus.

Pompey's participation in the recognitio equitum thus allowed him to repeat, in a sense, his triumph from roughly
six months before (December 29, 71). This time, instead of entering the porta triumphalis on a chariot, he entered
the Porta Capena on horseback with companions wearing regalia evocative of an ovation. His declaration before
the censors that he had served faithfully in all of his campaigns and all under his own command gave Pompey an
opportunity to intone loudly that explosive word imperator. Indeed, his resounding declaration may have had the
sound of a soldier's acclamation of imperator on the battlefield. The situation is even more suggestive considering
the fact that the censor addressed him as Pompeius Magnus, a name that evoked the memory of Pompey's triumph
over Africa.

After Pompey's appearance before them, the censors accompanied Pompey to his house.80 This would seem to
present a problem, since the transvectio proceeded up the Capitoline. If the knights' review did occur during the
transvectio, it would seem either that Pompey did not proceed up the Capitoline because he headed home with the
censors or that Plutarch left out a step. Perhaps Pompey did forgo the sacrifice. He was, after all, no Page 78 →
longer an eques, and his appearance before the censors at this time had allowed him to resign formally. It may not
have been appropriate for him to continue on to sacrifice with those who continued to serve in the eighteen
centuries. Yet it seems unlikely that Pompey would have missed the opportunity to make the parallel with the
triumph more complete. Nothing would have prevented him from attending the sacrifice, even after retirement,
and it is unknown whether retired knights did or did not participate. Surely only those who had been stripped of
their public horse would have been barred from further participation in the event. Plutarch may simply have
neglected to mention the trip to the Capitoline. In any case, Pompey's journey home with the censors after the
transvectio is consistent with the commander's final destination after the triumph. Pompey no doubt banqueted
with his friends in his house.

It is worth pausing to consider how much more adept Pompey proved himself to be in this performance than
Marius had been when he entered the Senate wearing the garb of the triumphator.81 Indeed, Pompey may have
purposely set out to show how superior to Marius he could be in navigating such displays. After all, he, like
Marius, was entering his consulship directly after a triumph celebrated over a northern enemy. However, Pompey
did not move straight from the triumph to his inauguration, vows, and first meeting with the Senate. He entered his
consulship the day after the triumph. His appearance as consul before the censors in the transvectio allowed him,
as civil magistrate, to exploit the victorious symbolism of the ceremony, but the statement was almost exactly the
opposite of Marius'. As a consul wearing triumphal robes in the Senate, Marius was introducing martial and regal
images into a special civic space in a manner that approached sacrilege. Pompey's gesture, rather, showed his
deference both to the order he was leaving, which was now below him on the hierarchy of prestige, and also to the
censors who were his seniors in age and in political experience. The finesse with which he was able to declare
himself imperator in front of the censors without causing offense (or, rather, with their willing collusion) was
supremely artful.

Not only was Pompey's decision to exploit the victorious associations of the transvectio clever, it also may have
had a further ideological purpose. Pompey had recently celebrated a triumph for his victory over the forces of
Page 79 → Sertorius, and Crassus also celebrated an ovation, with the added honor of the right to wear a laurel
crown, for his victory over Spartacus. Pompey's participation in the review as one of the knights would have
allowed him to celebrate his victories of the past decade in quite a different way—not simply as the imperator who
led his men into battle (although he was careful to draw attention to the fact that he had been precisely that), but
also as a fellow eques, whose rise signaled quite dramatically how far the new Italian knights might go in their
careers or witness their descendants going in theirs: the pinnacle of the consulship.82 This kind of advancement
need not have been a likely scenario in the near term for it to send an encouraging message.83 For men of
equestrian or soon-to-be-equestrian status, such a demonstration would have been heartening indeed.

Also interesting is the way the memory of Italian conflict with Rome at Regillus was overwritten by a new
narrative of Italian incorporation into Roman citizenship and Roman honors. Castor and Pollux were naturally
involved in the equestrian ideology of Pompey, but there is little evidence that Pompey otherwise paid them
special tribute in 70.84 The twins' identification with the Penates Publici would have rendered them a particularly
suitable pair of gods to reference in connection with this census, when so many new Italian citizens were entering
the Penates' protection as well as Page 80 → that of Vesta.85 In a sense, by becoming citizens, these Italians
would, as adopted “sons of Aeneas,” have come to have a whole new relationship with the Dioscuri in their guise
of Trojan Penates. Still, at the time, Pompey and Crassus clearly paid more explicit attention to Hercules than to
Vesta, the Penates, or the Dioscuri.

Hercules, Rome, and Italy in Pompey's Political Theology

The symbolism of the recognitio of 70, with its message of social mobility for newly enfranchised Italians,
reflected Pompey and Crassus' purpose to advance Italian interests. The recognition of the existence of such a
coherent program aimed at Italians—a program that included not only legislation but also games, ritual, and
spectacle—casts a new light on other aspects of Pompey and Crassus' activities of the year 70. That Pompey and
Crassus were aware that their religious gestures had a large Italian audience is evident in the fact that many came
to be enlisted in the census, and it is also directly attested by Cicero in his first Verrine oration, in which Cicero
refers to the fact that he wants to proceed with the prosecution before the departure of the crowd collected from all
Italy for elections, games, and the census.86 The consuls had clear motivation to tailor their religious activities
accordingly.

