Download Politics and policy: Rome and Liguria, 200-172 B.C.

Politics and policy: Rome and Liguria, 200-172 B.C.
Eric Brousseau, Department of History
McGill University, Montreal
June, 2010
A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the
degree of Master of Arts.
©Eric Brousseau 2010
i
Abstract
Stephen Dyson’s The Creation of the Roman Frontier employs various
anthropological models to explain the development of Rome’s republican frontiers. His
treatment of the Ligurian frontier in the second century BC posits a Ligurian ‘policy’
crafted largely by the Senate and Roman ‘frontier tacticians’ (i.e. consuls). Dyson
consciously avoids incorporating the pressures of domestic politics and the dynamics of
aristocratic competition. But his insistence that these factors obscure policy
continuities is incorrect. Politics determined policy.
This thesis deals with the Ligurian frontier from 200 to 172 BC, years in which
Roman involvement in the region was most intense. It shows that individual
magistrates controlled policy to a much greater extent than Dyson and other scholars
have allowed. The interplay between the competing forces of aristocratic competition
and Senatorial consensus best explains the continuities and shifts in regional policy.
Abstrait
The Creation of the Roman Frontier, l’œuvre de Stephen Dyson, utilise plusieurs
modèles anthropologiques pour illuminer le développement de la frontière
républicaine. Son traitement de la frontière Ligurienne durant la deuxième siècle avant
J.-C. postule une ‘politique’ envers les Liguriennes déterminer par le Sénat et les
‘tacticiens de la frontière romain’ (les consuls). Dyson fais exprès de ne pas tenir
compte des forces de la politique domestique et la compétition aristocratique. Mais
son insistance que ces forces cachent les continuités de la politique Ligurienne est
incorrecte.
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Ce thèse évalue les développements dans la Ligurie entre les années 200 et 172
avant J.-C.—les trentes ans pendant lesquelles les romains faisaient de la guerre à
presque chaque année en Ligurie. La thèse montre que les individus influençaient la
politique plus souvent et plus fortement que Dyson et autres historien(ne)s concèdent.
Les continuités et changement dans la politique régionale sont mieux expliqués selon
un cadre qui prend compte de la tension entre la compétition aristocratique et le
consensus Sénatorial.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Prof. Michael Fronda. Without his
painstaking editorial work while halfway around the world, this thesis would be replete
with Germanic compound nouns and other less egregious grammatical and syntactical
errors. His suggestions regarding structure and analysis have also been tremendously
helpful. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.
Table of Contents
Abstracts and Acknowledgements
i
Introduction
1
Chapter 2: Developments in Liguria, 238-183
25
Chapter 3: Developments in Liguria, 182-175
66
Chapter 4: The Popillian Affair: A Case Study in Roman Politics and Foreign Relations 92
Conclusion
126
Bibliography
131
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
Book thirty-nine of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita opens with a passage that directly
addresses the importance of the seemingly endemic Roman campaigns in Liguria, which
were fought almost yearly from 197 to 171:
This enemy [the Ligurians] was born, as it were, to keep alive the military
discipline of the Romans during the intervals between their great wars; nor did
any province do more to put an edge to the soldier’s courage. For Asia, on
account of the pleasantness of its cities and the abundance of its treasures of
land and sea and the feebleness of the enemy and the wealth of its kings, made
armies richer rather than braver. Especially under the command of Gnaeus
Manlius was discipline slackly and indifferently enforced; and so a somewhat
more difficult advance in Thrace and a rather more effective enemy had taught
them a lesson with great slaughter. Among the Ligurians there was everything
to keep an army alert- hilly and rough ground, which was difficult for both the
men themselves to occupy and to dislodge the enemy who had already
occupied it, and roads difficult, narrow, dangerous by reason of ambuscades;
an enemy lightly equipped, mobile an unexpected in his movements, who
permitted no time or place whatever to be quiet or safe; the besieging of
fortified points was necessary and at the same time toilsome and dangerous;
the district was poor, which constrained the soldiers to simple living and
offered them little plunder. Accordingly, no civilian camp-follower went along,
no long train of pack-animals stretched out the column. There was nothing
except arms and men who placed all their trust in their arms. Nor was there
ever wanting either the occasion of the cause for war with them, because on
account of their poverty at home they were constantly raiding their neighbors’
land. And yet the fighting never brought about the final settlement of a
campaign.1
Livy’s moralizing is unmistakable, and indeed this passage sets the tone for a series of
moralizing episodes throughout book thirty-nine.2 But Livy’s point is well taken. Roman
involvement in Liguria demanded tremendous expenditures of manpower and military
effort. In twenty-two of the thirty-four years between 200 and 167, at least one and
1
Livy 39.1.2-8. Ligurians as a nation ‘inured to war’: Livy 27.48.
Briscoe (2008) 209. Ligurian hardiness: Farney (2007) 195, 197, 199-201; Williams (2001) 54,
75-76; Toynbee (1965) 273-277, for Ligurian topography and its effect on the Romano-Ligurian
wars.
2
2
often both consuls were sent to Liguria.3 It was the most common province for Roman
consuls in the first three decades of the second century. These numbers alone would
justify a detailed study of the Roman involvement in Liguria. Yet these commands also
provide an excellent case study for the relationship between politics and policy in the
development of the republican frontier.
Historiography of Liguria
The subject of Roman Liguria has produced a somewhat paradoxical
historiographic tradition. The archaeological scholarship’s volume is extensive but textbased, historical treatments have been few and far between. French and Italian
scholars have tended to deal with the regions of ancient Liguria bounded by their
modern nations, focusing on two topics in particular: pre-Roman Liguria; the
Romanization of Liguria.4 In both cases the treatments have been predominantly,
almost exclusively, archaeological. Archaeologists and historians have attempted to
recreate pre-Roman Liguria from the little evidence available. The trend has been to
stress the interconnectedness of pre-Roman Liguria with the wider Mediterranean
world, especially with the Carthaginians, Massiliotes, Etruscans and the inhabitants of
Magna Graecia. Similarly, recent treatments of the Romanization of Liguria have
emphasized cultural continuity and exchange rather than a narrative of cultural
imperialism.5 This thesis is emphatically not concerned with the archaeology or the
3
Harris (1979) 225, notes that Roman armies fought in Liguria annually from 197-172 with the
exception of the Syrian-Aetolian War; cf. Williams (2001) 21; Gargola (2006) 156. All dates are
BC unless otherwise indicated.
4
Crucial work on Italian Liguria has been done by Lamboglia, Mansuelli and Tozzi. In France, F.
Benoit, R. Chevallier, M. Lejeune, and H. Rolland have been seminal.
5
See Häussler (2007) 45-78, for a recent survey.
3
Romanization of Liguria. The sources are predominantly historical and the focus is
Romano-centric.
Surprisingly little scholarship has focused on the Roman conquest of Liguria and
this region’s place in the larger framework of Roman imperialism. Indeed, though there
are many treatments of Rome’s overseas wars in the post-Hannibalic period6, Liguria
has rarely been addressed in depth since William H.B. Hall did so in an 1898 work
entitled The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone: a sketch of the conquest of Liguria
and the Roman Province. Hall’s work is informed by late nineteenth century
Romanticism: “Passing my winters as I do within sight of the ruins of Forum Julii, which
is really a Rome in miniature, I have been imbibing an atmosphere as completely
Roman, as if I had been living on the outskirts of the Eternal City.”7 Citing an “intimate
acquaintance with the locality”, Hall’s aim is to “bridge over the gap in Roman history
between the narratives of Livy and Caesar” by integrating history and archaeology into
a grand narrative of Roman conquest.8 But the work is mostly narrative history and
does not integrate aspects of Roman political culture or domestic politics.
A.J. Toynbee dealt with the Romano-Ligurian wars at some length in the second
volume of Hannibal’s Legacy. According to Toynbee, after the Second Punic War, a
“systematic plan” was developed to conquer Cisalpine Gaul and Liguria. The Po basin
was an agricultural Eden and the Roman state fastened on a plan of conquest in order
to expand the available ager Romanus.9 Toynbee portrays the wars and the mass
6
Second Macedonian War: Warrior (1996). Antiochene War: Granger (2002). Achaean War:
Gruen (1976). Third Punic War: Baronowski (1995). More generally: Eckstein (2006b), Gruen
(1984).
7
Hall (1898) viii.
8
Hall (1898) vii.
9
Toynbee (1965) 260-264.
4
deportations after 180 as part of Rome’s aggressive agrarian policy—he cites the
Senate’s ambivalent response to M. Popillius Laenas’ attack on the Statellae in 173
(condemnation of the consul’s actions yet forced-migration of Ligurians) as evidence
that Roman aims were the acquisition of new land.10
More recently, W.V. Harris devotes a mere two pages to the Ligurian wars in
the period 197 to 172. He thinks “the contribution of defensive thinking at Rome is hard
to discern” but acknowledges that piracy, the defense of Roman colonies (Bononia and
Arretium) and roads (Via Flaminia, Via Aemilia) as well as newly acquired possessions
(Pisa) potentially contributed to Roman involvement in Liguria. However, “thoughts of
gain probably contributed to the Ligurian wars. Plundering and enslavement went on as
usual, the latter relatively more important against poor opponents. Livy’s notices
sometimes give the impression that plundering was the main objective, and this can be
accepted without difficulty.”11 This assertion situates the Ligurian Wars within Harris’
larger contention that the Roman Senate consistently pursued an aggressive,
expansionist agenda for material gain.
Stephen Dyson provides perhaps the most detailed recent analysis of Roman
imperialism in Liguria. Dyson’s The Creation of the Roman Frontier argues that “the
roots of Roman frontier thinking and the development of methods of border control lay
in the rich experience of the Republic.”12 He believes that Rome’s republican frontiers
laid the groundwork for imperial frontier strategy and accordingly deserve closer
10
The Popillian Affair was a political showdown between various magistrates and the Senate in
the years 173-172 and is the subject of a detailed case study in chapter 4.
11
Harris (1979) 226-227. Harris rejects Livy’s statement that the Ligurian wars provided little
plunder (39.1.6) as “merely part of a sermon on their beneficial effect on the Roman army”.
North (1981) 2, notes that Harris’ theoretical framework is well developed but that his
treatment of individual wars is strained.
12
Dyson (1985) 3.
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scrutiny than they have received. The entire third chapter is devoted to the
development of the Ligurian frontier. In his introduction, Dyson writes:
Growing out of events, attitudes, and accumulated experience were policy and
institutions. The Roman Republic provides a fascinating study of a highly
complex but basically prebureaucratic society. Modern historians of Rome have
tended to stress the individual power politics and elite group dynamics of
Republican society. But no system functions without a policy and the means for
instituting it. This is especially true for frontier situations where the
convergence of two societies requires clear policy and flexible application. The
apparent informality of policy-making during the Republic and the stress on
personal and familial control have obscured continuities in both policy and
action. One advantage of considering the frontier in larger perspective is that
isolated events in a particular area can be seen as part of a larger policy.13
Dyson follows these parameters in crafting a narrative of Roman frontier policy in
Liguria. He finds that Liguria is a particularly illustrative case study: “In all its aspects,
the Ligurian frontier provides an excellent illustration of the complexities and problems
of Roman frontier development.”14
In Dyson’s view, the Ligurian frontier supposedly developed in accordance with
a Senatorially directed policy. It was ‘the Romans’ or the ‘Senate’ that recognized the
need for a policy-shift from yearly raiding to resettlement and pacification in 180.
Consuls could deviate from the policy and innovate but this innovation was then
incorporated into existing policy and subsequent consuls perpetuated this new
innovation. The influence of Roman politics is almost an afterthought in both Dyson’s
framework and the previous scholarship. Scholars have presented a neat picture of a
Senate bent on subjugating the region. Little interest has been taken in the actions of
13
Dyson (1985) 6.
Dyson (1985) 94; 124-125: “The information we do have shows that the conquest of Liguria
not only involved some of the most difficult campaigning faced by the Roman army but also
required some of the most imaginative use of more peaceful frontier policies. The variety of
devices used and the imagination evident in their application speaks well for Roman frontier
strategists.” These were not ‘frontier strategists’ but annually elected consuls.
14
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individual magistrates and their relationship with the Senate. In fact, Dyson
acknowledges the intersection of domestic politics and foreign policy only once: the
Popillian Affair.15 Apart from this infamous episode, he repeatedly downplays or ignores
the role of politics and competition in the making of frontier ‘policy’. But the separation
of politics and policy ignores fundamental aspects of the Roman republic.
Roman Foreign Relations and Political Culture
At the end of his introduction, Dyson claims: “[I] have avoided embracing any
overarching theory since I do not believe any is relevant to this subject.”16 But he
acknowledges having read and subtly incorporated various anthropological theories,
and his work explicitly responds to historians who have hitherto privileged the role of
personal politics and aristocratic competition in shaping Roman foreign relations. Thus
Dyson’s work is shaped by certain operating assumptions even if he addresses them
only obliquely. The following discussion will accomplish three things: concisely
illuminate various debates regarding republican expansion, foreign policy and political
culture17; situate Dyson’s work as well as previous Ligurian scholarship within the
intellectual framework of those debates; demonstrate the need for a renewed
approach to the Ligurian frontier.
The mechanics of Rome’s rise to Mediterranean domination have fascinated
and perplexed historians since Polybius. The Greek historian spent seventeen years as a
15
Dyson (1985) 110: “Most of the actions of Laenas can best be explained by political rivalries at
Rome and the growing ambitions of the Popillian family”; 111: “The issue rapidly became caught
up in the internal politics of Rome *…+ The case of Laenas is a fascinating study in the imperial
politics of the period.”
16
Dyson (1985) 6.
17
The scholarship on these topics is vast and a full treatment would be a colossal undertaking.
Jehne (2006) is an excellent overview of republican historiography; Eckstein (2006a) summarizes
the ongoing controversy regarding republican expansion and imperialism.
7
hostage in Rome and attempted to find order amidst the chaotic expansion of Roman
imperium so as to explain to his fellow Greeks “by what means, and under what kind of
polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and brought under the
dominion of the single city of Rome” in a span of fifty-three years.18 Polybius’ answer
rested on Rome’s mixed constitution and its good fortune (tyche). The debate has more
recently been structured between the two poles of defensive imperialism and
aggressive expansionism.
The model of ‘defensive imperialism’ holds that Roman expansion occurred as
the result of threats, perceived or actual, to its security. This approach emphasizes
fetial law and the Roman obsession with fighting just wars (bellum iustum). Roman
expansion was fitful—Rome was an empire by accident.19 Arthur Eckstein has recently
revived the theory albeit in a slightly altered form, responding directly to Harris’
continued influence.20 Eckstein incorporates political science and Realist theory to show
that Rome was not an exceptionally bellicose society in comparison to its neighbours.
Its disposition and behaviour was no different than its contemporaries—it was just
more successful than the Italian powers, the Hellenistic dynasties and its Carthaginian
rivals. As such, Roman expansion cannot be explained by an innate Roman bellicosity.21
W.V. Harris’ reaction to the theory of ‘defensive imperialism’ ignited serious
debate about Roman expansionary motives. Harris contends that republican expansion
18
Polyb. 1.1. Polybius’ fifty-three years went from 220 to 167.
Early examples include Holleaux (1921); Badian (1968).
20
Eckstein (2006a) 573, on Harris’ theory: “The majority of studies on Roman expansion under
the Middle Republic now take this stance.”
21
Eckstein (2006b, 2009).
19
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was aggressive and imperialistic.22 Rome was not the reluctant recipient of an
unwanted empire but an aggressive superpower perpetually seeking to augment its
territory and extend its imperium—an empire by design. For Harris, the Roman state
was pre-disposed to war; from its yearly war-making to the militarism of the aristocracy
and people alike to the censors’ oath that they would augment the Roman state,
Roman bellicosity was a national trait that both set them apart from other societies and
facilitated their Mediterranean domination.23
A second debate has focused on the existence and nature of Roman foreign
policy. Some scholars argue that the Romans maintained a coherent foreign policy over
the longterm, though they differ substantially on specifics of what that policy
comprised. Harris saw foreign policy as a simple directive of expansion. Badian employs
the framework of patronus-clientela relationships to explain Roman foreign policy.
Others such as Sherwin-White, Gruen, Morstein-Marx and Ebel have focused on foreign
policy in specific geographic regions.
Eckstein has challenged this popular view. He asserts that Rome’s “eventual
success need not imply the existence of a conscious, insistent, and specific policy (if not,
indeed, plan) of imperial expansion on a grand scale.”24 The Roman historiographical
tradition lacks such coherency so that “even the most important Roman decisions
concerning foreign relations do not appear in Livy’s books 21-45 as the result of cool
22
Harris (1971, 1979, 1990). See also Hölkeskamp (1993); Millar (1984) 1: “It was in Liguria, in
the Celtic lands of the Po valley and in Venetia and Histria that the Romans of this period
exhibited a consistent and unremitting combination of imperialism, militarism, expansionism
and colonialism.”
23
For an excellent review article which highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Harris’ work,
see North (1981).
24
Eckstein (1987) xvii.
9
calculations or long-term, planned policy: rather, everything is ad hoc.”25 He has since
expanded on the narrow scope of Senate and General and demonstrated that the
Roman rise to hegemonic status occurred within the volatile multipolarity of the
Hellenistic world. It was also the result of a series of contingent decisions rather than a
rational plan.
One of the main points of contention in the second debate concerns the nature
of decision-making and political power. Scholars since Mommsen have looked to the
Senate as the guiding force in Roman foreign policy in the middle republic. North has
recently written that “the Senate was, then, the key institution in the making of policy
decisions. The power of action lay with the magistrates, but they received and usually
respected the Senate’s advice.”26 Many scholars have accepted the leadership of the
Senate in foreign policy decisions.27 Fergus Millar raises important objections to this
position:
… if we talk about Roman imperialism we must, at least at one level, try to
make clear whose imperialism we are discussing. Who, in the Roman political
system, actually decided the declaration of war or the making of peace, the
scale of the military call-out for each year and its allotment to different areas,
the answers to be given to Italian and foreign embassies, the dispatch of
colonies: the consul or pro-consul in the field, the Senate, or the Roman people
in their assemblies? Thus to understand Roman imperialism, but not that alone,
we must understand the Roman political system itself.28
Millar stresses the role of the people and their assemblies. Eckstein too has challenged
the view that the Senate played the leading role in determining Roman foreign policy
such as it was. His aptly titled Senate and General attempts to “reexamine the
25
Eckstein (1987) xvii.
North (2006) 269.
27
Toynbee (1965); Sherwin-White (1986); Badian (1958); Hölkeskamp (1993, 2010); Harris
(1979); Gargola (2006) 156: “In northern Italy, the initiative clearly lay with the Senate, and
eliminating or drastically reducing the Gallic population may well have been among its goals.”
28
Millar (1984) 1.
26
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hypothesis that the senate was the dynamic force behind the creation of Roman
foreign policy in the third and early second centuries B.C. and to place new emphasis on
the vital role played in Roman foreign relations by Rome’s generals in the field.”29
Eckstein is fundamentally skeptical regarding the consensual nature of Senatorial
politics and policy. He also cites the “primitiveness of the Roman senate as an
institution for decision making in foreign relations” as well as “the inherently
cumbersome nature of the senate itself.” More recently he has pointed to factional,
family and personal jealousies within the Senate.30
Nathan Rosenstein echoes some of Eckstein’s concerns over Senatorial
consensus. He criticizes Develin’s contention that Senators could and did manipulate
elections in times of military crises, writing that “the patres emerge looking rather less
like a collection of self-interested politicians and rather more like an assembly of
statesmen than one might have imagined, and military crisis stands revealed as an
important brake on aristocratic competition.”31 The debate between the two points to
a much larger topic of research that has received considerable attention: the tension
between competition and consensus within the Senatorial aristocracy. Harris, Develin
and Hölkeskamp have embraced a consensual Senate.32 Rosenstein’s work has focused
on the innate tensions within the aristocracy, their limitations and effects on
29
Eckstein (1987) xii.