Both Pompey and Crassus paid a great deal of attention to the celebration of Hercules, a figure of wide popularity
throughout central Italy.87 Crassus decided to pay the tithe to Hercules and then to host a public banquet, which
Ward attributes to Crassus' desire to compete with Pompey, who had also paid the tithe to Hercules and who had
been associated with the god through a triumph in that year.88 Ward argues that Crassus was striving to make his
ovation as close to Pompey's greater honor as possible. Thus Crassus pushed to get the novel honor in his ovation
of wearing a laurel crown (the crown worn in the cult of the Ara Maxima and thus suggestive of a Herculean
pose), and he voluntarily paid a tithe of his entire Page 81 → fortune to Hercules, a gesture of special piety that
was perhaps part of his larger campaign to restore his good name after the scandal with the Vestals in 73.89

Overemphasis on the competition and conflict between Pompey and Crassus has, however, distorted
interpretations of the evidence for their cooperation on important issues. The two men's use of Hercules, while
competitive, may also have had an ideologically synergistic aspect that aligned with their efforts to promote the
interests of Italians, an initiative that was ultimately to their shared political benefit. Just as Marius and Sulla had
used overlapping religious symbolism to forward themselves and their agendas, so did Pompey and Crassus, but
more cooperatively. In the case of Hercules, this meant taking a Sullan symbol and turning it to different
associations and uses.90 Sulla had amplified the cult of Hercules by being the first in recent memory to dedicate a
tithe to the god, the polluctum, and by founding or expanding the Games of Hercules.91 Sulla restored the Temple
of Hercules Custos and installed something called “Hercules Sullanus” on the Esquiline Hill.92 It is also reported
that Sulla kept on his table a statuette of Hercules, which had belonged to Alexander and Hannibal.93 Clearly
Hercules was important to Sulla, although it would be difficult, given the available sources, to define the god's
precise significance in the dictator's mind.

Among the more likely reasons Hercules may have been important to Sulla is that Hercules symbolized hegemony
over Italy. The Greek Heracles was one of the two great travelers of myth—the other being, of course,
Dionysus—whom Hellenistic rulers had adopted as a symbol of their own Page 82 → prowess as conquerors and
civilizers.94 Marius seems to have been partial to Dionysus, as one can infer from his use of the cantharus in
connection with his African victory.95 Sulla, seeking to strike quite a different pose and perhaps even seeing in
Hercules a way of stealing more of Marius' thunder in Africa, chose the traveling Greek hero who was also
identified with the Punic Melqart.96 Moreover, Hercules was a popular deity throughout Italy, among the Greeks,
naturally, and such peoples as the Etruscans, Sabines, Latins, and Campanians.97 In appropriating Hercules for his
own purposes, Sulla employed a widely understood theological symbol of Italian conquest to represent his
victories over other Italians, from the Social War down to the defeat of Samnites at the Porta Collina. The man
whom Laverna, goddess of thieves, predicted would be a great leader defeated his Italian enemies just as Hercules
defeated Cacus, the Italian cattle thief.98

Pompey may have connected his success in Spain and return to Italy with Hercules' theft of the cattle of Geryon
and visit to the future site of Rome.99 The association could only have been strengthened by Pompey's defeat of
Spartacan stragglers, which is, in its own way, also reminiscent of Hercules' defeat of Cacus. Among the Italians
of the Central Appennines, Hercules was strongly associated with pastoralism and transhumance. Romans had a
habit of associating various forms of resistance with banditry and herders, of whom Cacus, the servus of Evander
in Cassius Hemina, was a powerful symbol.100 Rome's founding myth also included the cattle Page 83 → rustling
of Romulus and Remus. Some of the same elements of Italian society were likely involved in Spartacus' revolt;
slaves had assumed the post of shepherds for large landowners in not only Sicily but also South Italy. Pompey and
Crassus' interest in Hercules was a reflection of both Pompey's success in Spain and the duo's success against
Spartacus, who was implicated in the broader context of the Italian issues the two consuls sought to address in 70.
Thus, in addition to advertising their victory and Roman hegemony in Italy and the West, the consuls' celebration
of Hercules before Italian spectators communicated the pair's benefactions to Italy.

These benefactions, previously discussed, were substantial for the hundreds of thousands of Italians who gathered
to Rome to enroll in the body of Roman citizens. The celebration of Hercules by Pompey and Crassus, each in his
own way, can thus be seen as synergistic rather than simply competitive. This is not to dismiss the very real urge
of Roman aristocrats to outdo their fellow Romans in achievement and its celebration, but the present reading
opens up a way of contextualizing the Hercules-associated activities of both men in relation to each other:
Pompey's Temple of Hercules and games dedicated to the god, on the one hand, and Crassus' tithe and its
accompanying public banquet, on the other.101 These different gestures worked together to celebrate a god whose
popularity with Italians would now include new associations with the achievements of Pompey and Crassus,
including their reform of the Sullan constitution. Under Sulla, it would have been appropriate to see Hercules
Sullanus as a figure that potentially divided Romans and Italians in both an oppositional and hierarchical
arrangement (with Romans clearly on top). Postulating a “Hercules Pompeianus” figure—one that is inflected by
Pompey's unique engagement with the god—does not altogether erase the hierarchical nature of the relationship
Page 84 → between Romans and Italians, but it goes a long way toward expressing the relationship in terms that
are uniting and that show the possibility of social and political advancement through services to Rome. The latter
idea is consistent with the image of Hercules as the visiting benefactor and savior of Rome, who, as a result of his
contributions, subsequently receives cult.102

Conclusion
This chapter has sought to place Pompey's performance in the recognitio of 70 and his religious offerings to
Hercules in a perspective whereby they can be seen as part of a coherent political-theological program for
incorporating, rather than excluding, a large number of Italians and, at the same time, preserving and amplifying
Rome's status as Italian hegemon. It would be incorrect to see Pompey as a renegade aristocrat and revolutionary
who sought utterly to overturn Sulla's system by resuscitating the tribunate, changing the composition of the
juries, and enrolling thousands of Italians on the citizen rolls. Gruen and others are correct in observing that
Sulla's constitution remained fundamentally intact despite these changes.103 Furthermore, it is clear that others,
like the Cottas, who were of the old Roman nobility, had already started making moves in this direction. Pompey
was, rather, an ally and emerging leader of aristocrats who were already seeking to tweak Sulla's constitution in
much-needed ways. Pompey further represents a potent example of the talented up-and-coming leader who Page
85 → succeeds at the Roman game where it counts, working more or less within the system and with the approval
and cooperation of Rome's elites. Unlike Marius, Pompey was able to perform his role with sufficient deftness not
to run afoul of the very men whom he sought as peers.104 Pompey's success brought the tide that future Italians
and provincials—men like Cicero and Balbus—would ride to prominence in the Late Republic and Early
Empire.105 Without Pompey's initial foray in uniting Italian interests with those of the aristocracy (and thereby
recognizing Italy's crucial role in securing Rome's future stability and world leadership), Cicero could not have
evoked cuncta Italia as his patroness in bearing him triumphantly back from exile, and Augustus could never have
invoked tota Italia as he set out to defeat the forces of Antony in the final civil war of Rome's Republic.

It is worthwhile to consider the experiences that impressed on Pompey the usefulness of initiating a significant
reformulation of the Sullan constitution. The human composition of the city-state was always among the foremost
considerations in constructing civic identity. Although Romans did not conceive of citizenship primarily in ethnic
terms (as, say, in many of the Hellenic poleis), the question of one's appropriateness for Roman citizenship was a
serious concern. Sometimes citizenship was extended as a reward for signal services to Rome on the battlefield.
At other times, the local aristocracy of a municipality was deemed worthy of Roman citizenship when it was
diplomatically and politically useful to extend the privilege. Roman citizenship was not for just anyone, and
extensions of the citizenship were a point of contention. Pompey saw the expansion of the body of citizens as a
useful way of vastly multiplying the number his own clients. The census provided the means for Rome to revisit
the issue of the composition of its citizen body on a regular basis, both by inviting new citizens and by
reevaluating the allocation of citizen status, prestige, and political power. Pompey maximized the census as a way
of expanding and reordering Rome. For this reason, Pompey should be viewed as striving to imitate no less a
figure than a Servius Tullius, a gesture that followed Sulla's use of Page 86 → Servius Tullius as a model for his
own constitutional reforms and extension of the pomerium.106

Pompey's motivation for reimagining Rome as the integration of Italians and Romans included not only a need to
reinvigorate the legislation regarding Italian citizenship that had languished since at least 86 but also Pompey's
encounter with Sertorian Spain. Sertorius had been successful at forging a counter-Rome by bringing together
Spaniards and the disaffected from Sulla's Rome.107 As a result, Pompey cut the path of his success in the
provinces by organizing Spain not only formally, in terms of provincial apparatus and extending citizenship
strategically and selectively, but also informally, in terms of personal alliances, such that Spain continued to be a
Pompeian stronghold into the period of the Second Triumvirate.108 Having set the pattern for expanding his
clientele in Spain, Pompey added to the roll of Roman citizens in Gaul and Italy too.

One should not, however, underestimate, on the grounds of practical utility, the ideological significance of what
Pompey was doing. Pompey likely saw his own return to Rome in the role of victor over Sertorius (and, to a lesser
extent, Spartacus) as the triumph of a new Pompeian order—an order that used the lessons of recent conflicts and
the opportunity of a consulship shared with Crassus to address issues of Roman identity and citizenship in ways
that the aristocracy had theretofore failed to do. The result was a Pompeian age that would endure down to the
civil war with Caesar. In the fifties, Caesar started to present a substantive challenge to this Pompeian order, but
up to Pompey's flight from Italy in 49, there was never any real question who was the first man in Rome. Indeed,
every significant Roman crisis from 70 forward would be turned over to Pompey's care, because Pompey's
leadership was seen, even outside Rome, as the source of felicitas that ensured the general salus.109 In the eyes of
some, Pompey's success in 70, which rejuvenated Rome in a time of anxiety regarding the possible end of the city,
even rendered him a Sullan-style savior who would inaugurate a Page 87 → new saeculum, as Cicero's Pro lege
Manilia attests.110 There, Pompey appears as one sent down from heaven to meet Rome's crises. Pompey's
appearance before the censors of 70 also reveals what a deft showman he could be in performing this role. In
holding a census, enrolling Italians, and personally appearing before the censors in the recognitio equitum,
Pompey may also be viewed as one who deliberately struck a significantly different note from Sulla. This may
have extended to his reformulation of Hercules as a god of Roman-Italian unity and cooperation rather than one of
strictly Roman hegemony.

1. Sal. Cat. 15.1; Asc. 91.19–23; Plu. Crass. 1.4–5; Oros. 6.3.1. Cadoux 2005; Wildfang 2006, 96–97.
2. Staples 1998, 132–35; Takács 2008, 87–89; Cornell 1981.
Exploring the Variety of Random
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chunky, the
Happy Hippo: His Many Adventures
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Title: Chunky, the Happy Hippo: His Many Adventures

Author: Richard Barnum

Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers

Release date: May 15, 2020 [eBook #62135]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHUNKY, THE

HAPPY HIPPO: HIS MANY ADVENTURES ***
 “There was Alice on Chunky’s broad back!”