Eckstein (1987) xix, xx; Eckstein (2006a) 573. Scullard (1951) accepts the Senate’s leading role
in foreign policy but parallels Roman foreign policy with shifting factional and familial control of
the Senate.
31
Rosenstein (1993) 314.
32
Hölkeskamp (1993, 2010); Harris (1971, 1979, 1990); Develin (1979, 1985).
30
11
governance and society.33 In short, the Senatorial class’ defining characteristic was
intense competition within consensually defined parameters.34
Extent and Limitations of Senatorial Frontier ‘Policy’
The republican Senate was not powerless and it indeed directed certain aspects
of foreign policy and frontier development. The Senate was equipped with powers and
privileges that went beyond entertaining foreign embassies and sending Roman
embassies abroad.35 But as Eckstein has demonstrated, individual magistrates in the
field exerted great influence on policy. In order to fully account for developments in
Roman foreign and frontier policy we must consider not only the Senate, but also
individual magistrates and the interplay between them. Politics did not interfere with
policy—they dictated it. The following are some specific Senatorial practices and
institutions that constitute methods of control and shaped policy to some extent.
Colonization was integral to frontier strategy and largely controlled by the
Senate. In the years 200 to 167, a Senatorial decree and a plebiscite were both required
to found a colony.36 While late republican colonies increasingly provided economic
benefits, land for veterans and helped relieve the pressure of surplus population,
colonies founded in the third and early second centuries served first and foremost as
forward positions for gathering intelligence and as bulwarks against the invasion of
33
Rosenstein (1990a, 1990b, 1990c, 1993) for military service and the aristocratic ethos;
Rosenstein (2006) for a more general summary.
34
Rosenstein (1990c) 294; Millar (1984) 13-14, for competition before the people as a defining
trait; Rosenstein (1990b) 255ff., for some of the constraints on aristocratic competition; Gruen
(1996) 214ff., for a balanced view.
35
Polyb. 6.13.1-9.
36
Gargola (1995) 53. Gargola, following Velleius Paterculus (1.14.1), notes that the Senate
founded all colonies before the Gracchi.
12
Roman Italy. Cicero called them the propugnacula imperii, the bulwarks of empire.37
They projected Roman power and protected Roman interests in the peninsula.
Founding colonies was a Roman undertaking involving boards of men (triumviri or
decemviri) who were Senatorially selected to lead the foundations.
However, even colonization, one of the truly state-level republican policies, was
not immune to the pressures of aristocratic competition. Individuals within the Senate
were responsible for initiating colonization projects even if their identities are rarely
known and “a successful proposal potentially could serve a number of purposes in such
an individual’s personal or political agenda.”38 As has been proposed regarding the
Minucii and Cisalpine Gaul,39 certain families might have a special relationship with a
tribe, a city or a region and would naturally have vied for the position of triumvir or
decemvir coloniae deducendae when colonies were founded in that area. But the
Senate retained control of the process: it voted to found a colony, established its size
and mandate and created the board that oversaw either the colonial founding or the
distribution of land ad viritum.40
Roman road-building occupies a position between outright policy and practices
characteristic of aristocratic competition. Road-building and colonization were always
intimately connected; roads facilitated the rapid transportation of troops and
connected newly founded colonies to pre-existing Roman roads. But roads were built or
repaired by aristocrats seeking to glorify themselves and their families, often when they
had met with little military success, a quiet province or as a symbol of their devotion to
37
Cic. De Leg. Agr. 2.27.
Gargola (1995) 52.
39
Wiseman (1996) 62.
40
Colonization in Liguria: Brunt (1971) 190ff.; Dyson (1985) 114ff.
38
13
the well-being to the res publica.41 Road construction and repair fell to the censors but
consuls too could initiate and carry out such a task on their own.42 The nomenclature of
Roman roads in Liguria attest to this: the Via Aemilia was begun by the consul M.
Aemilius Lepidus in 18743; his colleague C. Flaminius began construction of a road
between Bononia and Arretium in the same year44; the Via Postumia was built in 148
according to a milestone that identifies Sp. Postumius Albinus Magnus (cos. 148) as the
road’s builder.45 On one level, road-building was Roman policy in that it was a practical
necessity that Roman expansion demanded. But much like temple-building and gamesvowing, road-building had a distinctly competitive facet. It was one of the many tools
available to an aristocrat to augment his own gloria and that of his family.
Three further methods of control, all of them political, aided the Senate in
guiding frontier ‘policy’ to a certain extent. First, it controlled the treasury and was, as
such, the highest authority governing the dispersal of state funds. Polybius begins his
description of the Senate’s competencies with this fact and adds that the spending of
both quaestors and censors was limited to funds specifically allotted them by a decree
of the Senate.46 In the Ligurian resettlement of M. Baebius Tamphilus and P. Cornelius
Cethegus the Senate’s role as financier was tremendously important.47 The Senate
tacitly condoned or admonished consular behaviours by selectively funding certain
projects and not others. The Senate looked to past precedent for guidance but was also
41
See Ch. 2 for the road-building of C. Flaminius and M. Aemilius Lepidus.
Polyb. 6.13.3 for the censors’ jurisdiction.
43
Dyson (1985) 115; MRR 1.368; Livy 39.2.10; Strabo 5.1.11.
44
Dyson (1985) 115; MRR 1.368; Livy. 39.2.5-6.
45
MRR 1.461; Dyson (1985) 116; CIL 5.2045
46
Polyb. 6.13.1-3.
47
See Ch. 3 for in-depth analysis of this case.
42
14
willing to respond to specific requests on an ad hoc basis, creating new precedents in
the process.
The importance of the triumph within the arena of aristocratic competition
cannot be overstated. Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp has gone so far as to declare that “A
triumph was a major asset in the permanent competition within the ruling circlesprobably the most important one.”48 To enter Rome as triumphator elevated an
aristocrat to a select group, one that was smaller than the consulares and more
prestigious than the censorship. The triumph was the highly sought after capstone to a
successful military command. The potential triumphator would convene the Senate in
the Temple of Bellona (outside the sacred pomerium of Rome) and request the right to
enter the city at the head of his army and a long procession of spoils and captives. It
was the only time magistrates were legally permitted to enter the city under arms. A
triumphator benefitted from increased prestige in the curia as well as massive exposure
to the Roman populace at large.49
The triumph’s centrality to aristocratic competition guaranteed two things:
debates concerning triumphs were heated, intensely political affairs; the broad
guidelines of which behaviors did or did not merit a triumph, established mostly
through precedent, formed an important guideline for potential triumphators as well as
a valuable check on excessively vicious commanders. In controlling access to triumphs,
48
Hölkeskamp (1993) 29; Harris (1979) 21-26, declares that “The triumph, however, was
palpably the supreme moment of the individual Roman’s glory *...+ The most impressive
manifestation of the individual’s glory was of course the triumph.”
49
Vishnia (1996) 178-179, describes the political and social prestige that a triumph brought the
triumphator. She notes that most consuls would not be aspiring to another consulship owing to
the lack of iteration at the consular level, but that the successful triumphator’s position both in
public and in the curia would be greatly augmented.
15
the Senate could reward imaginative military tactics or methods of pacification and
punish magistrates who aggressively pursued bellicose agendas.50
The people’s role in the triumphal process is less clear. There are several early
examples of magistrates triumphing by order of the people alone but these must be
taken with a dose of “healthy skepticism”.51 However, in the period after the Second
Punic War, “every attested triumph debate began in the senate even if it did not end
there, and all but one in Livy 21-45 take place entirely within the ranks of the curia.”52
Even if the people played an occasional, marginal role, the magistrate’s peers in the
Senate dominated the debate and controlled access to the triumph in the second
century.
The relationship between Senate and magistrate was further complicated by
two factors. First, a returning consul or praetor who for all intents and purposes
deserved to triumph might be barred from doing so for overtly political reasons.53 This
point perfectly illustrates the juncture of politics and policy that determined the
disjointed nature of Roman foreign policy in the republic.
50
Failed consuls could occasionally celebrate a triumph on the Alban Mount, paid for ex
manubia and recognized as less prestigious, though they were nonetheless inscribed on the fasti
triumphales (Pittenger [2008] 44-46).
51
Pittenger (2008) 37-42; Richardson (1975) 58.
Pittenger (2008) 36-37. The one exception is the debate over Aemilius Paullus’ triumph in 167.
53
Vishnia (1996) 179, cites the role of plebeian tribunes in interjecting personal and political
rivalries. Famous examples include L. Cornelius Merula (193), Q. Minucius Thermus (190), M.
Fulvius Nobilior (187): “The pattern that emerges is evidently clear: if a triumphal candidate
could enlist sufficient support among the senators and the tribunes, he had good chances of
celebrating a triumph or an ovation, irrespective of his actual achievements. On the other hand,
inadequate support or formidable opposition could easily obstruct requests for a rightly-earned
triumph.” (180) cf. Harris (1979) 26: “It was not an inaccessible honour like the spolia opima, but
while it was often awarded for victories of less than world-historical importance, it was not
merely commonplace. It was an honour jealously competed for, and one which must have given
great psychological rewards as well as political ones.”
52
16
The second complicating factor is that the commander in the field was
generally able to control the flow of information from his province to the Senate.
Formal requests for a triumph always involved a meeting of the Senate in the Temple of
Bellona at which the potential triumphator was present, but the Senate signaled its
intention to proceed with the formulaic ritual if it voted days of thanksgiving in
response to the magistrate’s dispatches. A personal appearance could help sway
Senatorial opinion. L. Furius Purpurio’s appearance before the Senate in 200 while L.
Aurelius Cotta was still in Gaul almost certainly influenced the vote regarding Purpurio’s
controversial triumph. The Cenomani’s envoys successfully lobbied the Senate to deal
with their disarmament at the hands of the praetor M. Furius Crassipes precisely
because they had made the trip to Rome while the praetor was still in Gaul and could
not defend his actions. Otherwise, the exchange of letters and dispatches between
Senate and general constituted the flow of information to the patres; the opportunity
for lies and embellishments to paper over defeats, inflate successes or exaggerate
frontier dangers is evident. Liguria’s proximity to Rome permitted the Senate to be
more involved in policy decisions than it was in Spain or the Greek East, but the snail’s
pace of information exchange guaranteed that magistrates were occasionally forced to
respond to military disasters and foreign policy issues before consulting the Senate and
could in any case control the story to a certain extent.
One final way in which the Senate controlled the development of the frontier
was the allotment of consular and praetorian provinciae.54 In determining how many
54
Eckstein (1987) xxi, calls it the administration of the empire in “the most fundamental sense”.
Prorogation might also be included except that in Northern Italy it was a fairly routine affair. See
Gargola (2006) 155, for an excellent, concise explanation of the importance of defining
provinciae.
17
Roman and allied legions would go where, the Senate greatly influenced the
development of the frontier and the expansion of the empire. During the early part of
the second century, there was much annual activity in Spain, Gaul and Liguria while the
Greek East, Asia Minor and North Africa received attention and an influx of troops only
when the geopolitical balance was threatened. Spain, Sardinia and Sicily were
praetorian preserves but Liguria was almost strictly a consular province.
The decision regarding consular provinces was a political affair. The year’s
provinces and troop allotments were decided after the incoming consuls had been
elected. As such, political opponents could lobby fellow Senators to prorogue current
magistrates or assign the new ones to quiet provinces. Understandably, the incoming
consuls lobbied the Senate for potentially lucrative commands. Perhaps unremarkably,
the Ligurian province was viewed with disdain by many incoming consuls. In 196,
Marcellus and Purpurio both coveted the province of Macedonia but were assigned to
Italy instead.55 In 194, in response to the Senate’s suggestion that both consuls operate
in Italy, Scipio Africanus declared that an impending war with Antiochus made it
imperative that Macedonia be one of the consular provinces.56 Both consuls in 190, L.
Cornelius Scipio and C. Laelius, wanted to be assigned the command in Greece in order
to carry on war with Antiochus. Breaking from the traditional method of allotting
provinces by lot, the Senate decided the consular provinces by vote; once Scipio
Africanus promised to accompany his brother on the foreign campaign, the Senate
voted almost unanimously to grant the province of Greece to the younger Scipio.57 M.
Aemilius Lepidus, for diverse reasons, complained about being cooped up in Liguria
55
Livy 33.25.5-10.
Livy 34.43.4-5.
57
Livy 37.1.7-10.
56
18
with his co-consul while M. Fulvius Nobilior and Cn. Manlius Vulso were in Asia and
Aetolia, “ruling like monarchs and virtually replacing Phillip and Antiochus.”58
War with Perseus of Macedon was on the horizon in 172 and competition for
provinces was once again fierce. The Senate effectively deprived the incoming consuls
C. Popillius Laenas and P. Aelius Ligus of Macedonia because they refused to submit a
motion regarding the censure of Caius’ brother. As punishment, the Senate decreed
that both consuls were to go to Liguria, a clear indication that Macedonia was much
more desirable than Liguria as a consular province.59 The next year was no different.
Livy says that P. Licnius Crassus gained the province of Macedonia by an act of clever
rhetoric and trickery, relying on arguments his co-consul, C. Cassius Longinus, had used
as praetor several years earlier.60 Longinus was not pleased with having drawn Gaul and
without accomplishing much set off for Macedonia through Illyricum.61 The livid Senate
appointed three men to overtake Cassius and order him to return to his province. The
ancient evidence overwhelmingly confirms Livy’s statement that Liguria was an
undesirable province.62
From the above list it would appear that the Senate played an active and
important role in shaping frontier policy. Surely its importance as a governing body is
neither in question nor in jeopardy. But Dyson’s operative thesis at the level of
individual consuls and their supposed role within a broader Roman strategy for the
Ligurian frontier is incorrect. The modern historians of Rome who recognize that Roman
58
Livy 41.18.7-15.
Livy 42.10.10-13.
60
Livy 42.32.4; cf. 41.15 for Cassius’ religious arguments against leaving Italy as praetor.
61
Livy 43.1.4-12.
62
Livy 39.1; cf. Dyson (1985) 94: “It is hardly surprising that Roman commanders preferred the
more lush assignments to the east.”
59
19
foreign relations were necessarily and inextricably bound up in the internal
machinations of the Roman political elite cannot be so easily swept aside. Dyson
acknowledges the “complexities and problems” of Roman frontier policy in Liguria, but
this still assumes an overarching, long-term, coherent policy directed by what would
appear to be a concerted Senate. At a certain point, a policy shaped and reshaped by
ad hoc decisions, countless innovations and personal motives ceases to be a policy.
At its core, this thesis is an extended response to Dyson’s views in particular
regarding developments on the Ligurian frontier. Dyson takes the Senate’s authority
and leadership for granted. But the relationship between Rome and Liguria was always
determined by the demands of Roman politics and aristocratic competition. The trends
Dyson identifies are easily explained within the context of aristocratic competition and
do not constitute a Ligurian policy. Dyson argues that the apparent informality of
policy-making obscures continuities in policy; this thesis demonstrates that the term
‘policy’ presupposes a willing and empowered Senate and obscures the complexities
and paradoxes of foreign relations and frontier development. Consuls possessed of
individual agency and a range of choices determined yearly policy in Liguria; the Senate
regulated competition without dictating policy.
Eckstein’s treatment of Romano-Celtic relations up to 197 finds that the Senate
was more involved in directing policy in Northern Italy than it was further afield. There
were two reasons for this: communication between magistrates in this region and
Rome was quicker and more efficient; the area was closer to Rome and the importance
of protecting against another Gallic sack was manifest.63 Even so, Eckstein finds that
63
Eckstein (1987) 3, 320-324.
20
“there was room for important individual initiative.”64 Many of Eckstein’s examples of
Celtic policy in this early period are colonial foundations such as Sena Gallica,
Ariminum, Placentia and Cremona.65 Senatorial involvement in the colonial movement
is undeniable; its role in controlling consular operations is more suspect. Also the sense
of urgency that drove the post-Telamon colonial foundations was lacking in the postHannibalic Ligurian warfare.
Sources
The great majority of evidence in the following chapters is drawn from Livy.
Indeed, the chronological framework has been largely determined by Livy’s extant
books, though warfare in Liguria declined significantly after 166 and ceased almost
entirely after 155. More skeptical scholars, such as Harris and Mellor, tend to place
little stock in Livy’s account. For them, heavy reliance on such a questionable source
necessarily detracts from the overall force of any further arguments.66 But Polybius
largely ignored Roman domestic politics and Northern Italian warfare in favour of
developments in his native Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.67 Livy is often the
only and certainly the most complete source for domestic developments in these years.
Three further points should reassure Livy’s skeptics.
First, Livy is not as bad as some detractors have claimed. On his early
republican history, Vishnia writes that Livy’s reputation, “which was severely attacked
by Italian and German scholars at the turn of the century, has been rehabilitated in
64
Eckstein (1987) xii, 3, 25, 69-70.
Eckstein (1987) 23.
66
Harris (1979) 5-6; Mellor (1999) 63-70.
67
Briscoe (1973) 2.
65
21
recent years.”68 Eckstein has called him the “the most coherent account of the third
and early second centuries”, arguing that he is preferable to the accounts of other
lesser known annalists and historians.69 Briscoe, author of commentaries on Livy’s
books 31-40, takes a cautious approach to the annalistic sections of the work: “one
must decide each case on historical grounds alone, and without general preconceptions
about the reliability of the annalists.”70 The annalists Livy used (Claudius Quadrigarius,
Valerias Antias, Calprunius Piso Frugi) were not a priori worse than Polybius and entire
non-Polybian swaths should not be outright condemned, especially in the fourth and
fifth decades.
As a result, I do my utmost to separate historical fact from fiction throughout. I
approach the speeches cautiously and seek alternate explanations for Livy’s dismissive
comments and personal biases. Particularly in the case study of the Popillian Affair, I
separate a hostile historiographic tradition from the more straightforward elements of
Livy’s narrative to create a more coherent account. Most importantly, the bulk of
analysis is based on Senatorial or consular actions rather than Livy’s interpretation of
them. When Livy says the Senate did X for Y reason, it is likely that X came from the
annales maximi or another annalistic source whereas Y may be pure speculation and
requires further explanation.
Finally, I incorporate other sources wherever possible. Degrassi’s edition of the
fasti triumphales has been an important supplement to Livy’s triumph notices. T.R.S.
68
Vishnia (1996) 3, 8-9. She acknowledges that “although problematic and fraught with
anachronisms, the Livian narrative most probably preserves the main outline of both domestic
and foreign events. Moreover, the sources from which Livy derived his information had little
scope to tamper with the basic facts.” Cf. Pittenger (2008) 6-17.
69
Eckstein (1987) xvii.
70
Briscoe (1973) 12.
22
Broughton’s Magistrates of the Roman Republic (cited MRR) has also been incalculably
valuable in supplementing or checking Livy’s narrative against alternate sources. But
ultimately Livy should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The battle narratives
may be exaggerated, the speeches may be historically expedient, but there is no reason
to assume that Livy’s picture of domestic politics or the situation in Northern Italy is
anything but broadly correct. Without him, “our knowledge of early second-century
politics would be threadbare.”71
Thesis Outline
The object of this thesis is to modify and add to the scholarship on the
understudied Roman involvement in Liguria, addressing Stephen Dyson’s work in
particular. Dyson stresses that emphasis on “individual power politics and elite group
dynamics of Republican society” has obscured “continuities in both policy and action.”72
But his approach suffers from several flaws that seriously undermine it. The elite group
dynamics of Rome are precisely what drove aristocratic behaviour both at home and
abroad. While the Senate was able to control foreign policy in many ways, it could not
do so as Dyson imagines. The yearly rotation of autonomous magistrates, prorogation
notwithstanding, guaranteed that ‘policy’ would never be perfectly implemented.
Dyson’s ‘big picture’ approach isolates Roman magistrates and their decisions from the
very context and political culture in which those decisions were made. To properly
understand the trajectory of Roman ‘policy’ in Liguria, we must recognize that the
magistrates sent there were at once members of the collective Senate and ambitious
71
Bispham (2006) 38; 37-40 for the period’s sources more generally. Bispham defends Livy
against his detractors.
72
Dyson (1985) 6.
23
individuals, and that tension between the competing forces of aristocratic competition
and consensus was responsible for trends and long-term developments.
The following three chapters are organized chronologically, the best way to
trace or refute regional policy over a finite period. Scrutinizing yearly developments in
Liguria reveals several patterns and historical trends. However, these do not constitute
a Ligurian policy and are easily explained within a framework that accounts for the
Roman political culture and competition amongst the elite. The following is a partial list
of recurring themes which are addressed more fully within the next three chapters:
military co-operation of consular colleagues for political ends; the politicization of
triumph-debates; Senatorial deference to consular judgment and authority; Senatorial
concern for the treatment of enemies (esp. those received in deditionem); the selective
application of military tactics by consuls for political purposes; consular control of the
flow of information shaping frontier developments and the political ramifications when
that dynamic is interrupted by foreign envoys or Roman subordinates.
Chapter two addresses the beginnings of Roman imperialism in Liguria before
launching into a detailed analysis of yearly developments in the region from 200 to 183.
It does not address campaigns in Liguria against combined Carthaginian and Ligurian
forces during the Second Punic War since they were of a decidedly different nature and
add little to the discussion. The chapter deals extensively with every Roman magistrate
in Liguria during those years, to demonstrate the degree of change on a yearly basis.
Magistrates came and went, each one bringing a different set of expertise, analysis of
the situation and military and political history and ambitions. The one constant was
aristocratic competition manifested in the desire for military and political glory.
24
Chapter three examines the consular campaigns in the years 182 to 175. The
chronological break between chapters two and three is not random. According to
Dyson, the consulship of P. Cornelius Cethegus and M. Baebius Tamphilus (cos. 181)
was a crucial turning point in Roman policy towards Liguria. It marked the transition
from yearly fighting campaigns to a policy of forced migrations. There was a change in
the way some consuls dealt with Ligurians but this shift did not occur for the reasons
Dyson proposes. Thus, chapter three reinterprets the events preceding, during and
stemming from the consulship of Cethegus and Tamphilus from a perspective that
emphasizes consular initiative, the power of precedent and the centrality of aristocratic
competition.
The fourth and final chapter is a detailed case study of what I refer to as the
Popillian Affair. The affair occupies five full chapters in Livy and provides unique insight
into the relationship between Senate and magistrate. The chapter illustrates the
various people and forces that shaped this relationship and how foreign policy could be
conditioned by domestic politics. The concluding chapter briefly discusses Roman
involvement in Liguria after 172 and reiterates the study’s main findings.
25
Chapter 2: Developments in Liguria, 238-183
As the introduction made clear, Stephen Dyson’s approach to Roman policy in
Liguria is founded on untenable assumptions regarding Roman politics and provincial
administration in the republic. Livy’s frequent silence regarding the flow of information
between the Senate and its magistrates leaves room for speculation. Dyson’s
reconstruction assumes Senatorial control and in many ways reduces consuls and
praetors to Senatorial pawns. But this accords neither with Livy’s testimony on a host of
other occasions nor with the realities of Rome’s political culture. This thesis will
demonstrate that magistrates enjoyed a much freer hand and that ‘policy’ was the
result of consular initiative. The broad continuities are attributable to competition for
triumphs and peer-recognition within the aristocracy.
Below is a yearly account of magistrates and their actions in Liguria from 238 to
183, emphasizing the ways in which politics interacted with policy decisions in Liguria as
well as the many occasions on which the Senate tacitly or openly ceded decisionmaking authority to consuls and praetors. I have avoided a lengthy discussion of
Roman-Ligurian relations in the Second Punic War since they were conditioned by
substantially different variables. Essentially, Mago used Liguria as a staging point and
raised Ligurian troops to fight in his army; most subjugated Ligurian tribes revolted
from Rome. After Zama, Rome spent the next thirty years renewing and extending the
conquest.
26
238-223: The Beginnings of Ligurian Conquest
The year 238 marks not only the first time Rome engaged in open hostilities
since the closing of the doors to the Temple of Janus at the end of the First Punic War,
but also the first in which a Roman consul waged war on Ligurians.1 Polybius completely
omits mention of the engagement and the other sources are brief on details.2 Our most
detailed account is that of Zonaras who preserves parts of Cassius Dio’s history. Zonaras
is brief and confusing—untangling anything more than a threadbare narrative is
difficult. He writes that the Romans attacked the Boii, their Gallic neighbors and some
of the Ligurians. Two years later, P. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Licinius Varus made war in
Gaul, whereupon Lentulus broke away and attacked some Ligurians.3 In 235, the
Carthaginians supposedly persuaded the Sardinians to revolt, and the Corsicans and
Ligurians followed suit. The next year, Rome attacked all three rebel groups
simultaneously and the campaign against the Ligurians fell to L. Postumius Albinus. The
Ligurians once more revolted, so Q. Fabius Maximus marched against them in 233. He
defeated them so soundly that he claimed to have ended the Ligurian war. He
subsequently celebrated a triumph and dedicated a Temple of Honor vowed in the
course of his campaign.4 Maximus’ claim may have been substantiated since the
1
On the debate over whether the doors were closed in 241 or 235 see Harris (1979) 191 n.1;
Vishnia (1996) 15.
2
Vishnia (1996) 15, cites some authors, De Sanctis among them, who outright deny the
episode’s authenticity. True, Zonaras is a twelfth century Byzantine chronicler, Florus a second
century historian and Orosius a late fourth century Christian historian. But Livy Per. 20.3
confirms the historicity of these first Ligurian campaigns: Adversus Liguras tunc primum exercitus
promotus est. Diod. 25.2, says that Carthaginian allies, including Ligurians, revolted at this time.
3
Lentulus received the first Ligurian triumph [Degrassi (1947) 76f., 549]. Zon. 8.18, credits
Lentulus with the initiative for the attack on the Ligurians.
4
Zon. 8.18; cf. Flor. 1.19.4-5; Oros. 4.12.1; Livy Per. 20.3; Plut. Fab. 2.1. cf. Dyson (1985) 95;
Vishnia (1996) 13-22; Eckstein (1987) 6-12; Gargola (2006) 149-151; Toynbee (1965) 260, noting
27
Romans did not fight Ligurians again until 223 when the consul P. Furius Philus
triumphed over both Gauls and Ligurians.5
Harris has questioned Zonaras’ defensive explanation of these early Ligurian
campaigns. He claims Roman actions “had nothing detectable to do with defense”,
rejecting the notion that piracy was the root issue, though allowing that an established
treaty with Massilia might have encouraged Roman operations against Massilian
enemies.6 Vishnia posits that Rome’s true targets were the Insubres and Boii and that
securing Liguria was a necessary precursor.7 Dyson is ambivalent as to whether Roman
actions were aggressive or defensive: “The principal aim seems to have been to defend
Italian lowland territory under Roman protection.”8
But responsibility for opening hostilities with the Ligurians in 238 remains
murky. Ti. Sempronius Gracchus had not been allotted the province of Liguria. Rather,
he had been put in charge of operations in Sardinia and apparently involved himself in
Liguria on his own initiative.9 Harris’ claim that “Rome entered into entirely separate
and equally unprovoked campaigns in Liguria and Gaul *…+ The initiative was an obvious
one for Rome to take” obscures the fact that Gracchus’ Ligurian campaign was not a
Roman policy but rather the actions of one consul.10 Consuls later campaigned in
Liguria, presumably at the behest of the Senate, in the years 237, 236, 234, 233 and
that there is no evidence of a “systemic Roman plan for conquering Cisalpine Liguria” until after
225.
5
Polyb. 2.32.1; Zonaras 8.20; Dyson (1985) 96; Degrassi (1947) 76f., 549.
6
Harris (1979) 193.
7
Vishnia (1996) 15-16. She subscribes to the notion that Ligurian piracy was an important
motivating factor, citing the simultaneous campaigns in Sardinia and Corsica.
8
Dyson (1985) 95.
9
Polyb. 1.88.8-12, for Roman operations in Sardinia in 238, though Gracchus is not mentioned
by name.
10
Harris (1979) 193.
28
230, but the first consul to do so made the decision on his authority alone. The
evidence for this early Roman ‘policy’ is heavily based on inductive logic and we would
do well to take heed of Vishnia’s cautious approach at this early stage:
The frequent use of the proper noun ‘Rome’ or the collective noun ‘the
Romans’ camouflages the fact that we have practically no information about
the persons who guided Rome’s policy-making at that period or about the
domestic controversies which the prevalent policies and issues doubtlessly
aroused. *…+ Personal rivalries and competition were always intrinsic
characteristics of Roman politics, and from this aspect, this period was no
different. Nonetheless, there seems to have been general agreement on the
need to control the Po Valley.11
200: L. Furius Purpurio and the Resumption of Hostilities
Hostilities with Ligurians resumed in 200, following the Second Punic War,
under the praetor L. Furius Purpurio.12 Purpurio had been decreed the province of Gaul
while the consul C. Aurelius Cotta was to serve in Italy, essentially at the Senate’s
whim.13 Eckstein has perceptively noted that far from a policy of (re)conquest in
Northern Italy, the allotment of provinces and troops in 201-200 suggest that the
Roman Senate did not pursue nor were they expecting open warfare. Troop allotments
were meager: both P. Aelius Paetus (consul in 201) and Purpurio (praetor in 200) were
given insufficient armies if a general offensive was the goal. Each man was given only 5
11
Vishnia (1996) 24; 15: “Our meager sources make it practically impossible to draw a coherent
picture of Roman ‘foreign policy’ in the aftermath of the First Punic War in general or of the
strategy devised for the north, in particular. Thus we are unable to follow the decision-making
process, a difficult task even in better-documented periods. Still, we are able to conjecture
about the factors that guided Roman policy-makers in that period by examining the facts which
are known to be reasonably well established; in our case, Roman military operations.” See also
Harris (1979) 117: “Roman aims can best be inferred from Roman actions.” Against Harris, Rich
(1993) 53: “Roman expansion was a patchy, untidy business, and we must take full account of
this when seeking to explain the processes which were at work.”
12
Some doubt the historicity of Purpurio’s actions in 200 based on their similarities with his
campaigns as consul in 196. Briscoe (1973) 82, 110, and Eckstein (1987) 57 n.127, rightly reject
this: though there are some similarities, there is enough difference between the accounts that it
would be unwise to entirely deny the historicity of this earlier episode.
13
Livy 31.6.1-2.
29
000 allied soldiers and Purpurio was ordered to guard (praesidiis) his province, not
launch an offensive. Further, Livy explicitly attests to the fact that the Roman Senate
expected little trouble in Gaul in 200.14 This is not an argument for defensive
imperialism but a caution that Senatorial ‘policy’ was not as centralized or as wellplanned as historical hindsight might suggest.
While encamped at Ariminum, Purpurio learned of a massive Gallo-Ligurian
uprising comprised of the Insubres, Cenomani, Boii, Celines and Ilvates that had
overrun Placentia and were besieging Cremona.15 Purpurio sent word to the Senate and
informed them that as affairs stood he was powerless unless they wished to see his 5
000 allies perish beneath an enemy coalition of 40 000. The Senate decreed that Cotta’s
army, which was supposed to gather in Etruria, should instead gather at Ariminum.
They instructed the consul that either he should set out immediately to suppress the
revolt or else he should inform the praetor Purpurio that when the consular army had
joined him at Ariminum, he should send his 5 000 allied troops to Etruria as a garrison
and relieve the siege of Cremona with Cotta’s army.16
Cotta was detained in Rome on official business,17 so the consular army
gathered at Ariminum without him. Purpurio followed Senatorial directions to the
14
Livy 31.10.1: bellum Gallicum nihil minus eo tempore timentibus [Romanis]; Eckstein (1987)
54ff., for the ad hoc campaigns of 201-200.
15
Livy 31.10.1-7; Zon. 9.15, blames the Carthaginian Hamilcar with fomenting the rebellion. I
have included Purpurio’s actions and the ensuing Senatorial debate for three reasons: though
the tribes involved were primarily Gallic, the Ilvates were Ligurian; as Eckstein (1987) argues,
Senate-magistrate relations in Northern Italy (Celts and Ligurians) were distinct from those same
relations in the context of provinces further afield; most importantly, the episode reveals
important truths about Senatorial comportment and established far-reaching precedents.
16
Livy 31.11.1-4; Briscoe (1973) 83-84.
17
He acted as an intermediary between the Senate and Q. Minucius Rufus, praetor in Bruttium,
regarding plundering of the treasury house of Persophone at Locri [Livy 31.12.3]. Briscoe (1973)
30
letter, dismissing his 5 000 allied troops to Etruria and advancing by forced marches to
relieve the Gallo-Ligurian siege of Cremona.18 According to Livy, the praetor killed or
captured more than 35 000 men (while fewer than 6 000 escaped), captured 70
standards and over 200 wagons full of spoils. He recovered 2 000 colonists from
Placentia and lost only about 2 000 of his own men.19 Cotta belatedly arrived in Gaul
and, furious with Purpurio for acting of his own accord, dismissed him to Etruria (where
his original army had been garrisoned) and carried on the war with “more booty than
glory”.20 Purpurio marched from Etruria to Rome, assembled the Senate in the Temple
of Bellona and requested a triumph.21
The debate over Purpurio’s triumph is one of the most rancorous preserved in
extant Livy.22 The affair was intensely political, though prosopography is not the most
helpful tool to analyze the Senate’s decision.23 One group of senators, led by the
84, suggests that there is some confusion in Livy regarding which praetor Cotta was in
communication with, but it is clear that Cotta was caught up in other business at Rome and
could not accompany his army in Gaul.
18
Livy 31.21.1-3; Briscoe (1973) 110, notes that the account of Purpurio’s actions is stylistically
awkward, which does not damage its credibility, but rather suggests an annalistic source which
Livy has copied but failed to properly incorporate.
19
Livy 31.21.3-22.3, for the battle and outcome; Oros. 4.20.4.
20
Livy 31.47.4-6; Dio fr. 57.81; Zon. 9.15, says the Ligurians sued for peace and that Cotta “who
was jealous of the praetor’s victory, conducted a retaliatory campaign against them”; Eckstein
(1987) 57. Toynbee (1965) 277, 660-661, conjectures that Cotta may have been responsible for
the Via Aurelia from Rome to Pisa but Salmon (1982) 77-78, places its construction earlier.
21
Livy 31.47.6-7. Livy suggests that a quiet Etruria and a desire to appear before the Senate
without the angry and jealous Cotta in their midst prompted Purpurio’s unexpected visit to
Rome. Though we cannot be sure of Purpurio’s reasons, both are plausible enough; the triumphrequest caused a good deal of debate, as Purpurio was no doubt aware it would. The Temple of
Bellona was the traditional meeting place of the Senate for a triumph-request because it was
outside the sacred pomerium, meaning that potential triumphators would not have to relinquish
their auspicia and the subsequent right to triumph [Briscoe (1973) 159].
22
Eckstein (1987) 58 n.132, defends the historicity and main thrust of the debate even if it
“suffered a certain elaboration at the hands of Livy and/or his sources”; cf. Briscoe (1973) 158161.
23
Contra Briscoe (1973) 158; Scullard (1951) 95.
31
consulares,24 declared that Purpurio had won a victory using another man’s army under
another man’s auspices, that he should have waited for the consul and that they would
be happy to judge the merits of Purpurio’s request once the consul had returned and
the pair could debate face-to-face. The patres who sided with Purpurio argued that
such a verdict meant that either the Senate was at fault for entrusting a consular army
to a praetor, or else the consul Cotta himself was to blame for sending to Gaul an army
that could not legally be mobilized without him. What mattered was that Purpurio, who
was invested with his own praetorian imperium, “had conducted affairs, not poorly and
rashly, but well and successfully.”25
After arguments on both sides were heard, a full house (frequentes26) voted
Purpurio a triumph. We will never know whether Purpurio’s arguments (as Livy
presents them), his political supporters, the absence of Cotta’s countervailing voice, or
a combination of all three ultimately secured his triumph.27 The triumphal procession
itself was apparently a sad sight, though Purpurio deposited 320 000 bronze asses and
171 500 silver denarii in the treasury.28
24
Briscoe (1973) 159, doubts that the groups in the triumph debate broke down between older
consulares and younger Senators. However, Livy’s use of the term accords well with
Richardson’s (1975) findings that the triumph had hitherto been the preserve solely of
consulares.
25
Livy 31.48.1-12, for the debate.
26
Briscoe (1973) 160, notes that this means ‘full house’ rather than ‘quorum’ as it does in the
late republic. There is no evidence that a quorum was required for the voting of a triumph,
especially not at such an early date. The importance and divisiveness of the debate are
corroborated by the high attendance of the vote. Cf. Vishnia (1996) 182.
27
Livy twice states that Purpurio’s personal appeal and political prestige outweighed Cotta’s
[Livy 31.48.1, 49.1].
28
Livy 31.49.3: “There were no captives led before his chariot, no spoils displayed, no soldiers in
his train. Everything but the victory was in the possession of the consul.” Briscoe (1973) 160161, on the numbers and their significance. Purpurio may also have built and dedicated a temple
to Veiovis with his manubia [Livy 31.21.12], though evidence suggests that he in fact vowed the
temple as consul in 196 [Briscoe (1973) 112-114].
32
In a society obsessed with precedents of every kind, the Senate’s decision on
this occasion had tremendous impact on a number of levels. To begin, Purpurio was the
first praetor to celebrate a triumph.29 Henceforth, consular imperium would no longer
be necessary in order to celebrate a triumph; praetorian imperium would suffice. In the
following thirty-three years to the end of Livy’s narrative, fourteen praetors or
propraetors would request triumphs.30 It is noteworthy that never again did a praetor
or propraetor whose province was Gaul or the Ligurians request a triumph. Of the
fourteen requests, the vast majority came from Nearer or Farther Spain, along with one
for Corsica and Sardinia (C. Cicerius, 172), one for a naval command off the coast of
Crete (Q. Fabius Labeo, 188) and one for victory against the Illyrians (L. Anicius Gallus,
167). Harris notes that a majority of praetors awarded triumphs in the years 227-79—
fifteen out of nineteen- went on to win the consulship.31
29
Considerable debate over this assertion exists and I must hedge my position slightly. Of
particular interest is M’. Curius Dentatus’ status when he triumphed in 284 [Brennan (1994) 423439+. Brennan’s arguments are not convincing, and it is clear that even if Dentatus’ celebration
was a proper triumph, it did not open the praetorian floodgates in the way that Purpurio’s did.
We can confidently assert that Purpurio was the first praetor to openly and clearly triumph;
Richardson (1975) 53, posits that it was because he was the first praetor to wear the purple
triumphal robe that Purpurio received his cognomen, an attractive suggestion.
Richardson (1975) 51-52, also acknowledges two apparent contradictions from the First
Punic War: A. Atilius Calatinus, who triumphed in 257, held praetorian imperium, but had been
consul the year before, following the older cursus honorum in which the praetorship came after
the consulship; Q. Valerius Falto, who celebrated the last triumph of the war in 241.