Kneetime Animal Stories

 CHUNKY
THE HAPPY HIPPO
HIS MANY ADVENTURES

BY

RICHARD BARNUM
Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Mappo, the
Merry Monkey,” “Tum Tum, the Jolly
Elephant,” “Tinkle, the Trick Pony,”
“Lightfoot, the Leaping Goat,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

WALTER S. ROGERS

PUBLISHERS
BARSE & CO.
NEW YORK, N. Y. NEWARK, N. J.

Copyright, 1918
by
BARSE & CO.

Chunky, The Happy Hippo

Printed in the United States of America
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Chunky has a Laugh 7
II Chunky is Surprised 17
III Chunky is Bitten 26
IV Chunky in the Mud 36
V Chunky is Caught 45
VI Chunky Takes a Trip 55
VII Chunky’s New Friends 66
VIII Chunky on a Ship 75
IX Chunky Falls Overboard 84
X Chunky in the Circus 91
XI Chunky’s New Trick 102
XII Chunky and the Little Girl 112
 ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“There was Alice on Chunky’s broad back!” Frontispiece
“He went in backward and made a great splash” 15
“It was the crocodile that had bitten Chunky” 35
“Out came Chunky as nicely as you please” 51
“The little hippo boy was being taken away” 65
“Splash! That was Chunky himself falling
overboard” 87
“‘Now he is smiling at you!’” 109
 CHUNKY,
THE HAPPY HIPPO
 CHAPTER I
CHUNKY HAS A LAUGH