Richardson’s lengthy explanation of Falto’s triumph is well elaborated and shows that
overwhelmingly, prior to 200, the triumph was strictly the reserve of consuls or consulares (cf.
Vishnia [1996] 177-178; Rich (1993) 50).
30
For a complete list of triumph requests from 218-167, see Pittenger (2008) Appendix A. Rich
(1993) 50, attributes the spike in the number of triumphs between 200-167 to praetors and
propraetors.
31
Harris (1979) 32; Vishnia (1996) 179, notes that a triumph significantly increased a praetor’s
chance of becoming consul, an ovatio less so.
33
The practical effect of the Purpurio precedent was that Spain emerged as a
fertile breeding ground for triumphs.32 Spain was Rome’s major territorial gain after the
Second Punic War and the need to pacify and govern it probably contributed greatly to
the election of six praetors in alternating years. For a variety of reasons, consuls and
proconsuls were rarely assigned Spain as their province of operation and it, like Sicily,
Corsica and Sardinia, remained the preserve of praetorian and propraetorian
governors.33 Purpurio’s bold actions both on the battlefield and in the Temple of
Bellona made the triumph more accessible, reducing however intangibly its prestige in
the eyes of the consulares but increasing rather substantially the number of requests
for triumphs as well as the number of triumphs actually granted in the subsequent
thirty years.
Most importantly, the relationship established between Senate and magistrate
is of fundamental importance to the question of Roman foreign policy. Purpurio’s
political triumph in the Temple of Bellona amounted to an explicit recognition by the
Senate that Roman commanders were forced to make ad hoc decisions in the field.
Upholding and condoning these decisions, even when they went beyond instructions or
contravened accepted practices, was the necessary corollary of keeping the republic
safe. Had the Senate denied Purpurio’s request and reprimanded him for acting outside
the chain of command, responses to military crises in the following decades might have
been dramatically different. In giving magistrates with the widest possible leeway, the
32
33
Richardson (1975) 54.
Rich (1993) 46.
34
Senate tacitly conceded decision-making and reinforced the authority of magistrates
everywhere.34
197: Q. Minucius Rufus and C. Cornelius Cethegus
In the midst of the war with Phillip V of Macedon, Q. Minucius Rufus and C.
Cornelius Cethegus were both decreed the province of Italy.35 They were each assigned
two legions along with a matching number of allied troops and told to wage war on
some Cisalpine Gauls who had defected. Cornelius advanced against the Insubres and
the Cenomani while Minucius made his way to Genoa and attacked the Ligurian towns
of Clastidium and Litubium as well as the Celeiates and the Cerdiciates.36 The Boii,
hearing that the Roman consuls had consolidated their forces, opted to consolidate
with the Insubres and Cenomani in order to stand a better chance of survival. Although
there is no evidence of the consuls fighting a joint battle, they waged war on the Boii at
the same time and the camps of Cornelius and Minucius were at one point only two
miles apart. Each consul presumably knew the position of the other and acted in
tandem to defeat the enemy coalition. Upon sending dispatches of their successes to
Rome, a supplicatio of four days was decreed.37
The consuls presented themselves in the Temple of Bellona and submitted a
joint triumph-request. This was not unprecedented; the joint triumph of M. Livius
34
Eckstein (1987) 58-60, singles out the praetor Cn. Baebius Tamphilus’ seemingly unprovoked
attack against the Insubres in 199, with Cotta’s army no less, as a probable upshot of Furius’
precedent the year before. He cites a “failure to distinguish between individual volition and
general senatorial policy that has misled scholars into presenting Baebius as an instrument of
the senate in his attack on the Insubres.”
35
Livy 32.28.2-9, for the debate, culminating in the prorogation of T. Quinctius Flamininus
[Polyb. 18.11.1ff].
36
He proceeded to capture 15 Ligurian towns and force the surrender of some 20 000 men (Livy
32.29.5-30.13).
37
Livy 32.30.1-31.6.
35
Salinator and C. Claudius Nero a decade earlier furnished an illustrious precedent.38 But
the circumstances under which Salinator and Nero had obtained their joint triumph
were exceptional. The elation at having defeated Hasdrubal at Metaurus, the united
front which these two hitherto unfriendly consuls presented and the unique details of
their joint triumph mollified potential Senatorial opposition stemming from their
breach of triumphal mos maiorum. Salinator and Nero had jointly won a seminal victory
that the Romans recognized as a turning point in the war with Hannibal and were
accorded a splendid joint triumph.
This was not the case in 197. Two plebeian tribunes, C. Atinius Labeo and C.
Afranius, made a counter-proposal that each man should submit a triumph request,
and the Senate should be free to debate and award or deny each individually. Minucius
argued that they campaigned with a shared purpose and strategy while Cornelius
declared that Minucius’ success in plundering the fields of the Boii had broken up the
Gallic coalition and thus ensured his own success against the Cenomani and Insubres.39
After two full days of negotiations between the consuls and the two tribunes who stood
in the way of their triumphs, the consuls referred separate requests to the Senate.
Cornelius Cethegus was unanimously awarded a triumph over the Insubres and
Cenomani while Minucius Rufus’ request was soundly rejected; he celebrated a triumph
on the Alban mount, privately paid for and much less illustrious than a full triumph.40
38
Full treatment of the Salinator/Nero joint triumph in Pittenger (2008) 68-71; Eckstein (1987)
46-48.
39
Livy 33.22.1-4.
40
Dyson (1985) 98, completely papers over Minucius’ political defeat at home, claiming that
“Minucius Rufus accomplished his basic goals and was awarded a triumph on the Alban mount.”
Briscoe (1973) 226, suggests that the consuls had provoked hostilities in that year, which might
have adversely affected the triumphal vote in Minucius’ case. He also notes that the Alban
36
Minucius Rufus’ triumph over Gauls and Ligurians was recorded on the fasti
triumphales, though it specified that he had done so on the Alban Mount.41 His
presence on the list of triumphators is interesting. It suggests that Alban triumphs were
still legitimate and deserving of state recognition. It also seems to confirm that purely
political opposition was the determining factor in Minucius’ rejected request for a
regular triumph.
Whether or not Minucius Rufus and Cornelius Cethegus co-operated in the field
to the extent that they suggested during the Senatorial debates, they evidently agreed
to present a united front when requesting a joint triumph. Their reasons are not
immediately obvious. It is attractive to suggest that Minucius was riding Cornelius’
coattails. If the plebeian tribunes were correct, Minucius’ accomplishments were not
triumph-worthy and he was attempting to take credit for the successes of his colleague.
Zonaras’ account preserves such supposed disparities in their records:
The consuls parted company any each ravaged a different district; accordingly
the enemy also divided forced to meet them. One band under Hamilcar
encountered Cethegus and was defeated; the rest upon learning of this became
faint-hearted and would no longer face Rufus, and he consequently overran the
country at will. Those who had fought against Cethegus then made peace,
while the remainder still continued under arms.42
If Zonaras’ rendering is accurate then Minucius may have been denied a triumph on the
legitimate grounds that he accomplished nothing of military importance. While
Cethegus subdued tribes, Minucius’ enemy were too scared to fight and remained
armed. This version is entirely at odds with the story in Livy and without more
Mount was outside the city and very steep, factors which would potentially have limited
viewership (292-293).
41
Degrassi (1947) 78f., 552.
42
Zon. 9.16. Toynbee (1965) 269-270, presents a similar version of events.
37
compelling reasons to reject the latter in favour of the former it is unwise to do so.
Zonaras seems to have internalized the tribunes’ objections and presented them as
fact.
Livy records that the wealth and military standards borne in each triumph were
almost equal: 237 500 bronze asses and 79 000 silver coins for Cornelius against 254
000 bronze asses and 53 200 silver coins for Minucius.43 From this list it would appear
that the two consuls conquered roughly equal numbers of men and captured similar
amounts of booty. The tribunician objection that Minucius’ victories were concocted
and inconsequential appears at odds with this. Far from being inconsequential,
Minucius’ campaign added to the res publica everything on the Italian side of the Po
apart from the Boii and the Ligurian Ilvates, the latter a tribe which he proceeded to
subjugate.44
The last objection voiced by the tribunes was that Minucius had suffered heavy
casualties.45 But there is no mention in Livy anywhere of Minucius having suffered
irregularly high casualty rates.46 It was certainly well within the tribunes’ right to refuse
to consider a joint triumph request and the consuls were probably overly audacious in
43
Livy 33.23.8-9. He is explicit in comparing the wealth and opulence of the triumphs.
Livy 32.31.4.
45
Eckstein (1987) 18 n.60, suggests that high casualty rates prevented Cn. Cornelius Scipio from
winning a triumph alongside his successful colleague, M. Claudius Marcellus, in 222 (Cf. Oros.
4.12.1). There certainly existed some loose understanding that the ratio of enemy killed to
Roman casualties should be high, though no exact number survives or probably existed in the
first place.
46
Further, the tribunes mention by name only two military tribunes who had been killed (T.
Iuventius and Cn. Ligurius, both otherwise unknown, which certainly does not add to the
credibility of the charges against Minucius Rufus [Briscoe (1973) 292]). In 196, M. Claudius
Marcellus triumphed over these very same tribes but Livy records the names of no less than 4
military tribunes along with a figure of 3 000 men who lost their lives when Marcellus’ camp was
ambushed by the Boii (Livy 33.36.4-8). If Marcellus’ loss of 3 000 men did not constitute an
excessively high casualty rate, either Minucius’ was higher, a fact which would merit mention, or
else the casualty rate was somewhat arbitrary and politically motivated.
44
38
attempting it. But the actual objections of the tribunes, presumably the same ones that
prevented Minucius from obtaining a full triumph like his colleague, are of questionable
veracity. Therein lays the real reason for the joint request.
Minucius probably foresaw that he would have trouble obtaining a triumph.
The spurious charges brought against his request suggest political opposition in the
Senate. Cornelius Cethegus’ motivation for standing by Minucius is not entirely
transparent. Perhaps Cornelius believed Minucius’ military actions were triumphworthy. He might have foreseen the staunch political opposition to Minucius and tried
to shield him from criticism by agreeing to the joint request. Pittenger addresses their
request but refers to it as “Minucius’ bid” and writes that Minucius’ “resolve to triumph
alongside Cethegus, no matter what the cost, almost matched that of his opponents to
stop him.”47 She fails to grapple with Cethegus’ role in the joint request. Livy is silent
and we may only speculate, but the fact that Cethegus stood by the joint request for so
long suggests that it was firmly rooted in something other than his co-consul’s best
wishes. Perhaps he was apprehensive of his achievements and believed that unless he
praised Minucius for helping to disband the coalition of enemies, some other senator
would do so and attempt to deny him a triumph on these grounds. Or he foresaw the
potential opposition to the joint triumph and used it to deflect unwanted attention
from his own record. Both consuls, feeling themselves in a position of relative weakness
vis-à-vis the Senate, co-operated militarily to end the campaigning season on a high
note. They further opted to present a united front in the Temple of Bellona, hoping
thereby to bolster their chances of obtaining a triumph. Minucius and Cornelius co-
47
Pittenger (2008) 46.
39
operated in the field and more importantly in their request for a triumph not to ensure
the safety of Rome but to increase their chances of winning a triumph. The gambit paid
off for Cethegus but not for Minucius.48
On the surface this has little to do with Ligurian policy as such. But it highlights
the interconnection of domestic politics and foreign policy. For all intents and purposes,
Minucius Rufus and Cornelius Cethegus had won similar victories: they sacked multiple
towns, subdued many peoples and filled Rome’s coffers to roughly the same extent.
The allegations that forced Minucius to triumph on the Alban Mount rather than the
Capitoline were baseless and political. Roman interests were not easily separated from
individual interests and politics was a pervasive force.
196: L. Furius Purpurio and M. Claudius Marcellus
In 196, L. Furius Purpurio once again found himself in command of an army in
Northern Italy. The two consuls were assigned the province of Italy and told to wage
war against the same Cisalpine Gauls whom Cornelius and Minucius had fought the
previous year.49 The chronology of events is unclear: either Marcellus suffered a loss at
the hands of the Boii which he then made up for with a splendid victory against the
Insubres at Comum, or else he won a great victory against the Insubres that was sullied
48
Pittenger (2008) 46, accepts as fact that Minucius’ res gestae were not worthy of a triumph
nor an ovatio.
49
Zon. 9.16. The fact that a consul received a triumph for subjugating a tribe that the very next
year revolted from Rome never seemed to be an issue. In other areas of the growing empire,
where the governments were organized along broadly Greco-Roman lines, questions concerning
pacification formed a serious impediment towards obtaining a triumph. Marcellus wanted
Flamininus’ peace settlement rejected so that he might have Greece for himself (Polyb. 18.42.25). In Liguria, Gaul and Spain, ‘subjugation’ of tribes took on little permanence. As per Dyson
(1985) 98: “Yet the campaigns of Rufus hardly ended the war.”
40
by his subsequent defeat.50 The second chronology seems more attractive given that his
colleague Purpurio arrived shortly thereafter to reinforce him. They proceeded to
ravage some Boian territory before turning their attention to the Ligurians and finally
they won a decisive battle against a group of Boii who had been trailing them for some
time.
The co-operation of the two consuls again demonstrates the
interconnectedness between consular practices and domestic politics. Marcellus
presumably did not wish to submit a joint triumph request, as he had probably
witnessed the debacle of the previous year. If the failure of the joint Cornelius-Minucius
motion was precipitated by Minucius’ weaknesses as a commander (the plebeian
tribunes ostensible reasoning) then the parallels ran even deeper. Marcellus was in an
even worse position than Minucius had been: he suffered an acknowledged defeat by
the Boii in which he lost 3 000 men. He no doubt saw the futility of attempting to cover
up his defeat by appearing alongside his colleague in the Temple of Bellona and
submitting a joint triumph request.
Instead Marcellus headed almost immediately to Rome, requested and was
granted a triumph by Senatorial majority before Purpurio could return from his
province. As was the case in 200, the force of the consul’s personal presence counted
for a lot when awarding a triumph.51 Technically, a formal request in person by the
50
Livy calls it “a matter of dispute amongst historians” although he seems to have followed the
version that places Marcellus’ defeat first (Livy 33.36.13-15). Oros. 4.20.11, says that Marcellus
was defeated by the Boii before combining his army with his colleague’s and almost annihilating
that tribe.
51
Pittenger (2008) 234: “The highly theatrical process of telling the story of his campaigns to the
crucial senatorial audience could allow a commander to reap tremendous political profits.”
41
potential triumphator was the first step in the triumphal process.52 However, the
Senate signaled its receptiveness to proceed by ordering days of thanksgiving in
response to consular dispatches. Marcellus deprived the Senate of this opportunity by
proceeding immediately to Rome where he could control the discourse in a way that
dispatches could not.
Livy reports that Marcellus triumphed over the Insubres and Comenses, leaving
open the possibility that Purpurio could triumph over the Boii.53 It is curious that
Purpurio never requested or received a triumph over the Boii. Whether tensions were
still high after his praetorian stunt four years earlier or else some other factor
prevented him from making a request is not clear. But what is clear is that Marcellus
exploited Purpurio’s help in order to further his own aims and diminish the memory of
his defeat by the Boii.54 In co-operating with Purpurio and winning such a large victory,
Marcellus essentially undid all the damage to his triumphi spes that had resulted from
his earlier defeat. To maximize his chances of realizing those hopes, Marcellus,
emboldened by the knowledge of what had transpired in 200 as well as the year before,
opted to appear alone before the Senate and request his own triumph. His tactic
proved successful and he was awarded a triumph.
Pittenger acknowledges that no record exists of Purpurio’s request for a
triumph, and he certainly did not celebrate one. She suggests that either Purpurio did
52
Pittenger (2008) 35-36.
Livy 33.3710-11. It would be odd if Marcellus purposely left the prospect of a triumph over the
Boii to his colleague since he could take at least partial credit for their recent success against
them. Rather, he knew that to request a triumph against them would have opened him up to all
sorts of criticism that could potentially derail his triumph-request.
54
Livy states that Marcellus had “been victorious when associated with his colleague”, i.e. that
he was using the co-operation of his colleague to his own advantage.
53
42
not wish to repeat the events of 200 or else that he had “heeded the warning of what
had happened to Minucius the year before and did not want to press his luck.”55 This is
an unsatisfactory explanation since Purpurio was surely in a better position to request a
triumph than Marcellus who had lost to the Boii. Even if he had learned from the
previous year’s events, namely Minucius’ failure, not to request a joint triumph, this
still does not fully explain the lack of request since Marcellus’ actions made it clear that
there would be no joint request. Purpurio’s failure to request a triumph upon his own
return to Rome must remain a mystery; the comparison with Minucius’ position a year
earlier does not provide any insight.56
However, these events do suggest much about Roman imperial ‘policy’ and its
relationship to individual magistrate’s desires to obtain glory. The triumph stood out as
the perfect finish to a successful consular career. As such, consular actions were driven
not by a centrally planned administrative policy but by the prospects of a triumph.
Colleagues co-operated in the field and the Temple of Bellona neither because the
Senate ordered them to nor because they were necessarily inclined to do so. Cooperation occurred sporadically throughout the period of Ligurian conquest because it
either potentially or actually increased one or both consuls’ odds of triumphing at the
end of their command. In the period under investigation an average of 1.15 triumphs
was celebrated per annum; the triumph was a powerful policy incentive within reach of
consuls and praetors alike.57
55
Pittenger (2008) 79.
Purpurio may have requested a triumph, but Livy does not record it, and certainly no triumph
was celebrated. Briscoe (1973) 320, speculates that his triumph in 200 may be to blame.
57
Figure in North (1993) 50.
56
43
195-194: P. Porcius Laeca, P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Ti. Sempronius Longus
Little of note happened in Liguria in 195, when the praetor P. Porcius Laeca was
ordered to Pisa with a force of 10 000 troops and 500 cavalry “so that he might be in
the rear of the Ligurians”. But Laeca’s was essentially a garrisoning force and he did not
engage the enemy.58 In 194 both consuls operated in Italy and made war on both Gauls
and Ligurians. Sempronius Longus fought an intense battle against some Boii led by
Boiorix, their chieftain. His army slew 11 000 Gauls but he lost 5 000 Romans in the
process before taking his legions to Placentia.59 Livy is frank about source discrepancies
regarding Scipio’s actions, citing some who claim that Scipio united his army with that
of his consular colleague and ravaged Boii and Ligurian lands as far as possible, and
others who record that nothing of note occurred and he returned to Rome to hold
elections.60 If joint actions did occur, it is likely that Sempronius Longus proposed them.
His casualty ratio against Boiorix (11:5) was too high to realistically expect a triumph
and the prospect of joining his colleague for more successful campaigns at the end of
the season must have been tempting.
193-190: Q. Minucius Thermus
Q. Minucius Thermus’ Ligurian career was one of the longest of any consul;
thrice prorogued, he unsuccessfully sought a triumph at the end of his proconsulship.
Events surrounding his three years in the field and the failed triumph-request illustrate
the political nature of Senatorial decisions and the lack of coherence in frontier
development. To begin, the Senate was caught completely off-guard by a series of
58
Livy 33.43.5.9; Briscoe (1973) 331.
Livy 34.46.4-47.8; Oros. 4.20.17.
60
Livy 34.48.1; Briscoe (1981) 124; Harris (1979) 258, notes that these two historiographic
threads are not inconsistent: a mere ravaging expedition could easily be downgraded to
“nothing of note” by later historians.
59
44
Ligurian uprisings in this year. The praefectus at Pisa, M. Cincius, informed the Senate
that 20 000 Ligurians had devastated the fields around Luna before ransacking the
entire Pisan coast. At the same time, a dispatch arrived from Ti. Sempronius Longus, the
previous year’s consul, stating that 10 000 Ligurians had pillaged and burned the
territory around Placentia right up to the city’s walls.61 Rather than direct a methodical
pacification of Ligurian tribes, the Senate was forced to respond quickly to a military
emergency that threatened several northern colonies. Minucius (on Senatorial
instructions) ordered the two city legions to present themselves in Arretium in 10 days,
as well as 15 000 Latin allied soldiers.62 L. Cornelius Merula, Minucius Thermus’
colleague, was to enroll a number of troops, assemble in Etruria and deal with the
Ligurians who were harassing Placentia as well as the Boii.
Minucius arrived at Pisa and drove off the Ligurians. A brief stalemate followed:
the Ligurians refused to meet Minucius in pitched battle after which the consul suffered
not one, but two calamities.63 Livy’s account is stylized but there is no reason to doubt
the veracity of its essentials. He reports that Minucius’ camp was attacked and
defended with great difficulty. More importantly, the consul was caught in a pass (Livy
explicitly refers to the disaster at the Caudine Forks) and escaped only because of some
trickery by his Numidian cavalry.64 Minucius Thermus’ imperium was prorogued and in
early 192 he finally met the Ligurians in pitched battle. His army killed 9 000 Ligurians
61
Livy 34.56.1-3, 10-11. At 35.3.1, the number has swelled to 40 000 Ligurians surrounding Pisa,
perhaps because universae gentis means that all Cisalpine Ligurians had joined (Briscoe [1981]
136).
62
Livy 34.56.4-7; Toynbee (1965) 277.
63
Livy 35.11.1; copying Livy: Frontinus, Str. 1.5.16; Oros. 4.20.17.
64
Livy 35.11.1-13.
45
though their abandoned camp yielded less booty than was desirable.65 Livy does not
report his second prorogation but in 191, the proconsul Minucius Thermus was still in
Liguria, his camp under attack. He succeeded in putting the Ligurians to flight, killing
more than 4 000 while losing fewer than 300 men.66
A brief digression to address the debate over Scipio Nasica’s triumph is in order
because it involves the career of Q. Minucius Thermus, the nature of the Ligurian
frontier and the Senatorial role in frontier policy-making.67 Scipio Nasica had won a
singular victory against the Boii. Livy doubts Valerias Antias’ numbers (38 000 slain, 3
400 captured, 124 military standards, 1 230 horses, 247 carts with only 1 484 Roman
casualties) but upholds the importance of the victory based on the magnitude of the
Boian surrender and subsequent supplicatio at Rome.68 The consul had also taken
hostages and about half the Boian land for future Roman use.
Rather presumptuously, Scipio Nasica dismissed his troops, telling them to be in
Rome on the day of the triumph.69 According to custom, he convened the Senate in the
Temple of Bellona and demanded the right to enter the city in triumph. The plebeian
tribune, P. Sempronius Blaesus, intervened, arguing that Scipio should be permitted to
triumph but not immediately. According to Blaesus, the Ligurian and Gallic campaigns
were always intimately connected, and if Scipio dismissed his troops without marching
into Liguria or sending them to the aid of Minucius Thermus, he had failed in his duty.
65
Prorogation: Livy 35.20.6. Battle: Livy 35.21.7-11.
Livy 36.38.1-5.
67
Dyson regularly fails to acknowledge political developments in Rome even when they are
connected to frontier administration. The debate over Scipio Nasica’s triumph is missing and he
refers to the debate over Minucius’ triumph by way of a footnote, writing “The actions of
Minucius roused considerable controversy, and he was vigorously attack by Cato.” (99 n.56)
68
Livy 36.38.5-7.
69
He had apparently already chosen the date of his triumph [Briscoe (1981) 279].
66
46
Blaesus concluded that Scipio Nasica should return to the field with his army, help
Minucius Thermus prosecute the war and only then return to triumph.70 Scipio
responded that his province had not been Liguria and he was not requesting a Ligurian
triumph; further, he felt confident Minucius Thermus would soon end the war and
request a well-deserved triumph; lastly, his own troops could not be induced to fight
another consul’s war after they had already fought and won such a significant victory.71
The Senate compelled the tribune to withdraw his veto and unanimously awarded
Scipio Nasica a triumph.
The plebeian tribune’s objections amounted to little more than political
posturing.72 The historicity of his arguments and Nasica’s response is a question with no
definite answer. Briscoe suggests that Livy “allows his rhetoric to carry him away, and it
would be rash to conclude that Nasica’s speech stood in Antias in anything like the form
in which it appears in L*ivy+”73, though this is specifically in response to the number of
Boii he claimed to have killed. There is no reason to doubt the tribune’s intervention on
political grounds, nor the general outline of his arguments, nor the Senate’s definitive
response. Both Livy and Antias concur that Scipio Nasica’s victory was immense; the
number of enemy slain and booty captured along with the small number of Romans
killed would not have stood in the way of Nasica’s triumph-request. In this context, it is
not surprising that Sempronius Blaesus employed unusual arguments to try and win
over the Senate. If he could convince the patres that Scipio Nasica’s zeal for a triumph
70
Livy 36.39.6-10.
Livy 36.40.1-10.
72
Briscoe (1981) 279, suggests that the Sempronii Blaesi were enemies of the Scipii.
73
Briscoe (1981) 280.
71
47
had imperiled Rome in leaving Minucius Thermus exposed to Ligurian attacks he might
be successful in denying the consul’s request.
The Senate’s response signaled that it was not prepared to regulate the
conduct of consuls to such a minute degree. There is no reason to doubt that Senatorial
opinion would have supported Scipio Nasica had he gone to the aid of Minucius
Thermus before coming to Rome. But the Senate as a body was not prepared to make
the call on matters that required intimate knowledge of frontier conditions. Scipio
Nasica had been assigned the province of Gaul and had carried out his task
commendably. Sempronius Blaesus could try and obstruct the triumph but without
winning over others he was forced to withdraw his political objections.74 Political
opposition to a legitimately earned triumph depended on the blockers winning enough
support in the Senate.
Minucius’ actual predicament at the time of Nasica’s presence in Rome is also
of interest. The consul had not had an easy time in Liguria. In 193 his camp had been
attacked and he had been trapped by Ligurian forces in a narrow pass (a tactical
situation reminiscent of the Roman disaster at the Caudine Forks). He had since won a
fairly significant if unprofitable victory in 192. More recently (two months prior to
Scipio’s victory) his camp had been attacked by Ligurian forces. Though he was
successful in repelling the attack, Livy’s description portrays a consul who was caught
off-guard and had a difficult time defending his camp.75 Minucius’ mixed success in
Liguria makes it all the more likely that Sempronius Blaesus employed the arguments
74
For a similar episode involving the tribune Aburius blocking the triumph of Fulvius Nobilior at
the behest of M. Aemilius Lepidus: Livy 39.4.1-13; Vishnia (1996) 179-180.
75
Livy 36.38.1-5.
48
that Livy credits him with. Perhaps the tribune’s remarks reflect some apprehension
about the state of affairs in Liguria. Again, the Senate’s laissez-faire attitude is
instructive. So long as a dire emergency was not at hand, they preferred not to
interfere with consuls in the field.
At the beginning of 190, Minucius Thermus announced that his province had
been completely reduced and that all the Ligurians had surrendered. He was ordered to
send all his troops to Scipio Nasica who, as proconsul, was overseeing the removal of
Boii from his newly acquired ager Romanus.76 Upon his return to Rome, Minucius
Thermus’ triumph-request was denied. Livy is uncharacteristically brief regarding the
reasons for Thermus’ denial: “two proconsuls at about the same time came from their
provinces to Rome with hopes of triumphs; Quintus Minucius [Thermus] from the
Ligures, Manius Acilius [Glabrio] from Aetolia. When the achievements of the two had
been heard, Minucius was refused a triumph, while Acilius was granted one with
general approval”.77
Livy’s brevity has encouraged scholarly speculation that generally suggests
politics is to blame. Scullard cites the failed triumphal bid as the first in a series of
attacks on the Scipionic group.78 Several fragments of two different speeches delivered
by Cato against Minucius Thermus support a political interpretation, though not
necessarily the prosopographical approach.79 Livy does not implicate Cato in Minucius
Thermus’ failed triumph, but since we know of no instance in which Cato formally
76
Livy 37.2.5-6.
Livy 37.46.1-3.
78
Scullard (1951) 133-134. Followed by Briscoe (1981) 362, but refuted by Astin (1978) 69ff.
79
Astin (1978) 59, upholds the historicity of two separate speeches contra Scullard (1951) 248,
who thinks they are fragments of a single oration.
77
49
prosecuted Thermus in court, the Senate seems the likely (only?) candidate for the
venue of the speeches. Furthermore, the substance of the charges lends itself to such
an occasion.80 Astin does not doubt the zeal with which Cato prosecuted office-holders
but admits that “there is a strong case to be made for the view that rivalry for office
was also a major factor in these events.”81 On this occasion Cato may have been looking
forward to the censorial elections for 189. As returning proconsul from Further Spain in
195, Q. Minucius Thermus had already celebrated one triumph.82 Thermus would have
been well placed to run in the upcoming elections after a successful campaign in Liguria
and a second triumph. Minucius’ failure to stand for the censorship might demonstrate
that Cato was successful in tarnishing Thermus’ image enough to keep him from
running for office, though this must remain at the level of speculation.83
192-188: L. Quinctius Flamininus and M. Valerius Messala
In 192 Flamininus ravaged Ligurian territory far and wide. According to Livy, he
captured many Ligurian forts, much plunder and many enemies while returning to
freedom some Roman citizens and allies who had been captured by the Ligurians.84
Livy’s sketch of events is highly confused, though there is no reason to doubt that
80
Scullard (1951) 258; Astin (1978) 59, declares that one speech for sure and probably both
were delivered in connection with Minucius Thermus’ failed triumphal bid; cf. Astin (1978) 6365, 143, 326ff.
81
Astin (1978) 64. He minimizes the role of politics in Cato’s orations against Minucius Thermus
but on the subject of his subsequent attacks on M’. Acilius Glabrio he admits that “the situation
was rather different” (73).
82
Degrassi (1947) 78f., 552.
83
Astin (1978) 65, vigorously denies such claims. But if Cato’s attacks on others were both
successful and partially politically motivated and given Livy’s silence we have only the outcome
to determine causality (Thermus’ failed triumph-request and his subsequent failure to stand for
the censorial elections), it is exceedingly likely that Cato’s role in denying Minucius Thermus a
triumph was politically motivated.
84
Livy 35.22.4-5, 40.2-5.
50
Quinctius Flamininus did engage some Ligurians.85 Rome’s preoccupation with the war
in Asia Minor from 192-188 temporarily quieted the Ligurian theatre. The consul in
188, M. Valerius Messala, was assigned the Ligurians with Pisa as his base. He enrolled
a sizeable force of two Roman and three allied legions along with 600 cavalry.86 The
consul’s year appears to have been uneventful: “the consul M. Valerius came from the
Ligurians to Rome to hold the elections of magistrates, having done nothing in the
province so worthy of note that it could be a plausible reason for delay, to cause him to
arrive later than usual for the elections.”87
187: M. Aemilius Lepidus and C. Flaminius
The consular campaigns of C. Flaminius and especially of M. Aemilius Lepidus
occupy an important place in Dyson’s account of Roman policy in Liguria and deserve a
detailed treatment. The Senate decreed that both consuls should receive the province
of Liguria owing to circulating rumors of an impending uprising. Lepidus strenuously
objected, ostensibly because he thought M. Fulvius Nobilior and Cn. Manlius Vulso
wielded too much power and were beginning to act like kings rather than consuls, but
probably for two real reasons: a long-standing personal animosity between Lepidus and
Nobilior; the prospects of campaigning in Asia or the Greek East were infinitely more
exciting than a season in Liguria.88 The Senate remained firm in its decision. The Senate
sent both consuls to Liguria due to rumored uprisings. Though we may question
85
Briscoe (1981) 203.
Livy 38.35.8-10.
87
Livy 38.42.1. Harris (1979) 258-259, writes that developments in Asia forced Messala to avoid
escalating conflict.
88
Livy 38.42.8ff. Briscoe (2008) 152, for the view that Lepidus did not necessarily want an
Eastern command himself but did not want to see Manlius Vulso and Fulvius Nobilior’s
commands prorogued.
86
51
whether this was truly defensive imperialism89, the Senate’s reactionary, ad hoc
allotment of provinces is consistent with historical trends.
Flaminius initially fought the Ligurian Friniates, a tribe that lived north of the
Apennines.90 They surrendered after several successful battles and he disarmed them.
But the Friniates had surrendered only part of their arms and fled across the
Apennines. Flaminius fought a second series of engagements with them after which
they fully surrendered and were stripped of all their weapons. Flaminius then fought
some Apuani, people living south of the Apennines (Flaminius was now in that area,
having pursued the Friniates across the Apennines).91 He subdued them and, according
to Livy, “that he might not leave his army idle”, he built a road from Bononia to
Arretium.92
M. Aemilius Lepidus’ campaigns followed those of his colleague in reverse
itinerary. He waged war against several tribes south of the Apennines before crossing
the mountains and fighting the Friniates that Flaminius had left untouched. Like his
colleague, he disarmed them. But having encountered difficulties fighting Ligurians
holed-up in mountain strongholds (Ballista and Suismontium in particular), Lepidus
went one step further and ordered the descent of defeated tribes from the hills to the
plains. Afterwards, he built a road from Arretium to Placentia.93
89
Briscoe (2008) 151.
Briscoe (2008) 212-213, contra Sage (1965) 220.
91
Briscoe (2008) 212-213.
92
Livy 39.2.1-7; Dio. fr. 65.2; Strabo 5.1.11.
93
Livy 39.2.7-11.
90
52
We may discount Livy’s explanation of Flaminius’ motive for constructing the
road.94 But it does not constitute what Dyson calls a Roman “road-building program”95,
using terminology that assumes Senatorial policy and corporate consensus over
individual agency. True, both consuls in 187 built roads that extended Roman power
and would facilitate trade and troop movement. They both seem to have been
concerned with longer-term solutions to Rome’s Ligurian problem as well; they
disarmed defeated tribes and Lepidus moved some down from the easily defensible
mountains to the plains. But Livy’s statement, stripped of its subtle moralizing, may
hide a kernel of truth. At risk of circularity, both consuls seem to have faced military
campaigning that occupied only a portion of their time. Each had time to traverse the
Apennines, fight multiple Ligurian tribes and build a road, an extraordinary undertaking
since neither was prorogued and so was in the field for only one season.
It is safe to assert that Flaminius and Lepidus’ triumphal prospects were dim.
Livy records neither great battles nor any statistics regarding casualty ratios or spoils.
Lepidus ravaged farms and villages, classic consular behavior when there were no major
pitched battles to be fought. Combined with the seeming ease with which both men
defeated enemies, this would imply that the campaigns were neither difficult nor
terribly significant in the grand scheme. Rather, their cross-Apennine marauding
94
Briscoe (2008) 214, links this statement with Livy’s point in the previous chapter about the
importance of Ligurian campaigns in maintaining military discipline.
95
Dyson (1985) 102, specifically in reference to M. Aemilius Lepidus’ efforts; Williams (2001)
208-209, with similar implications.
53
signifies that they were ‘in search of monsters to destroy’. Such roving and
inconsequential campaigns were rarely rewarded with triumphs.96
Lepidus and Flaminius’ road-building should be understood in the context of
aristocratic competition. Knowing that their military exploits were mediocre and that a
triumph was not in the cards, these two men glorified themselves in other ways.97 This
is not to say that Rome did not benefit; self-glorification and aristocratic competition
were not mutually exclusive. Most buildings and public works in republican Rome were
constructed by aristocrats who in so doing were providing a service to the state as well
as publicly reinforcing their wealth and fame. The Senate played an important role
within the arena of aristocratic competition, letting contracts, allocating funds and
generally regulating competition so that it did not threaten the political stability of the
republic.98 But the impetus came from the individual aristocrats themselves. A closer
look at M. Aemilius Lepidus’ career supports this conclusion and provides a more
nuanced explanation for Dyson’s proposed road-building ‘program’.
Within the same campaign Lepidus vowed two temples, to Diana and Juno
Regina.99 Eric Orlin notes that he is the only commander ever to vow two different
temples in the course of a single campaign. Orlin also remarks that while it is possible
96
Orlin (2002) 72: “His campaign did not involve any major pitched battles, it did not bring the
war against the Ligurians to a successful conclusion and quite properly he was not granted a
triumph for his activities.”
97
Orlin takes a somewhat confusing stance on this issue. Though he equates Lepidus’
unprecedented dual temple-vowing to his inglorious consulship, he states that “one should not
assume that Lepidus was attempting to arrogate gloria to himself that he had failed to win on
the battlefield” *Orlin (2002) 73+. In refuting the theory of manubial temple-building, he does
connect the relative poverty of Ligurian and Gallic triumphs to an unusually high rate of consular
temple-vowing (129, 160).
98
For this dynamic as it applied to temple-building specifically, Orlin (2002) 74-75. Importance of
public service to the Roman elite: Rosenstein (2006) 370ff.
99
Livy 39.2.8, 11.
54
that Lepidus felt genuinely threatened in the course of his campaigns (the traditional
reason to vow temples in the heat of battle), the evidence suggests otherwise.100 Orlin
discredits previous attempts to explain Lepidus’ motives and proposes his own: “It is
more beneficial to focus on Lepidus himself; given the relatively unglamorous
operations he was assigned for his consulship, he seems to have made a conscious
decision to present himself as one who aligned himself closely with the needs of the
state.”101 Orlin’s focus on Lepidus as an individual acting in both personal and state
interests rather than as an agent of the Roman state is both correct and instructive.
Lepidus’ road-building would also have aligned him with the needs of the republic while
permanently placing himself and his family on the map, as it were.
As aedile, Lepidus had constructed two porticoes and a wharf and beautified
the Temple of Jupiter with gilded shields on the roof.102 He and his colleague paid for
these constructions with fines they had levied on people using ager publicus to graze
animals. In 183, Lepidus was one of the triumviri coloniis deducendis for the
foundations of Mutina and Parma.103 Lepidus’ censorial career follows a similar pattern.
He and M. Fulvius Nobilior, elected censors in 179, were publicly reconciled and
proceeded with an ambitious building program which both Broughton and Orlin
describe as ‘notable’ in reference to other censorial programs.104 The Basilicas Aemilia
and Fulvia on the forum are only the most conspicuous of their many ventures. Also
during his censorship, Lepidus dedicated the two temples he had vowed eight years
100
Orlin (2002) 72.
Orlin (2002) 73.
102
Livy 35.10.11-12; Orlin (2002) 141. Livy notes just how ambitious this building program was.
Lepidus’ aedilician colleague was a fellow Aemilius, L. Aemilius Paullus.
103
Livy 39.55.7-8; Dyson (1985) 101-102; MRR 1.380.
104
MRR 1.392; Orlin (2002) 155.