O nce upon a time, some years ago, but not so long that you
could not easily remember if you tried, there lived in a muddy
river of a far-off country called Africa, a great, big, animal-baby
named “Chunky.” He was not a fish, though he could stay under
water, not breathing at all, for maybe ten minutes, and that is why
he swam in the muddy river so much. He did not mind the mud in
the river. He rather liked it, for when he sank away down under the
dark, brown water no one could see him.
And Chunky did not want any of the lions or tigers, or perhaps the
black African hunters to see him, for they might have hurt him.
But, for all that, Chunky was a happy, jolly, little animal-baby, and
would soon grow up to be a big animal boy, for he ate pecks and
pecks of the rich, green grass that grew on the bottom and banks of
the African river.
Now, I suppose, you are wondering what sort of animal-baby
Chunky was. In the first place he was quite large—as large as the
largest fat pig on your grandfather’s farm. And Chunky really looked
a little like a pig, except that his nose was broad and square instead
of pointed.
Chunky was a hippopotamus, as perhaps you have guessed. But,
as hippopotamus is quite a long and hard word for little boys and
girls to remember, I will first tell you what it means, and then I will
make it short for you, so you will have no hard work at all to
remember it, or say it.
Hippopotamus means “river-horse”; and a great many years ago
when people first saw the queer animals swimming in the African
rivers, they thought they were horses that liked to be in the water
instead of on land. So that is how the hippopotamus got its name of
river horse. But we’ll call them hippos for short, and it will do just as
well.
Chunky was called the happy hippo. And he was very happy. In
fact when he opened his big mouth to swallow grass and river
weeds you might have thought he was laughing.
Chunky lived with Mr. and Mrs. Hippo, who were his father and
mother, in a sort of big nest among the reeds and bushes on the
bank of the river. Near them were other hippos, some large and
some small, but Chunky liked best to be with his own folks.
Besides his father and mother, there was Mumpy, his sister, and
Bumpy, his brother. Funny names, aren’t they? And I’ll tell you how
the little hippos happened to get them.
One day, when Chunky didn’t have any name, nor his brother or
sister either, a great, big, fat hippo mother came over to see Mrs.
Hippo. The visitor, whose name was Mrs. Dippo, as we might say,
because she liked to dip herself under the water so much—this Mrs.
Dippo said, talking hippopotamus talk of course:
“My, what nice children you have, Mrs. Hippo.”
“Yes, they are rather nice,” said Mrs. Hippo, as she looked at the
three of them asleep in the soft, warm mud near the edge of the
river. You may think it queer for the little hippo babies to sleep in the
mud. But they liked it. The more mud they had on them the better it
kept off the mosquitoes and other biting bugs.
“Have you named them yet?” asked Mrs. Dippo.
“Not yet,” answered Mrs. Hippo. “I’ve been waiting until I could
think of good names.”
“Well, I’d call that one Chunky,” said Mrs. Dippo, pointing with her
left ear at the largest of the three little hippos. Mrs. Dippo had to
point with her ear, for she was too heavy to raise one foot to point
and stand on three. She had only her ears to point with. “I’d call him
Chunky,” said Mrs. Dippo.
“Why?” asked Mrs. Hippo.
“Oh, because he’s so jolly-looking; just like a great, big fat chunk
of warm mud,” answered Mrs. Dippo. “Call him Chunky.”
“I will,” said Mrs. Hippo, and that is how Chunky got his name.
“Now for your other two children,” went on Mrs. Dippo. “That
one,” and she pointed her ear at Chunky’s sister, “I should call
Mumpy.”
“Why?” Mrs. Hippo again asked.
“Oh, because she looks just as if her cheeks were all swelled out
with the mumps,” answered Mrs. Dippo. For animals sometimes have
mumps, or pains and aches just like them. But Chunky’s sister didn’t
have them—at least not then. The reason her cheeks stuck out so
was because she had a big mouthful of river grass on which she was
chewing.
“Yes, I think Mumpy will be a good name for her,” said Mrs. Hippo,
and so Chunky’s sister was named. Then there was left only his
brother, who was younger than Chunky.
Just as Mrs. Dippo finished naming the two little animal children,
the one who was left without a name awakened from his sleep and
got up. He slipped on a muddy place near the bank of the river and
bumped into Chunky, nearly knocking him over.
“Oh, look out, you bumpy boy!” cried Mrs. Hippo, speaking, of
course, in animal talk.
“Ha! That’s his name!” cried Mrs. Dippo, with a laugh.
“What is?” asked Mrs. Hippo.
“Bumpy!” said Mrs. Dippo. “Don’t you see? He bumped into
Chunky, so you can call him Bumpy!”
“That’s a fine name,” said Mrs. Hippo, and Bumpy liked it himself.
 So that is how the three little hippos were named, and after that
they kept on eating and growing and growing and eating until they
were quite large—larger even than pigs.
One day, Mr. and Mrs. Hippo and most of their animal friends were
quite far out in the river, diving down to dig up the sweet roots that
grew near the bottom. Chunky, Mumpy and Bumpy were on the
bank lying in the sun to get dry, for they had been swimming about
near shore.
“Are you going in again?” asked Mumpy, of her brothers, talking,
of course, in the way hippos do.
“No, I’ve been in swimming enough to-day,” said Bumpy. “I’m
going back into the jungle and sleep,” for the river where the hippos
lived was near a jungle, in which there were elephants, monkeys
and other wild animals.
“I’m going in the water once more,” said Mumpy. “I haven’t had
enough grass to eat.”
“I haven’t, either,” said Chunky, who was fatter than ever and
jollier looking. “I’ll go in with you, Mumpy.”
So the two young hippos walked slowly down to the edge of the
deep, muddy river. Far out in the water they could see their father
and mother, with the larger animals, having a swim. Chunky and
Mumpy walked slowly now, though they could run fast when they
needed to, to get away from danger; for though a hippo is fat and
seems clumsy, and though his legs are very short, he can, at times,
run very fast.
And as they went slowly along, Chunky and Mumpy looked about
on all sides of them, and sniffed the air very hard. They were trying
to see danger, and also to smell it. In the jungle wild animals can
sometimes tell better by smelling when there is danger than by
looking. For the tangled vines do not let them see very far among
the trees, but there is nothing to stop them from smelling unless the
wind blows too hard.
 “Is everything all right, Chunky?” asked Mumpy of her brother, as
she saw him stop on the edge of a patch of reeds just before going
into the water, and sniff the air very hard.
“Yes, I think so,” he answered in hippo talk. For his father and
mother had taught him something of how to look for danger and
smell for it—the danger of lions or of tigers or of the black or white
hunter men who came into the jungle to shoot or catch the wild
animals.
“Come on, Mumpy!” called Chunky. “We’ll have another nice
swim.”
“And we’ll get some more sweet grass to eat—I’m hungry yet!”
replied the little girl hippo; for animals, such as elephants and hippos
who live in the jungle or river, need a great deal of food.
Out to the edge of the river went Chunky and his sister. They saw
some other young hippos—some mere babies and others quite large
boys and girls, as we would say—on the bank or in the water.
Just as Chunky and Mumpy were going to wade in, they noticed,
on a high part of the bank, not far away, a fat hippo boy who was
called Big Foot by the jungle animals, as one of his feet was larger
than the other three.
“Watch me jump into the river!” called Big Foot.
Then, when they were all looking, and he thought, I suppose, that
he was going to do something smart, he gave a jump and splashed
into the water. But something went wrong. Big Foot stumbled, just
as he jumped, and, instead of making a nice dive, he went in
backward and made a great splash.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Chunky, wagging his stubby tail. “Ho! Ho! I
can jump better than that, and I’m not as large as you, Big Foot! Ha!
Ha!” and Chunky laughed again. “That was an awful funny jump!”
Big Foot climbed out of the water up on the bank. His eyes, which
seemed like lumps or bumps on his head, appeared to snap at
Chunky as he looked at him and Mumpy.
 “Some one laughing at me, eh?” growled Big Foot in his deep
voice. “Ha! I’ll show you! Why are you laughing at me?” he asked,
and he went so close to Mumpy that he bumped into her and almost
knocked her into the river.
“Here! You let my sister alone!” bravely cried Chunky, stepping
close to Big Foot.
“Well, what did she want to laugh for when I splashed in the
water?” asked Big Foot.
“I didn’t laugh,” answered Mumpy, speaking more gently than did
the two boy hippos.
“Yes, you did!” exclaimed Big Foot, angrily.
 “He went in backward and made a great splash”

“No, she didn’t laugh. I laughed,” said Chunky, and his sister
thought he was very brave to say it right out that way. “I laughed at
you, Big Foot,” said Chunky. “You looked so funny when you fell into
the water backwards. Ha! Ha!” and Chunky laughed again.
“So! You’ll laugh at me, will you?” asked Big Foot, and his voice
was more angry. “Well, I’ll fix you!” and with a loud grunt, like a
great big pig, he rushed straight at Chunky.
 CHAPTER II
CHUNKY IS SURPRISED