101
55
earlier (as well as a Temple of Lares Permarini vowed by a clansman, L. Aemilius
Regillus) and received 20 000 asses from the Senate to celebrate games in conjunction
with the temple openings.105
Lepidus’ career from his aedileship (193) through his consulship (187) to his
censorship (179) demonstrates a commitment to public works and building projects
that situate him squarely within the arena of aristocratic competition. There is no doubt
that Lepidus was politically ambitious. As praetor in 191, he had been allotted the
province of Sicily, instructed to split it with his predecessor L. Valerius Tappo if he saw
fit and raise two tithes of grain to be shipped to Greece.106 Apparently dissatisfied and
eager for advancement, he left his province without Senatorial permission in order to
stand for the hotly contested consulship of 189, a move which brought “universal
disapproval” and caused his failure to be elected according to Livy.107 It is also
interesting that during his second Ligurian consulship Lepidus met with military success
and was rewarded with a triumph but there is no indication that he was involved in
building-projects.108
There is no doubt that M. Aemilius Lepidus was involved in numerous public
works and projects that benefitted the republic. But one man’s actions do not a Roman
policy make. His road-building in Liguria is best understood within the context of a
career that repeatedly demonstrates a predilection for the construction and dedication
of public monuments as a form of both personal glorification and state amelioration.
105
Livy 40.52.1-3; Orlin (2002) 181-182.
Livy 36.2.10-12; MRR 1.352.
107
Livy 37.47.6-8. Vishnia (1996) 182, notes that this did not hinder his election to the consulship
in 187.
108
See below under the year 175.
106
56
His disarmament and forced migration of the Friniates was certainly in Rome’s best
interests and represented an innovative approach to the Ligurian question but it did not
mark “an innovation in the administration of the area.”109 Dyson’s blanket statement
implies annual continuity in administrative policy which is simply not the case. Consuls
in Liguria were free to conduct warfare and administer the area as they saw fit within
the extremely broad confines of the Senatorial consensus regarding proper magisterial
conduct. Consuls fought in Liguria yearly without necessarily adopting this innovative
administrative ‘policy’.
One further event in the consulship of Flaminius and Lepidus deserves mention.
The praetor M. Furius Crassipes, operating in the province of Gaul, “seeking in peace
the appearance of war, had disarmed the Cenomani, who had given no provocation”.110
The Cenomani subsequently complained to the Roman Senate, who referred them to
M. Aemilius Lepidus and authorized him to investigate the complaint and render a
decision. After contentious meetings between the praetor, the Cenomanian envoys and
Lepidus, the Cenomani received their arms and Furius Crassipes was ordered to leave
his province. Diodorus’ account does not mention an initial Senatorial hearing and
includes the imposition of a fine by the consul Lepidus on Furius Crassipes.111
109
Dyson (1985) 100.
Livy 39.3.1-2. Briscoe (2008) 216, notes that the phrase in pace speciem belli quaerens
probably means that Crassipes threatened them with war if they did not surrender their arms,
rather than the usual translation that he claimed they were preparing for war. The Cenomani
had been at peace with Rome since 197 (Livy 33.23.4). cf. Vishnia (1996) 182, though she
mistakenly places the events in 189.
111
Diod. 29.14. Though Walsh has dismissed the Senatorial hearing as a Livian invention in the
name of ‘protocol’ and claims that Livy omitted the fine since he thought it improbable, Briscoe
(2008) 215, defends Livy’s version on the following grounds: the Cenomani “were not aware of
the constitutional status of the person with whom they were dealing” and so would plausibly
110
57
The episode fits well within Livy’s moralizing theme throughout Book 39.112
Lepidus’ just treatment of the Cenomani also accords well with his image as one
concerned with the well-being of the republic.113 The striking aspect is that the Senate
pointed the Cenomani’s envoys to the consul rather than deciding the matter itself.
Crassipes was vested with his own imperium and his own province (Gaul)—it is tough to
believe that the Senate was constitutionally obliged to forward the Cenomani to the
consul. It is possible that they reached a settlement at Rome and instructed Lepidus to
oversee the return of arms but this entirely negates Livy’s explicit testimony which lacks
such Senatorial directives and includes a heated debate in the field. The truth is that
the Senate was presented with a foreign policy dilemma with which it could reasonably
and constitutionally have dealt. If we acknowledge that the Senate needed Lepidus to
oversee the implementation of that policy, it could at least have provided him with
instructions of some sort. Instead, the Senate placed complete authority in the consul,
which is hardly consistent with a Senate that implicated itself in the minutiae of frontier
and foreign policy.
have approached the Senate first; Diodorus’ account corrupts Furius’ name to Fulvius and calls
the Cenomani ‘Ligurians’, thereby raising suspicion.
The political fallout is harder to determine. Crassipes may have been expelled in the
lectio senatus of 174 but this is long after the fact (Vishnia [1996] 182-183). Briscoe (2008) 215,
suggests he was removed from the Senate either by Cato in 184 or Lepidus in 179. Crassipes was
re-elected as praetor in 173 and allotted Sicily (Livy 42.1.5).
112
Briscoe (2008) 215. Other examples include but are not limited to Marcellus’ similar actions
at the end of the book, Roman misbehavior during the Third Macedonian War, the Bacchanalian
Affair and the Trials of the Scipios.
113
Diod. 29.27. Williams (2001) 136, wrongly concludes that the Cenomani were Roman auxilia
at this time and actively sought integration. Scullard (1951) 143, places the event within the
framework of a Scipionic ‘decline’ which was partially forestalled by the decisive action of the
consul Aemilius, a Scipionic ally.
58
186-184: Sp. Postumius Albinus and Q. Marcius Phillipus; Ap. Claudius Pulcher and M.
Sempronius Tuditanus; P. Claudius Pulcher and L. Porcius Licinius
In 186, both consuls, Sp. Postumius Albinus and Q. Marcius Phillipus, were
assigned Liguria as their province and given the forces of Aemilius Lepidus and
Flaminius.114 Postumius Albinus probably did not make it to Liguria due to investigations
into the Bacchanalian Affair, but Q. Marcius Phillipus finished his portion of the
investigation and marched against the Apuani, the same people against whom
Flaminius and Lepidus had previously fought.115 The historiography is unanimous in
recording the disastrousness of the campaign. Livy says that Philippus was ambushed in
a narrow pass and lost 4 000 soldiers as well as 3 Roman and 11 allied standards. In an
attempt to conceal his defeat he quit the Ligurian country for a more peaceful area and
disbanded his army.116 There is no sign of a shift in administrative policy precipitated by
Lepidus, just a badly defeated consul who tried unsuccessfully to conceal his failures.117
In 185 both consuls, Ap. Claudius Pulcher and M. Sempronius Tuditanus, were
again assigned to the increasingly violent Ligurian theatre. Sempronius Tuditanus set
out from Pisa with his army and fought the Apuani. His tactics consisted of devastating
Ligurian land and burning their villages and forts as well as dislodging them from an
ancestral stronghold (sedem maiorum). Claudius Pulcher engaged the Inguani, a tribe
from south-west of Genoa. He captured 6 towns and many thousands of men and
beheaded 43 belli auctores.118 Again, there is no sign of a general Roman policy of
Ligurian relocation. Tuditanus forced his opponents down from a mountain-top but this
114
Livy 39.20.2.
Dyson (1985) 101.
116
Livy 39.20.9-10; Oros. 4.20.26. Briscoe (2008) 292, shows that the historiography is
overwhelmingly hostile to Philippus, citing both Polybius and Diodorus.
117
For Q. Marcius Philippus’ career, see Briscoe (1964) 66-77.
118
Livy 39.32.1-4.
115
59
was in the context of battle rather than of permanent resettlement. The consuls were
free to conduct their campaigns as they saw fit. For example, Pulcher was the only
consul operating in Liguria to specifically behead what he believed to be belli auctores.
Pulcher’s tactic was probably ineffective but was neither proposed nor condemned by
the Senate; it represents his own estimation of the causes of frontier warfare.
Liguria remained a consular preserve in 184, though Livy confusingly adds
“since there was war nowhere else.” The consuls, P. Claudius Pulcher and L. Porcius
Licinius, were assigned the previous consuls’ armies. Little is known of their activities
but Harris has suggested that Licinius’ prorogation and the vowing of a temple to Venus
Erycina are “indications of real (but unsuccessful?) warfare.”119
183: M. Claudius Marcellus and Q. Fabius Labeo
This year forms an interesting case study since Marcellus’ career in particular
illustrates the complex relationship between Senate and consul.120 Both consuls were
once again sent to Liguria with their predecessors’ armies.121 Before going to Liguria,
Marcellus ordered the proconsul Porcius Licinius to send his army to a town that the
Gauls were building near Aquileia. The praetor L. Julius (Caesar) had been ordered to
use every means short of war to dissuade the Gauls from building and to quit the
119
Livy 39.32.1. No consul had gone anywhere but Northern Italy since 189; the reasons behind
Livy’s cryptic statement are obscure [Briscoe (2008) 345]. Harris (1979) 259; Livy 40.34.4, for
temple to Venus Erycina.
120
Q. Fabius Labeo did little of note during his consulship (Livy 39.56.3) apart from informing the
Senate that the Apuani near Pisa were on the verge of rebellion (Livy 40.1.3-4). Harris (1979)
259, posits that Labeo’s prorogation may conceal skirmishes or guerilla warfare but evidence for
this is lacking.
121
Livy 39.45.3-4.
60
territory.122 Unsuccessful, he informed Marcellus whose task was now to forcibly
remove these trespassers. The Gauls quickly surrendered upon Marcellus’ arrival and
12 000 men were stripped of their arms and possessions.123 A fragment of L. Calpurnius
Piso Frugi’s Annales says that Marcellus burned the Gallic town to the ground and that
the Senate disapproved of this as well.124 Consequently, the Gauls sent envoys to Rome
to complain of their treatment by Marcellus.125
The Senate’s response to the Gallic envoys was one of the rare instances it
intervened and reversed the decisions of a consul.126 According to Livy, the Senate
found both parties in the wrong. The Gauls were wrong to have occupied land in a
Roman province without the express consent of a Roman magistrate.127 But Marcellus
had been wrong to despoil enemies received in deditionem. The Senate resolved to
send three men (L. Furius Purpurio, Q. Minucius Thermus and L. Manlius Acidinus) to
Marcellus instructing him to return the Gauls’ property and oversee their expulsion
122
Livy 39.45.6-7.
Briscoe (2008) 404, argues that ex agris rapta refers to farming implements rather than
weapons. A group of landless Gauls intending to settle peacefully will hardly have needed so
many weapons.
124
Fr. 35, cited in Toynbee (1965) 629; cf. Zon. 9.21; Briscoe (2008) 404.
125
Livy 39.54.1-4. They made a compelling case that overpopulation had caused their migration
into Roman territory and that construction of a city was proof of their peaceful, sedentary
intentions.
126
The Gallic elders “reproved the Roman people for their excessive lenience” in this decision
(39.55.1-4). The fictitious anecdote almost certainly preserves the opinion of Livy or his source
and ties in perfectly with the moralizing theme of book 39. This, the Senate’s decision regarding
Crassipes in 187 and the decision regarding Ambracia (Livy 38.44.3-6) are the only examples to
this point when the Senate reversed a magistrate’s decisions based on a foreign embassy
(Briscoe [2008] 405).
127
An admission that Marcellus could unilaterally have granted the Gauls permission to reside in
the province. Also, the Senate was hardly interested in letting war-like Gallic tribes inhabit the
Italian doorstep (cf. Livy 40.53.5-6 for a similar situation).
123
61
from Italy. It is noteworthy that Marcellus retained direct control of the situation; it was
he, not the Senate’s three envoys, who was still in charge of the expulsion.128
Most importantly, the Senate’s response illustrates a pattern in Senatorial
action which bears directly on foreign policy: its careful protection of the deditio
relationship. The Senate refrained from interfering in consular affairs unless a consul’s
comportment somehow damaged the republic’s reputation. Surrendered enemies were
to be treated fairly otherwise the incentives for surrendering disappeared. Enemies
who placed themselves in deditionem in fidem poluli Romani entered into what was
technically a unilateral relationship but which always had strong bilateral behavioural
expectations.129
A slightly different version of the same concern manifested itself in 187 when
M. Furius Crassipes disarmed the peaceful Cenomani, though responsibility was
delegated to the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus. The chapter on the Popillian Affair will
show that an identical concern guided Senatorial responses in that case as well.130 The
Senate was relatively disinterested in consular actions as they pertained to frontier
‘policy’ but was deeply invested in ensuring that the informal rules governing
relationships between enemies in deditionem and consuls were upheld. The consuls
were magistrates of the Roman republic and their actions constituted Roman policy,
broadly speaking. Thus Senatorial expectations regarding consular treatment of
surrendered enemies constrained consular freedom of action to a degree approaching
128
The long-term political consequences for Marcellus were minimal. In 173 he acted as a
Roman envoy to the Aetolian and Achaean assemblies (Livy 42.5.10-6.2; MRR 1.409).
129
Toynbee (1965) 609-611; Badian (1958) 4-7. Both discuss the nuances of the formal and
informal rules governing the relationship.
130
Toynbee (1965) 629-630, explicitly connects the two. M’. Acilius Glabrio’s treatment of the
Aetolians in 191 and his staff’s ensuing shock is another example.
62
but not quite attaining ‘foreign policy’. But this policy determined acceptable limits to
consular actions rather than dictating the actions themselves.
Immediately following the Gallic expulsion Marcellus attempted to engineer a
war with the Histrians. Rather than march into Histria and explain himself later, the
consul asked the Senate’s permission to attack the Histrians.131 Marcellus’ request is
odd but understandable in the perpetual quest for military glory and triumphs.
Understandable because his previous bid for gloria had ended with the Gauls’
successful self-portrayal as aggrieved victim of consular aggression which had
effectively cost Marcellus any potential triumph. Grasping at alternate routes towards
glory was not new and Marcellus’ attempted war against the Istrians fits the mold.
Marcellus’ action appears strange in that he sought Senatorial permission,
though Livy’s brief statements leave room for interpretation. The content of the letters
beyond their stated purpose is unknown, but the importance of fetial law and the
imperative of a bellum iustum make it probable that Marcellus provided some pretext
for war against the Histrians. Each subsequent letter to the Senate presumably
escalated the perceived threat the Histrians posed. But the Senate would not budge;
the successful and peaceful founding of Aquileia, very near Istria, was of paramount
importance.132 Marcellus’ initial actions had met with Senatorial disapproval and so he
attempted to engineer a war, though he sought Senatorial permission since he had
previously run afoul of the Senate.
131
Livy 39.55.4-5. Harris (1979) 263, deals briefly with war-votes in the comitia centuriata. Harris
argues that a war-vote was not always a necessary preliminary to war, citing Cn. Manlius Vulso’s
attack on the Galatians (Livy 38.45.4-7, 46.13, 48.9, 50.1) and that of A. Manlius Vulso in 177 BC
(cf. Vishnia [1996] 185). Commanders could start a war and have it ratified later (Vishnia [1996]
183).
132
Livy 39.55.5-6.
63
Marcellus was recalled to hold the elections even though his colleague was
closer and hardly engaged with the Ligurians, perhaps because he strove to engineer a
Histrian war.133 He also disbanded his army which would suggest that his consular
campaign was finished. This was not the case. After the election he returned to Gaul
and in early 182 his imperium was prorogued and he was provided an additional force
of 7 000 infantry and 400 cavalry.134 The Senate’s displeasure with the consul, if it had
ever existed, was ephemeral and had quickly dissipated.
At some point in the year, 2 000 Ligurians approached Marcellus and asked to
be under his protection.135 Marcellus once again consulted the Senate on how to
proceed. His motivation is unclear. Perhaps he was still on thin ice with the Senate and
wished to tread carefully. More likely, he was concerned that the jurisdiction belonged
to the new consuls whose province actually was Liguria and asked the Senate to
interpret this constitutional matter. The Senate told Marcellus to send the Ligurians to
Cn. Baebius Tamphilus and L. Aemilius Paullus, the new consuls, who were well
positioned to decide what was best for the republic. The Senate further stipulated that
the Ligurians should only be received in deditionem and their arms taken from them.136
The Senate’s reply seems ambiguous. It appears to have directed the consuls to accept
the surrender of the Ligurians and remove their arms, but it also acknowledged the
consuls’ superiority in determining what was good for the republic. The direct
Senatorial orders were shaped by Marcellus’ earlier debacle with the Gauls near
Aquileia: in case the new consuls had missed the point, they were to accept the
133
Livy 39.56.4; Briscoe (2008) 407; Vishnia (1996) 183.
Livy 40.1.6-8. Q. Fabius Labeo was prorogued as well.
135
This was not a formal request to be received in deditionem (Briscoe [2008] 453).
136
Livy 40.16.5-6.
134
64
Ligurians in deditionem and remove only their arms. It was up to Tamphilus and Paullus
to accept or decline the Ligurian entreaty but if they did so it was to be within the
familiar framework of a deditio.
Ironically, Marcellus was unable to capitalize on his most promising shot at
glory and a triumph. When Cn. Baebius Tamphilus wrote the Senate regarding Aemilius
Paullus’ plight he also wrote Marcellus who was closest to Paullus and might have lifted
the siege.137 But Marcellus arrived in Rome just days after Tamphilus’ letter, having
already turned his army over to the praetor Q. Fabius Buteo and thereby eliminating
the possibility that he might rescue Paullus. The situation was dire and Paullus later
triumphed for breaking the siege himself; Marcellus would probably have been the
triumphator had he liberated Paullus.
Conclusions
We have seen that the early years of Ligurian conquest were marked by
consular initiative as much as Senatorial control. The period beginning with L. Furius
Purpurio’s precedent-setting triumph and ending with M. Claudius Marcellus’ various
actions in Histria, Gaul and Liguria shows increased Senatorial concern with the
Ligurians which manifested itself in provincial allotments and the founding of several
colonies. But a Ligurian ‘policy’ is more difficult to discern. Domestic political concerns
often dictated actions in the field and in Rome and the quest for a triumph dominated
consular decision making. The separation of policy and politics is hopelessly optimistic
and unenlightening.
137
Livy 40.25.8-9.
65
Further, the Senate repeatedly left major policy decisions to the consuls. On
multiple occasions the Senate let magistrates determine military and political responses
when it could have done so. The result was a ‘policy’ whose broad consistency and
occasional inconsistencies are best explained by the competing demands of aristocratic
competition and Senatorial consensus.
66
Chapter 3: Developments in Liguria, 182-175
The consulship of P. Cornelius Cethegus1 and M. Baebius Tamphilus (cos. 181) is
singularly important to Dyson’s thesis regarding the evolution of Roman frontier policy.
Dyson cites the failure of simple disarmament and concludes that “more radical steps
were needed, and seven years later [180] the new policy emerged that was to lead the
pacification of Liguria.”2 This new policy was “the physical movement of populations
down into the plain area where they could be more closely watched.”3 Dyson
acknowledges Lepidus’ campaign of 187 as the true predecessor but credits Baebius
Tamphilus and Cornelius Cethegus with kick-starting the shift in Roman policy: “The
success of the program *Tamphilus’ and Cethegus’ forced migrations] led to its
application with modification by other Roman generals.”4 Dyson correctly identifies the
increased use of forced migrations immediately following the consulship of Cethegus
and Tamphilus but his reasoning, based on a Roman administrative policy in Liguria,
fails to account for the subtleties and nuances of republican politics.
This chapter will revisit the subject of Rome’s alleged ‘forced migration’ policy
in Liguria, with particular focus on the consulship of Cethegus and Tamphilus and the
activities of Roman magistrates in the subsequent years. Rather than assume that a
coherent Roman policy remained in place for several years, I will instead consider
developments in Rome and Liguria over time. By paying closer attention to chronology
and the specific contexts in which Roman commanders made decisions, it will be clear
1
Livy mistakenly refers to him as Lentulus, but the Fasti give a cognomen of Cethegus.
Dyson (1985) 105.
3
Dyson (1985) 105.
4
Dyson (1985) 106; Gargola (2006) 156.
2
67
that forced migration of Ligurians was not a consistent Roman policy determined by the
Senate, but rather a tactic taken up by consuls over a short period of time for specific
political reasons. The ‘policy’ actually encompasses two tactics—forced migrations and
removal from mountain-tops to plains—which were both politically rewarded.
Regardless the motives behind the adoption of these two related tactics, we will see
that the former was more effective in creating long-term stability.
182-181: Cn. Baebius Tamphilus and L. Aemilius Paullus
Full contextualization of the forces at work during Cethegus and Tamphilus’
consulship demands an analysis of prior developments. So we begin with the consuls
for 182, Cn. Baebius Tamphilus and L. Aemilius Paullus, and the events that led to
Cethegus and Tamphilus’ unprecedented triumph. Both consuls in 182 were sent to
Liguria since “there was no province to be decreed except the Ligurians.”5 Q. Fabius
Labeo had written that the Apuani were contemplating rebellion and would possibly
invade Pisan territory, providing at least the pretext for assigning Liguria as the sole
consular province. Both men met with some success and a one-day thanksgiving was
voted.6 Baebius Tamphilus proceeded to Rome to preside over the elections in which
his younger brother Marcus was elected; Aemilius Paullus wintered at Pisa.7
Aemilius Paullus led his army against the Ingauni in the spring. The Ingauni
feigned a desire for peace and asked for a ten day ceasefire during which they would
convince other tribes to surrender along with them. They retreated into the mountains,
regrouped, attacked and besieged Paullus’ camp. Paullus accordingly sent entreaties for
help to Cn. Baebius Tamphilus at Pisa but Tamphilus had already handed over his
5
Livy 40.1.1.
Livy 40.16.4-5.
7
Livy 40.17.6-8.
6
68
army.8 So Baebius informed the Senate of Paullus’ request and also wrote to Marcellus,
asking him to come from Gaul if it seemed prudent.9 Emergency procedures were
enacted in Rome but with no outside communication Paullus could not be sure Baebius
had even received his messengers in Pisa so he resolved to break the siege himself.10
After a typically Livian speech by Paullus in which Ligurians are unfavourably compared
to Spaniards, Gauls, Macedonians and Carthaginians, Paullus led his men out against
the enemy and won a major victory, killing more than 15 000 Ligurians and capturing
more than 2 300.11 The Senate permitted him to return to Rome and discharge his
troops, the necessary first step in the campaign for a triumph.
Aemilius Paullus’ triumph was poor by comparison to others. Only 25 golden
crowns were carried in the procession but no other gold or silver. Additionally, each of
his soldiers was given 300 asses, but this money apparently came from the Roman
treasury rather than the spoils he had won.12 He was awarded a triumph more for the
unexpected and fortuitous nature of his victory and the fact that it had caused the
capitulation of the entire Inguani rather than his enrichment of the treasury, though he
had killed an impressive number of enemy soldiers. Most importantly for our purposes,
Ligurian envoys appeared during his triumph and asked the Romans for perpetual
peace. The praetor Q. Fabius Maximus, on Senatorial orders, demanded that their
deeds mirror their words and ordered them to present themselves to the two consuls
currently in Liguria.13 The Ligurian envoys’ appearance and the Senate’s response are
8
Briscoe (2008) 472, is clear that Aemilius Paullus wintered at Rome; Baebius Tamphilus had
overseen the elections. Tamphilus’ presence in Pisa remains inexplicable.
9
Livy 40.25.1-9.
10
Reactions in Rome: 40.26.1-8; Paullus’ actions: 40.27.1ff.
11
Speech and battle narrative: Livy 40.27.11-28.2; Briscoe (2008) 471-478; cf. Plut. Aem. 6.1-7.
12
Livy 40.34.7-9; Briscoe (2008) 495, thinks the money did not come from the aerarium.
13
Briscoe (2008) 495, says the envoys were probably from the Apuani.
69
important preliminary events whose significance Dyson does not acknowledge. They
set the stage for the subsequent forced resettlement of Ligurians and the triumph of
Tamphilus and Cethegus. The Senate’s response perfectly demonstrates their tendency
to deflect responsibility to the consuls currently in the field, even when the Senate had
a clear opportunity to shape frontier policy directly. That is, in this instance, the Ligurian
envoys came to Rome, presented themselves to the Senate, and asked for instructions
on how to secure a lasting peace. Yet the Senate sent them packing. This hardly
resembles a Senate who was intimately involved in frontier development.
One might suggest that the Senate intended to employ the consuls in the
execution of a settlement of its own devising. Surely they were more opportunely
placed to carry out whatever the Senate instructed. But Livy’s statements suggest
otherwise: “They *Ligurian envoys+ should go to the consuls and do whatever was
ordered by them. The senate, he said, would believe a statement from no one except
the consuls that the Ligurians were at peace in genuine good faith.”14 The consuls were
to be the final arbiters, both deciding the course of action and vouching for the
peacefulness of these Ligurian tribes. The tremendous power the consuls possessed as
the conduit of information from province to Rome is on full display.
181: P. Cornelius Cethegus and M. Baebius Tamphilus
The two consuls were ordered to depart Rome earlier than usual to relieve the
Ingaunian siege of L. Aemilius Paullus. But as we have just seen, Paullus struck at the
lackadaisical siege and won a spectacular victory. The further activities of the pair in
181 are unrecorded but they were prorogued in 180 and eventually instructed to hold
14
Livy 40.34.11-12.
70
the province until the incoming consuls for 179 replaced them.15 Meanwhile, Paullus
had deprived Cethegus and Tamhilus of their original objective and the Senate made it
clear that they were to discharge the armies and return to Rome upon the arrival of
Postumius Albinus and Calpurnius Piso (cos. 179). The window of opportunity for
Cethegus and Tamphilus was closing rapidly.
The two proconsuls took exploited circumstances in Rome to determine policy
on their own. The consul C. Calpurnius Piso had died. Q. Fulvius Flaccus was elected
suffect consul, but the entire affair slowed the levy of troops. The two proconsuls took
advantage of the situation and attacked the Apuani. The action was a desperate one
from a pair of consuls whose triumphi spes were almost exhausted; Livy strongly
implies causality in writing that “P. Cornelius et M. Baebius, qui in consulatu nihil
memorabile gesserant, in Apuanos Ligures exercitum induxerunt.”16 Whether or not
they consciously sought to catch the Apuani off-guard with an early attack, their enemy
put up no resistance and surrendered immediately.17 The two proconsuls were faced
with the surrender of 12 000 Apuani and still nothing worthy of a triumph. So they
devised a solution that would benefit Rome and themselves, recalling the appearance
15
Livy 40.36.7; 40.25.1-10, for Paullus’ actions against the Ingauni and his plea for help; 40.18.3
for the sortition; 40.26.4-8 for the Senatorial order telling the consuls to leave as early as
possible.
16
Livy 40.37.8-9.
17
Livy 40.38.1-2. Livy says the Ligurians “had not anticipated a war before the arrival of the
consuls *i.e. Albinus and Flaccus+ in the province” but this credits the Apuani with an intimate
acquaintance with the rotation of Roman magistrates. Most likely, they did not expect an attack
so unseasonably early. Scullard (1951) 178, writes that “the effective work had been done by
Aemilius Paullus” the year before (cf. Harris *1979+ 259). Briscoe (2008) 505, correctly notes that
Paullus had fought Ingauni and these were Apuani. He also suggests that knowledge of Paullus’
victory the year before made the Apuani less inclined to fight. Dyson (1985) 105, says that the
pastoral Ligurians were in the lowlands in the spring and were more vulnerable to attack than
mid-summer.
71
of and Senatorial response to the Apuani envoys at Paullus’ triumph the previous year:
the forced-migration of these Apuani.18
Our understanding of the forced-migration, the proconsuls’ triumph and the
developments of the following years is deeply altered depending on whether the
Senate or Cethegus and Tamphilus were the primary authors of the policy. They worked
in co-ordination with each other but responsibility for its conception is vital. Dyson’s
thesis demands that the Senate provide the leadership since he invokes the
resettlement as evidence that the Senate was exasperated with what he calls “the cycle
of raid and reprisal” and sought “radical new solutions”.19 In relating the events of 180
Dyson writes that “The number of Ligurians seized was large enough for the two
proconsuls to think it prudent to consult the senate on next steps. The decision was
made to take the captives to an area well removed from Liguria. Without such an
action, the senate felt that nullum alium ante finem rati fore Lingustini belli.”20 But an
alternate explanation better incorporates the known facts and is therefore more
attractive. The proconsuls consulted the Senate by letter in between the Apuanian
surrender and the transfer but Livy does not say that the Senate instructed them to
move the Ligurians to Samnium. Similarly there is no indication that the feeling
regarding the endemic Ligurian warfare was that of the Senate as expressed in the
exchange of letters. The Senate’s reply to the Apuani envoys at Aemilius Paullus’
triumph further weakens Dyson’s argument. Textual evidence regarding the Senate’s
18
Toynbee (1965) 667, suggests that the Forum Cornelii was also founded in this year and links
the lack of military glory in M. Aemilius Lepidus’ consulship with this one.
19
Dyson (1985) 104.
20
Dyson (1985) 105.
72
role is ambiguous at best and the circumstantial evidence does not support a Senate
that pro-actively supported forced migration.
Events make more sense if Cethegus and Tamphilus were responsible for the
decision. They consulted the Senate to obtain permission, funds and land for the
transfer of the 12 000 Apuani who had surrendered, a number that later swelled to 40
000.21 The importance of the Senate’s control of the treasury in influencing foreign
policy is evident, and there must surely have been forward-thinking patres who saw the
value in what Cethegus and Tamphilus proposed. The Ligurian envoys’ plea the year
before was also a catalyst in this process, showing the Senate that at least some of the
Ligurian tribes were tired of fighting and wanted a more permanent solution. But
resettlement was a proconsular initiative that required Senatorial approval, not a
Senatorial policy that demanded proconsular executives. Co-operation and conflict
between multiple actors shaped ‘policy’ at all times. The Senate played a vital role but
the credit belongs to the pronconsuls. Baebius and Tamphilus’ request for a board of
five to help them carry out the task of resettlement also suggests that the impetus was
theirs.
Cethegus and Tamphilus were voted a triumph upon their return to Rome: Hi
omnium primi nullo bello gesto triumpharunt.22 Livy’s words have caused much
confusion. Harris rejects a literal interpretation and thinks that “they probably
21
Gargola (2006) 156.
Livy 40.38. 7-9. Livy’s “triumphus ab senatu est decretus” is noteworthy. The singular
triumphus rather than the plural triumphi suggests that it was a joint-triumph which would
certainly be in keeping with the apparently collegial nature of the resettlement. The entries in
the fasti triumphales have unfortunately been lost and cannot confirm this.
22
73
undertook some campaigning and certainly were awarded triumphs.”23 He follows
Scullard who writes that “the claim that their triumph was undeserved will have come
from the propaganda of their Fulvian successors whom they robbed of the chance of
outstanding military victory.”24 Vishnia also places it within the context of the
politicization of the triumph-debate, “a tendency reduced ad absurdum when two
consuls were awarded a triumph although they had not engaged in any battle.”25 The
historical narrative records no major battles and Briscoe is certainly correct to note that
“marching an army towards the enemy may be ‘military activity’, but is certainly not
what a Roman meant by bellum gerere.”26
The triumph makes sense if we accept that the Senate was inclined towards a
lasting peace in Liguria without actively pursuing it and that Cethegus and Tamphilus
proposed a viable solution. Making war had hitherto been the primary role of annually
elected consuls, though Harris’ claim that more than three-quarters of consuls between
200 and 167 engaged in warfare is based on questionable assumptions about Livian
lacunae and arguments ex silentio. War-making was indeed the traditional occupation
of consuls and Liguria fosters no shortage of years when the consuls ravaged territory
for no apparent purpose.27 The triumph had traditionally been the preserve of
magistrates with imperium who were successful in war and was intimately linked to
military glory.28 But Senatorial attitude towards the triumph need not have remained
23
Harris (1979) 259, uses their triumph as evidence that they had accomplished something of
military importance.
24
Scullard (1951) 178 n.5.
25
Vishnia (1996) 178.
26
Briscoe (2008) 507.
27
Harris (1979) 259; 9-41, for the aristocracy’s relationship with war.
28
Oakley (1993) 29: “No institution was so characteristic of the military ethos of Rome as the
triumph”; Rich (1993) 41: “The Romans valued military achievements above all others and their
strongly militaristic culture was displayed in such institutions as the triumph.”
74
static. With the patres desirous of peace and readily accepting the forced-migration as
a step in the right direction, the triumph of Cethegus and Tamphilus can be seen as a
reward for the consuls’ imaginative approach. Dyson recognizes as much: “The
appreciation of the senate and the Roman people for this imaginative and wellexecuted application of a new native policy was demonstrated by the voting of a
triumph to the two former consuls, despite the fact that hi omnium…”29 It would be
strange if the Senate rewarded the two for carrying out a plan of its own devising. The
course of events in 180 only makes sense if Cethegus and Tamphilus hatched the idea
of Ligurian resettlement, proposed it to the Senate in order to obtain necessary land
and financing, and were rewarded with a triumph.
180: A. Postumius Albinus, C. Calpurnius Piso and Q. Fulvius Flaccus (I)
Postumius Albinus and Q. Fulvius Flaccus werethe first consuls in Liguria after
Cethegus and Tamphilus; they represent the first of Dyson’s ‘other Roman generals’
who applied the recently developed ‘program’. But the success of this ‘program’ was
not only in creating the conditions for a lasting peace. More importantly, the success
was political—Cethegus and Tamphilus had triumphed and demonstrated that battles,
captives and booty were no longer triumphal prerequisites. The two consuls elect,
Albinus and Piso, were assigned Liguria and told to enlist new armies. Their task was to
relieve Tamphilus and Cethegus and make war on the Apuani.30 Livy’s text is clear: Cum
hoc exercitu Apuanis Liguribus ut bellum inferrent, mandatum est.31 The Senate further
specified the otherwise vague province of ‘Liguria’ by ordering the consuls to fight the
Apuani in particular. This is a rare case of direct Senatorial shaping of foreign policy and
29
Dyson (1985) 106.
Livy 40.35.8.
31
Livy 40.36.7.
30
75
constitutes an exception rather than the rule. Furthermore, the incoming pair was to
relieve the outgoing consuls, meaning they would be in the territory of the Apuani; it
made sense for them to continue campaigning in the region occupied by previous
consuls unless those campaigns were finished.32
Most important in this statement is the chronology. Cethegus and Tamphilus
had not yet attacked the Apuani nor had they commenced their massive resettlement
of them. If the Senate were contemplating resettlement as a way of moving beyond the
apparent tactical stalemate in Liguria one would expect to find it in Senatorial
instructions. Instead, it was business as usual: the consuls were instructed to make war
on, not resettle, the Apuani.
C. Calpurnius Piso died before he could leave for Liguria.33 Livy calls his death
“especially suspicious” and implicates Piso’s wife, Quarta Hostilia. According to Livy, she
grew tired of watching her son, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, repeatedly stand for and fail to win a
consulship. She resolved to make him consul within 2 months and on the death of her
husband and his stepfather, he was elected consul suffectus.34 In the period between
the election of Flaccus as suffect consul and the consuls’ departure against Ligurian
enemies of their own, Cethegus and Tamphilus carried out their attack on the Apuani,
resettled them in lowlands and returned to Rome to celebrate a triumph. Thus Flaccus
and Albinus will have been acutely aware of Cethegus and Tamphilus’ achievement and
its ultimate reward.
32
It is difficult to understand the cryptic statement that “There was peace among the Ligurians”
(40.34.11.)
33
Livy 40.37.1.
34
Livy 40.37.4-9.
76
Postumius Albinus attacked the mountain strongholds of Ballista and Letum
before destroying the vineyards and crops of other Ligurian mountain tribes until they
were “compelled by the disasters of war” to give up their weapons. He then proceeded
to explore the coastline belonging to the Ingauni and Intemelii.35 There is no sign here
of any forced migrations from highlands to lowlands even though Livy is explicit that
Albinus’ enemies were in fact mountain-dwelling (montanorum Ligurum). The fact that
he was able to explore the extensive Ligurian coastline of the Ingauni and Intemelii
means that time-constraint cannot have been a factor in Albinus’ failure to carry out
this new Roman ‘program’ either. Postumius Albinus demonstrates that even in the
direct aftermath of Cethegus and Tamphilus’ warless triumph, consuls were not
directed by the Senate to resettle defeated Ligurians. The Senate was relatively
disinterested if a consul opted for a more traditional approach including crop-burning
and disarmament rather than emulate the new ‘policy’ of the previous year.
The other consul, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, emulated his predecessors. He attacked
the Apuani, forced the surrender of 7000 men and consequently put them on boats to
Neapolis, where they were transferred to Samnium and given land.36 Livy is
exceptionally brief on Flaccus’ actions but there are several plausible assertions that
bear mention. First, like Cethegus and Tamphilus before him, Flaccus was faced with
the rapid capitulation of his enemy, hardly perfect conditions under which to win a
triumph.37 Flaccus would have been cognizant of Cethegus and Tamphilus’ achievement
35
Livy 40.41.1-2, 5-7. Briscoe (2008) 513, says both consuls fought tribes of Apuani.
Livy 40.41.3-4; Dyson (1985) 106.
37
Though admittedly far-fetched, it is at least possible that the Apuani surrendered so quickly
precisely because they expected the same treatment as their countrymen the year before. They
were in fact settled in the same region of Samnium as the previous 40 000 Apuani (Inde in
Samnium traducti, agerque iis inter populares datus est [Livy 40.41.4-5]). The Apuani would not
have known that the consul was not bound by a strict ‘policy’ of resettlement.
36
77
and might have inclined towards a similar course of action in the hopes of a similar
reward. The Senate’s role in this relocation is less clear but the placement of these 7
000 Ligurians next to their country-men suggests that they received unoccupied ager
Romanus in Samnium, as had occurred the year before.
Unlike Cethegus and Tamphilus, Flaccus did not triumph; nor did he even
summon a meeting in the Temple of Bellona and request one.38 Flaccus could legally
have triumphed, though suffect consuls were apparently barred him from conducting
elections.39 We know of several suffect consuls who triumphed starting with M.
Valerius Lactuca Maximus in 437.40 The reason for Flaccus’ non-triumph is not to be
sought in his constitutional or religious competence. Rather, the answer may lie in
Flaccus’ ascension to the suffect consulship. If rumours were circulating in Rome that
his mother had killed his step-father so that he might finally have a consulship, this
would hardly have endeared him to the Senate or to the gods. The suspicious
circumstances surrounding his step-father’s death meant that his consulship was
tainted from the beginning. The highly religious nature of the triumph would militate
against a possible accomplice to murder dressing up like a god and celebrating one of
Rome’s most important religious ceremonies. The fact that Livy’s sources related the
38
The most obvious explanation is that Flaccus requested a triumph, was denied, and Livy failed
to record it. This is both unsatisfactory and an argument ex silentio.
39
Livy 41.18.16 (in reference to the year 176): “Those who were skilled in the rules of religion
and in public law said that, since the two regular consuls of the year had perished, the one from
disease, the other in battle, a substituted consul could not properly conduct an election…” cf.
North (2006) 263-265.
40
Degrassi (1947) 95, 538.
78
rumour at all meant it probably had some currency in Rome at the time and the Senate
may have been ill-disposed towards Flaccus.41
The suffect consul may have been attempting to mollify Senatorial opposition
and potentially position himself for a triumph by emulating Cethegus and Tamphilus. It
is significant that he appears not to have been in charge of the resettlement beyond
putting the 7 000 Apuani on ships. The Senate, as a corporate whole, supported
resettlement but was reluctant to let Flaccus reap too much benefit. Flaccus probably
understood the significance of his diminished role and recognized that he was not going
to triumph, thus his failure to request one.