“O h, Chunky!” cried Mumpy, as she saw Big Foot rushing at her

brother. “Oh, Chunky, come on home!”
“Pooh! I’m not afraid of him!” said Chunky, as he stood still on the
river bank and looked at the on-rushing Big Foot.
“I’ll go and call father,” went on Mumpy, as she waded into the
water and began to swim out toward the grown hippos where they
were having fun of their own in the river.
“I’ll show you that you can’t laugh at me!” grunted Big Foot, who
came on as fast as he could. “I’ll bite you and push you into the
river, and see how you like that.”
“Pooh! I’m not afraid!” said Chunky again, but really he was, a
little bit.
Of course, if you had been in the jungle, or hidden among the
reeds on the bank of the African river, you would not have
understood what Chunky and Big Foot said. In fact, you would not
even have guessed that they were talking; but they were, all the
same, though to you the noises they made would have sounded only
like grunts, squeals and puffings. But that is the way the hippos talk
among themselves, and they mean the same things you mean when
you talk, only a little different, of course.
“Oh, look! Big Foot is going to do something to Chunky!” cried the
other boy hippos, and they gathered around to see what would
happen. For fights often took place among the jungle animals. They
did not know any better than to bite, kick and bump into one
another when they were angry.
 “I’ll fix you!” said Big Foot again.
“Pooh! I’m not afraid,” answered Chunky once more, just as you
may often have heard boys say.
To tell the truth, Chunky would have been glad to run away, but
he did not like to do it with so many of his young hippo friends
looking on. They would have thought him a coward. So he had to
stand and wait to see what Big Foot would do.
On came the larger hippo boy, and, all of a sudden, when he was
quite close to Chunky, he gave a jump and bumped right into him.
Chunky tried to get out of the way, but he was not quick enough.
The next minute he found himself slipping into the river, for Big
Foot had knocked him off the bank. But Chunky did not mind falling
into the water. He had been going in anyhow for a swim with his
sister. Chunky was not hurt. No water even went up his nose, as it
does up yours when you fall into the water. For Chunky could close
his nose, as you close your mouth, and not a drop of water got in.
“There, I told you I’d fix you for laughing at me!” growled Big
Foot, as he stood on the bank and watched Chunky swimming
around in the water. “If you laugh at me any more I’ll push you in
again!”
“Oh, you will, will you?” exclaimed a voice back of Big Foot. “Well,
you just let my Chunky alone after this! He can laugh if he wants to,
I guess!”
And with that Mrs. Hippo, who had quickly swum to shore when
Mumpy told her what was going on, gave Big Foot a shove, and into
the water he splashed.
“Ha-ha!” laughed all the other hippo boys and girls, as they saw
what had happened. “Look at Big Foot! Ha-ha-ha!”
Big Foot was very angry because Mrs. Hippo had pushed him in.
But when he saw all the others laughing at him, he knew that he
could not knock them all into the water, as he had knocked Chunky,
so he made the best of it.
 “Ha-ha!” laughed Chunky. “So you’re here too, Big Foot! I saw my
mother push you in. She’s awful strong, she is! I hope she didn’t
hurt you. She didn’t mean to if she did. Here are some nice sweet
grass roots I dived down and pulled up off the bottom of the river.
Have some?” and Chunky held out some in his mouth.
Now Big Foot liked grass roots very much indeed, as did all the
hippos. So, though he still felt a little angry, he took them from
Chunky, and when the big boy hippo, with one foot larger than his
other three, had swallowed the sweet, juicy roots he felt much
better.
“They were good,” he said. “Thanks! And say, I hope I didn’t hurt
you when I shoved you into the river just now, Chunky.”
“No, you didn’t,” Chunky answered. “And I hope my mother didn’t
hurt you when she shoved you in.”
“Ho! Ho! I should say not!” answered Big Foot, and he laughed
now. “I’m sorry I got mad,” he went on. “Come on, have a game of
water-tag!”
“All right,” said Chunky, “I will. Come on, Mumpy!” he called to his
sister. “We’re going to have a game of water-tag.”
“Let’s all play!” cried Bumpo, who had not after all gone away.
Then he slid down the river bank into the water.
“Yes, we’ll all play tag!” chimed in the rest of the hippos, and they
were soon swimming and diving about in the water, splashing and
bumping into one another almost as you boys and girls play when
you go in bathing at the beach in the summer. Only, of course, the
hippos, being very big, made heavy splashes.
“This is lots of fun!” cried Chunky, as he tagged Bumpy and then
dived to get out of the way, for sometimes the hippos “tagged back,”
just as you children play.
“Yes, it’s jolly fun!” yelled Big Foot.
 So the animal children swam, splashed and dived in the water,
having much more fun than when the one was angry at the other
and had pushed him into the river.
All of a sudden, Mrs. Hippo, who had stayed on the bank after
making Big Foot behave, gave a grunting cry.
“Quick!” she called in her own language. “Swim ashore, all you
little hippos! Swim ashore, quick!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Big Foot. He thought he was too large
to mind without first asking questions.
“Don’t stop to talk! Swim ashore as fast as you can!” cried Mrs.
Hippo.
Chunky, Bumpy and Mumpy, her own three children-hippos, did as
they were told, and paddled for shore as fast as they could. For,
though a hippopotamus is a very big animal and looks very clumsy,
there are few as large as he who can swim so well or so fast, or dive
so easily.
On and on toward shore swam the hippo children, who, a few
seconds before, had been playing tag. Last of all came Big Foot. As
yet neither he nor any of the others knew why Mrs. Hippo wanted
them to come ashore.
Big Foot partly turned in the water and looked back. Then he saw
what it was. A big crocodile, which is something like an alligator, only
with a longer and more slender nose, or snout, its mouth filled with
long, sharp teeth, was swimming after the little hippos.
“Is that why you wanted us to come ashore?” asked Big Foot of
Chunky’s mother, calling to her as he swam toward land.
“Yes, indeed it is!” she answered, in her big deep voice. “And don’t
stop to ask any more questions! Hurry!”
So they all hurried and got safely into shallow water, where the
crocodile dared not come, bold and hungry as he was. He thought
perhaps big Mrs. Hippo would step on him and smash him. A
crocodile can grab hold of a baby hippo, and take it away, but dare
not touch a big hippo. So this crocodile, with an angry snap of his
teeth, turned and swam back into the middle of the river again, to
wait for another chance to grab a tender, baby hippo.
“My! how frightened I was!” said Mrs. Hippo, when she saw that
her own and the rest of the animal children were safe. “I saw the
crocodile coming toward you, but you didn’t see him because you
were playing tag so hard.”
“It’s a good thing you called to us to swim out of his way,” said Big
Foot. “I’m much obliged to you, Mrs. Hippo, and I’m sorry I pushed
your Chunky in!”
“Oh, you didn’t hurt me!” laughed Chunky, as he stood on the
bank and looked out to the middle of the river, where he could just
see the nose of the crocodile in the water, as the long animal swam
away.
And then Chunky had another surprise, for escaping from the
crocodile surely was one. All of a sudden, out from the jungle flew a
lot of birds, and before the hippos knew what was happening the
birds began to settle down on their backs.
“Oh, look!” cried Chunky. “What are the birds going to do?” he
asked his mother. “Are they going to bite me?”
“No; don’t be afraid, silly little hippo boy!” she answered, with a
loud laugh. “The birds just came to get the snails and water bugs
that are sticking to your back. The river is full of snails, and when
you go in to swim they stick to you. The birds like to pick them off
and eat them, and that’s what they’re doing now.”
And that is just what the birds were doing. Out of the jungle they
had flown, and they circled around and lighted, one after another, on
the broad, flat backs of Chunky and the other hippo children. The
skin of a hippo is very thick—two inches in some places—but there
are tender spots where mosquitoes, or bad bugs like that, can bite.
But on the backs of the hippos nothing could bite through, and even
when the birds picked off the water spiders and snails with their
sharp bills the hippos did not feel it.
“Isn’t it funny to have birds on your back?” said Chunky to Big
Foot.
“Oh, it has happened to me before,” said the larger hippo boy. “Of
course you’re young yet—you’ve got lots to learn.”
“Well, I’m glad the birds can get something to eat off me,”
laughed Chunky in his jolly way. He laughed, in his own fashion,
more than any of the other hippos, and seemed quite happy, so
much so that often, when he was spoken of, he was called “Chunky,
the happy hippo.”
Here and there fluttered the birds on the backs of the hippos,
picking off the water insects, which might get under the folds of the
skin of Chunky and his mates and pain them. So the birds not only
got a meal for themselves but they helped the animals.
After a while all the bugs and snails were picked off and the birds
flew back into the jungle. Chunky watched them as they sailed
above the tree tops, and then he, too, walked slowly into the deep
woods.
“Where are you going?” asked his sister.
“Oh, off into the jungle to have a sleep,” he answered. “Want to
come along?”
“No,” she said. “I’m going with some of the other hippo girls to roll
in the mud.”
So Chunky went into the jungle by himself. On and on among the
trees he wandered, making his way through the tangled vines,
breaking them off without any trouble, because he was very strong.
All at once Chunky heard a funny noise, like a big horn blowing,
and, looking up, he saw, standing in front of him, a big animal, much
taller than himself. And this animal had two big long white teeth
sticking out in front, and he seemed to have two tails, one longer
than the other.
“Oh dear!” thought Chunky. “This is a terrible beast! I wonder if he
will bite me as the crocodile tried to;” and in order to get away,
Chunky turned to run back through the jungle.
 CHAPTER III
CHUNKY IS BITTEN

“H old on there! Wait a minute! Don’t be afraid! Wait for me, little
hippo chap!” cried the big animal to Chunky.
“Oh, no! You’ll bite me!” answered Chunky, as he crashed his way
through the jungle.
“Bite you? I wouldn’t bite you for the world. I never bite anything
except the grass and leaves I chew for my dinner. I might tickle you
with my trunk, if I wanted to have some fun, but I’d never bite,” and
the big animal talked in such a kind way that Chunky no longer felt
frightened. He stopped and looked back.
“What do you mean—tickle me with your trunk?” he asked,
speaking animal talk, of course. “Do you mean with one of your two
tails?”
“I haven’t two tails,” answered the big animal. “The little one is a
tail, to be sure, but the other is my trunk, or nose. See! I can wiggle
it any way I like to;” and this he did.
“My! that’s wonderful!” cried Chunky. “I can wiggle my tail, even if
it is shorter than yours, and I can open my mouth real wide, but I
can’t make my nose go as yours does. And so you call it a trunk!
What do you do with it?”
“It is like a hand to me,” said the big animal. “I pick up in it things
to eat, and I pull off the leaves of trees that grow above my head on
the high branches. What is your name, little hippo boy?”
“My name is Chunky. And what is yours?”
 “I’m called Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, and I’m in a book,” said
the big animal. “Now don’t ask me what a book is, for I don’t know.
All I know is I’m in one and the book is about a lot of my
adventures.”
“What’s adventures?” asked Chunky.
“Things that happen to you,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “If
I had tickled you with my trunk, that would have been an
adventure.”
“And if the crocodile had bitten me when I was out playing water-
tag a while ago, would that have been an adventure?” asked
Chunky.
“It would,” said Tum Tum. “But that’s all I know about a book—I’m
in one, and there’s a picture of me. I had a lot of adventures in the
jungle, and then I was caught and taken away far off and put in a
circus. There I had lots of fun.”
“Why aren’t you in the circus now?” asked Chunky.
“Well, I’m getting too old to do circus tricks any more, though I
feel as jolly as ever,” answered Tum Tum. “So the man who owned
me said he’d take me out of the circus and bring me back to the
jungle to help train any wild elephants he might catch. That’s why
I’m back in the jungle. I’m going to help tame and train wild
elephants, which the hunters, who are with the man who owns me,
are going to try to catch.”
“Ha! So there are hunters here, are there?” cried Chunky, for he
had heard his father and mother speak of these creatures, and they
had told him always to keep out of their way.
“Yes, there are some hunters in the jungle,” said Tum Tum. “They
are after elephants.”
“Do you think they’ll want a hippo?” asked Chunky anxiously.
“Well, I can’t tell. Maybe they might. Would you like to be caught
and put in a circus?”
 “Indeed I would not!” cried Chunky. “I want to stay in the jungle,
and swim in the muddy river with my brother Bumpy and my sister
Mumpy. We have lots of fun.”
“We had fun in the circus, too,” said Tum Tum, the jolly elephant.
“There I met Mappo, the merry monkey, and I know lots of other
animals, about whom those things that are called books have been
written.”
“Oh, tell me about the other animals!” begged Chunky. “Was there
one like me?”
“Yes, there was a hippo in the circus,” said Tum Tum; “but he was
old and big, and slept in his tank of water most of the time. I didn’t
have much to say to him. But I like you.
“Then there were other animals in the circus, and out of it, too,
for that matter, and I liked most of them. I met Squinty, a comical
pig, and there was Don, a runaway dog, besides Flop Ear, a funny
rabbit. They all have books written about them, and you’d be
surprised at the many adventures my friends had.”
“I was surprised, just now, when the jungle birds perched on my
back,” said Chunky.
“You’d be more surprised if you could read about my adventures
in the book,” said Tum Tum, with a jolly twinkle in his eyes, as he
reached his trunk up in a tree and pulled off some sweet, green
leaves. “Have some,” he invited Chunky, and Chunky did.
“Well, I’m very glad to meet you,” said the little hippo boy, after a
while, when he and Tum Tum had talked for some time, and the jolly
elephant had told him a few of his adventures, especially of once
having been in a fire when the circus barns caught, and of how he
had helped save some of the animals from being burned, including
Dido, a dancing bear.
“My! that was an adventure!” cried Chunky.
“Pooh! that’s nothing,” said Tum Tum. “Maybe I’ll have more
adventures now that I’ve come to the jungle. What! you aren’t
going, are you?”
“Yes, I guess I’d better go home,” said Chunky. “Some of those
hunter friends of yours might try to catch me to put me in a circus,
and I don’t want to go. Maybe I’ll see you some other time,” and
away he went through the jungle toward the river, on the edge of
which, amid the tall reeds, he lived with the other hippos.
“Good-bye!” called Tum Tum. “If ever you get caught by the
hunters, and you don’t like it, I’ll help you get away if I’m around.”
“Thank you!” said Chunky, and he made up his mind never to be
caught if he could help it. But you just wait and see what happens to
the little hippo boy!
Chunky made his way through the jungle to where his father and
mother had their home. It was not a house, or even a nest, such as
birds live in, though I have called it a nest. It was just a place where
the reeds and weeds were trampled down smooth to make a soft
place for the hippos to sleep.
There was no roof over the top of the hippos’ house, if you can
call such a place a house. There were no windows in it, nor doors,
and when it rained the water came in all over. But Chunky and his
brother and sister did not mind the wetness. They liked being in the
water as much as being on dry land, and they spent more than half
their time in the river, anyhow.
So, really, all they needed of a house was a place where they
could lie down and sleep, and it was easy to make such a place. All
Mr. and Mrs. Hippo had to do was to lie down in the weeds and
reeds, roll over once or twice to make them stay down smoothly,
and the house was made.
There was no furniture in it—neither tables nor chairs, and not
even a piano or a talking machine. The hippos had no use for these
things. All they needed was a place to lie down, and such a place
need not even be dry. Then all else they wanted was something to
eat, and this they could get on land or in the water.
 “I think I like my home on the river bank better than the circus,
even if Tum Tum did say it was jolly,” thought Chunky, as he crashed
his way back through the jungle to where he had left his sister. She
was out in the river now, playing water-tag with some of the other
hippo boys and girls.
“Aren’t you afraid of the crocodile?” asked Chunky, as he, too,
waded out to get some more grass roots, for he was hungry again.
Hippos and elephants eat very often during the day.
“The crocodile has gone away,” answered Mumpy. “The big hippos
swam around in the water and drove him to the other side of the
river. We are not afraid. Come and play tag with us, Chunky.”
“Not now,” he answered. “I’m going to eat. After I eat I will play.”
Chunky waded out into the river until he felt the water coming up
over his nose. Then he shut the breathing holes, so no water would
run into them. It was just as if one of you boys had ducked your
head under water and held your nose closed with your fingers, only
Chunky did not need to hold his nose.
He could not have done so if he had wanted, for he had no hands,
and he needed his four feet to walk on. For, though in deep water he
could swim, as could the other hippos, he now wanted to walk along
under water on the soft, oozy, muddy bottom of the river and eat
grass and plant-roots.
Chunky had in his jaw some long, sharp teeth, called tusks. They
were not as big as the tusks of Tum Tum the elephant, and they did
not show when Chunky closed his big lips. But when he opened his
mouth his tusks could easily be seen and so, too, could his other big
teeth, called molars, which were used for grinding up the grass and
other things he ate, just as your teeth grind, or chew, your food.
It was with his long, sharp tusks that Chunky dug up from the
muddy bottom, or from the banks of the river, the roots which he
loved so well. And now, as the boy hippo waded out, he opened his
eyes under water to look about and to find a good feeding place.