179: Q. Fulvius Flaccus (II) and L. Manlius Acidinus Fulvianus
The incoming consuls were assigned the same provinces and armies as their
predecessors.42 The consul L. Manlius Fulvianus did nothing worth noting but Flaccus’
actions in Liguria are noteworthy. He fought a pitched battle with Ligurians in the
mountains of Ballista, the same area that Postumius Albinus had occupied the previous
year. Flaccus transferred the 3 200 who surrendered from the mountains to the plains
and garrisoned the mountains so that they could not return to the defensible
strongholds. The news was well-received in Rome, where a three day thanksgiving was
decreed and 40 full-grown victims were sacrificed.43 Whereas Tamphilus, Cethegus and
the previous Q. Fulvius Flaccus (I) had shipped the Ligurians to Samnium, Q. Fulvius
41
Evans (1994) 28-34, argues that the story is a later invention by the historian L. Calpurnius Piso
who was motivated by hostility towards M. Fulvius Flaccus (cos. 125). Briscoe (2008) 503-504,
points out Evans’ contradictory conclusion and upholds the veracity of the anecdote based on
Hostilia’s execution.
42
Livy 40.44.3-4. Flaccus is not to be identified with the suffect consul of the previous year.
Dyson (1985) 106, equates the two; Briscoe (2008) 26, is clear that they were homonymous
cousins.
43
Livy 40.53.1-4; cf. Flor. 1.19.5, for a very confused account that mixes disparate tribes as well
as many consuls from different years.
79
Flaccus (II) moved the defeated down to plains in their territory and garrisoned the
mountain tops. Flaccus’ actions reflect a similar but not identical pattern and in any
case there is no explicit evidence that the Senate was involved in the decision.
Flaccus was awarded a triumph for his efforts. Livy preserves a historiography
hostile towards Flaccus’ triumph as he did with the war-less triumph of Tamphilus and
Cethegus: “this triumph was clearly due to influence rather than to the greatness of his
achievements. He carried in the triumph a great quantity of arms taken from the
enemy, but practically no money. *…+ Nothing in the triumph was more noteworthy
than that it happened to occur on the same day on which, in the previous year, he had
triumphed after his praetorship.”44 Two triumphs in two years was certainly a heady
privilege but Flaccus’ supposed popularity alone cannot fully explain this anomaly even
if it made it easier for him to win his second triumph.45 Contrary to Cicero’s derision of
Ligurian triumphs as easily obtained and meaningless46, aristocratic competition
virtually guaranteed that triumphs were not handed out freely. The dynamic worked in
the other direction, ensuring that many potential triumphators failed to triumph based
on political enmities within the Senate.47 We have seen that this was probably what
kept Q. Minucius Thermus from a triumph in 190.
44
Livy 40.59.1-4. Flaccus’ triumph in 180: Livy 40.43.4-7.
Against this view is Briscoe (2008) 565-566: “We are at the beginning of a period when the
consulship, in my mind, was dominated by the Fulvii and their political allies. That does not, of
course, mean that the consuls commanded an automatic majority in the senate. Fulvius had to
use his gratia to persuade uncommitted senators to vote for his triumph.”
46
Cic. Brut. 255-256; Dyson (1985) 94. Harris (1979) 225: “though some of them [Ligurian
triumphs] may have been spurious and none of them bestowed the glory of an African or Asian
victory, their value was real.”
47
Vishnia (1996) 178, posits an entirely opposite dynamic: “The highly competitive ambience of
this period encouraged the Roman commanders to request triumphs for insignificant victories or
even to fabricate them especially when it was becoming obvious that personal connections
could often militate in favour of an otherwise unjustifiable triumph”. Against this, see Harris
45
80
Looking beyond the hostile historiographic tradition, Flaccus’ triumph fits well
within the Senate’s new disposition towards more permanent efforts at Ligurian
pacification. The scale of the victory was by no means spectacular and hardly deserving
of a triumph based on previous criteria and precedents. But the game had changed: the
criteria expanded when Tamphilus and Cethegus had created a new precedent.
Exhausted by decades of intractable fighting in Liguria, the patres were open to new
methods of pacification. Tamphilus and Cethegus had shown that forced removal and
resettlement could be carried out on a large scale with beneficial results.48 The Senate
was prepared to reward non-traditional behavior with a triumph in the interests of
solving the problems that had plagued the Ligurian frontier. Though it probably did “tip
the balance in Liguria toward Rome” the ‘process’ of Ligurian resettlement was not as
straightforward as Dyson claims.49
178-177: M. Iunius Brutus; C. Claudius Pulcher
Virtually nothing happened in Liguria in 178. The consul M. Junius Brutus was
stationed at Pisa and when the Senate instructed him to cross over into Gaul to levy
troops, the praetor peregrinus Tiberius Claudius Nero was instructed to hold the
province in the consul’s absence.50 The following year, the consul C. Claudius Pulcher
(1979) 26 n.2. Oakley (1993) 29, shows that triumphs were celebrated just as frequently
between 312-293 and 282-264 as they were in this period; Rich (1993) 50, shows there were 39
triumphs between 200-167.
48
Dyson (1985) 105: “The Romans undoubtedly saw this as a positive step. A disrooted people
become a disoriented one, and therefore more controllable. Modern imperialism offers its
parallels.”
49
Dyson occasionally recognizes the complex relationship between individual efforts and Roman
policy. See, for example, his comments regarding the Senate’s appreciation of Cethegus and
Tamphilus (94). But his admission that the ‘policy’ of Cethegus and Tamphilus was imaginative
and original does not explain why they attempted it in the first place and is an exception to
Dyson’s intensely Senatorial focus.
50
Livy 41.5.5-6, 9-10.
81
was initially assigned the war against the Histrians. However, the previous year’s
consuls had both crossed over and joined the Histrian campaign, thereby depriving
Claudius Pulcher of his army and the potential for victory.51 He hastily set out towards
Histria to dismiss the two proconsuls and assume control.52 Pulcher arrived during the
siege of Nesattium, sent the two consuls away, successfully captured the town and
subdued the Histrians.53 Shortly thereafter, the proconsul Tiberius Claudius Nero wrote
the Senate from Pisa informing them that Ligurian war councils were supposedly in
progress.54 The Senate forwarded the dispatch to Claudius Pulcher and informed him
that if it seemed wise to him he should now lead his legions against the Ligurians. The
Senate did not order him to launch attack the Ligurians. They did not allot him the
province of Liguria. They offered the consul an option which we must assume he was
free to decline. Even if he was unlikely to pass on the offer of another province where
he could win even more glory, the choice was his, not the Senate’s.55
Claudius Pulcher was tremendously successful against his Ligurian foe. He killed
15 000 and captured more than 700 as well as 51 standards. He spent the rest of the
season burning farms far and wide.56 There is no hint that Claudius Pulcher attempted
resettlement. His actions in Liguria closely mirrored more traditional forms of Roman
warfare in Italy and the western provinces. For his efforts he celebrated a rare double-
51
Provincial assignments: Livy 41.9.8; Polyb. 25.4.1. Political situation of Histrian War: Livy
41.10.1-13.
52
Vishnia (1996) 185, cites Claudius Pulcher’s aggressive actions as evidence of triumph-hunting:
hastily departing Rome with his legions out of fear that his predecessors would complete his
assigned tasks; returning to complete the necessary rites; returning to his province just as
quickly.
53
Livy 41.11.1-9. He captured and sold 5 632 prisoners, beheaded many auctores belli and
accepted hostages from neighbouring tribes.
54
Livy 41.11.10-12.4.
55
Livy 41.12.4-8.
56
Livy 41.12.7-10.
82
triumph over the Histrians and the Ligurians at the end of his consulship.57 Claudius
Pulcher had not implemented the new ‘Ligurian policy’ because there was not one to
implement. He had availed himself of choices before him, both with regards to whether
he was going to take up the Ligurian war or not and then whether he would fight or
engage in some combination of fighting and resettlement. Policy was in the consul’s
hands.
The bankruptcy of Claudius Pulcher’s strategy was apparent when the same
Ligurians immediately revolted. Livy claims they realized that both Claudius Pulcher and
Tiberius Claudius Nero were no longer in Liguria and so they attacked, freed from fear
of retaliation. Whether Livy’s statement is true or not, the Ligurian revolt indicates that
Claudius Pulcher had not fully subdued the people over whom he triumphed. This
neither tarnished Claudius Pulcher’s triumph nor sullied his reputation. When word of
Mutina’s fate reached Rome, the Senate instructed Claudius Pulcher to conduct
elections as early as possible, prorogued him and sent him back to the field to rescue
the Roman colony.58 The Senate was apparently unconcerned that Pulcher, who
claimed to have pacified the Ligurians and triumphed for it, was shown to be a liar so
quickly.
Pulcher quickly relieved the siege of Mutina killing 8 000 Ligurians in the
process. He sent a dispatch to Rome bragging that “as a result of his valour and good
fortune there was no longer an enemy of the Roman people on this side of the Alps,
and that a large amount of land had been captured which could be divided individually
57
Degrassi (1947) 103; Livy 41.13.6-8.
Livy 41.14.3-5. The Ligurians ravaged the land surrounding Mutina before capturing the colony
itself.
58
83
among many thousands of men.”59 Such a boast must have seemed empty coming from
a man who had earlier made a similar claim only to be proven wrong. Before long the
Ligurians again rose in revolt, once more discrediting Claudius Pulcher. What is more,
Livy equates these rebellious Ligurians with the ones Pulcher had defeated in 177 and
at Mutina, writing that they cowered at his arrival since they recalled their defeat at the
Scultenna River and that they were all the more enraged because of the booty taken
from them at Mutina.60
Further evidence supports Livy’s testimony that these Ligurians are to be
identified with the previously defeated tribes. When confronted by Claudius they
retreated to the familiar mountain strongholds of Ballista and Letum.61 Aemilius
Lepidus had forced his Ligurian foe down from the mountains of Ballista and
Suismontium in 187. A. Postumius Albinus had fought Ligurians on both mountains in
180. Q. Fulvius Flaccus fought against Ligurians on the mountain Ballista in 179 before
bringing them down to the plains and garrisoning the mountaintop. The critical
difference between the long-distance resettlements of 180 (Cethegus, Tamphilus and
the suffect consul Q. Fulvius Flaccus) and the short-term strategies of Lepidus and
Flaccus is manifest. Ligurians removed to Samnium and forced to farm were incapable
of returning to ancestral mountain strongholds whereas those Ligurians who were
simply deposed from mountains to neighbouring plains were free to return once the
consul and his army had vacated the area.62 Toynbee has noted that “it is not stated in
59
Livy 41.16.7-8.
Livy 41.18.1-3.
61
On continuing Roman activity around Letum, Ballista and Suismontium, see Harris (1979) 226
n.2; Toynbee (1965) 280-281.
62
Dyson (1985) 105, hints at the ephemeral effects of mountain-top removal: “But men of the
mountains are not easily turned into men of the plain. With the native mountains in sight, it
would be tempting to flee and return to old haunts and old ways.” It is as if the Ligurians were
60
84
Livy’s narrative that the strongholds themselves were occupied by the Romans on
either occasion [187 and 180], and we may guess that the second capitulation was
therefore as illusory as the first had been.”63
176: Cn. Cornelius Scipio Hispallus, Q. Petillius Spurinus and C. Valerius Laevinus
The Senate decreed Pisa and Liguria as the two consular provinces; Scipio
Hispallus received Pisa and Petillius Spurinus received Liguria. But Scipio Hispallus died
before leaving Rome and Spurinus held an election at which C. Valerius Laevinus was
chosen suffect consul. News reached Rome that the Ligurians were in revolt and
Petillius set out for his province, satisfied with this new development since “he had long
been eager for his province”.64 The uprising convinced the Senate to send a third legion
to meet Claudius Pulcher at Parma, whence he could engage the enemy. The Senate
also sent duumviri navales along the Ligurian coast to spread terror by sea. Meanwhile,
the consul Petillius went to Parma to meet his newly levied troops. There would now be
3 magistrates with consular imperium and two duumviri navales operating against the
rebellious Ligurians.
Petillius Spurinus, “fearing lest the war should be finished in his absence”,
asked Claudius Pulcher to bring his army to him at Campi Macri. Claudius obliged the
consul and turned his army over.65 Petillius’ was concerned that Claudius, wellpositioned to suppress the rebellion, would do so and thereby diminish his own
potential glory. Claudius was probably obligated to defer to the incoming consuls and
recovering drug addicts at risk of relapse, not a people forcibly removed from their ‘old haunts’
who naturally returned to their more defensible strongholds in the absence of Roman power.
63
Toynbee (1965) 279-280.
64
Livy 41.15.5-6, 16.3-5, 17.5-6.
65
Livy 41.18.5-6.
85
acquiesce to Petillius’ request. He had also been operating in the region for almost two
years and already celebrated a triumph against the tribes that were now revolting. Q.
Fulvius Flaccus had celebrated two triumphs in two years but never had anyone
triumphed over the same tribe in two consecutive years. It is noteworthy that troop
movements were politically rather than militarily motivated. The well-placed proconsul
was forced to forego military action because of an incoming consul who jealously
guarded his province. Even if the delay lasted only a few days and Petillius’ army was
ultimately successful, the exchange between the consuls demonstrates the interaction
of political concerns and military strategy.66
C. Valerius Laevinus joined Petillius at Campi Macri and the pair launched a
two-pronged attack. Petillius attacked Ballista and Letum but died in battle, the result
of a flaw in pre-battle auspices according to Livy.67 The Romans were nonetheless
successful and killed 5 000 Ligurians while suffering only 52 casualties. Valerius
Laevinus’ actions remain largely unknown because the manuscript is missing an entire
quaternion but the fasti triumphales do not record a triumph for the suffect consul.
However, Laevinus probably successfully ended the Ligurian rebellion since Livy informs
us that the next year’s consuls quelled a rebellion that broke out only at the beginning
of 175.
175: P. Mucius Scaevola and M. Aemilius Lepidus
The election, provincial assignment and the initial campaigns of P. Mucius
Scaevola and M. Aemilius Lepidus (the same consul of 187) are lost in the missing
66
The most obvious manifestation of a consul jealously guarding his province and achievements
are the circumstances surrounding the prorogation of T. Quinctius Flamininus in 198 (Polyb.
18.11.1; Plut. Flam. 7.1-2).
67
Livy 41.18.8ff; Val. Max. 1.5.9, 2.7.15.
86
quaternion noted above.68 The tantalizingly fragmentary evidence is unfortunate given
the apparent importance of these consular campaigns towards an overall thesis
regarding resettlement and the Ligurian frontier. Livy’s text breaks off with the news of
Petillius’ death reaching Valerius Laevinus and resumes with the extraordinarily
important word deduxit followed by a list of Ligurian tribes, their positions in Northern
Italy and the actions of Mucius Scaevola.69 The obvious conclusion is that the lost text
outlined M. Aemilius Lepidus’ campaign, one which culminated in the resettlement of
the Garuli, the Lapicini, the Hergates and the Friniates, all Ligurian tribes.
Whether Lepidus’ resettlement resembled the forced migrations of 180 or the
movement from mountains to plains of 187 and 179 is more difficult to determine. In
passages relating the actions of Baebius, Tamphilus and the suffect consul Flaccus, Livy
employs various forms of the verb traduco: eo cum traducere Ligures Apuanos
(40.38.3); traducti sunt publico sumptu (40.38.6); agro dividend dandoque iidem qui
traduxerant (40.38.7); inde in Samnium traducti (40.41.4). This contrasts with passages
in which the Ligurians are ordered down from the mountains and a form of deduco is
used: deducere ex montibus in agros campestres procul ab domo (40.38. 2); omnes
Aemilius subegit armaque ademit et de montibus in campos multitudinem deduxit
(39.2.9-10); consul deditos in campestres agros deduxit (40.13.3). The use of deduxit at
41.18.16 suggests that Lepidus simply moved the Ligurian tribes from the mountains to
the surrounding plains without transferring them to an entirely different location.
68
Both names are preserved on the fasti triumphales (Degrassi [1947] 80f., 555); Livy 41.19.1
(Mucius Scaevola); Oros. 4.20.34 (Aemilius Lepidus).
69
41.18.15-19.1. A fragment regarding the impropriety of a suffect consul conducting elections
must have been included in the missing text as it can only refer to the elections for the year 175.
87
However, Livy also says that the tribes had (fuerant) lived cis Appenninum,
which implies that Lepidus subjected them to forced migrations and they now resided
elsewhere. But based on the philological argument which shows a clear pattern of
linguistic differentiation between mountain-top removal and forced migrations, we
must include Lepidus’ activities in 175 in the former category. Furthermore, Lepidus
had forced the Ligurians from the mountain-tops in 187; that he did so again would be
consistent with his earlier actions.
Mucius Scaevola fought the tribes that had ravaged Luna and Pisa and disarmed
them upon their defeat. For the various successes of the consuls in Gaul and Liguria the
Senate voted a three day thanksgiving and sacrificed 40 victims.70 The evidence for
consular co-operation is ambiguous. Any textual evidence that Scaevola participated in
Lepidus’ campaign and resettlement is lost and he seems to have been occupied
fighting more traditional battles in southern Liguria. The Senatorial decree of
thanksgiving celebrated the successes of the two consuls (duorum consulum) but this
does not necessarily imply military co-operation. The strongest argument against
consular co-operation is that deduxit is in the singular which implies Lepidus as the
verb’s only subject.
One other source further complicates the issue. According to the fasti
triumphales, Lepidus and Scaevola both celebrated triumphs on March 12 (4 id. [Mart.])
against the same people (the Ligurians). Triumphs on the same day and against the
same people were not unheard of: in 268, P. Sempronius Sophus and Ap. Claudius
Russus triumphed over the Picentes, though the date is missing; M. Atilius Regulus and
70
Livy 41.19.1-2.
88
L. Junius Libo triumphed over the Sallentini on January 23, 267; the joint triumph of C.
Claudius Nero and M. Livius Salinator is well documented though lost on the fasti; the
triumph of M. Baebius Tamphilus and P. Cornelius Cethegus is also lost from the fasti
but appears to have been joint based on Livy’s singular triumphus.71 A triumph on the
same day and against the same people strongly hints at consular co-operation.
Unfortunately, any potential reference to their triumph-request or the actual triumph is
lost due to another lacuna at 41.20.13. But given the rarity of joint triumphs and the
apparent lack of consular co-operation it would be rash to declare theirs a single, joint
triumph.72
The outline of consular activities in 175 is admittedly fragmentary but the
following is the most plausible reconstruction: Lepidus campaigned against some
Ligurian tribes and forced them down from the mountains to the surrounding plains
without subjecting them to long-distance forced-migrations; Scaevola, working
separately, fought Ligurian tribes in the region of Pisa and Luna; both celebrated a
triumph on the same day against the same peoples, but this was not a joint triumph.
Although Dyson addresses the year only cursorily, the implications for his thesis are
huge: “A fragmentary reference to the Ligurian wars of 175 B.C. ends with the word
deduxit, implying another forced mass movement.”73 A close reading of the text shows
that the ‘forced mass movement’ was closer to Lepidus’ earlier tactic of removing the
Ligurians from the mountain-tops without forcing them out of the area. It also shows
that the other consul, Mucius Scaevola, fought more traditionally but was rewarded
71
Degrassi (1947) 40f., 432.
Statistically speaking, most triumphs occurred between January and April (especially MarchApril) because the consular year began mid-March. Successful consuls in search of a triumph
would have returned to Rome towards the end of their consulship (January-February) or else
once they had been relieved by their replacement (March-April).
73
Dyson (1985) 106; Toynbee (1965) 280-281, for similar assertions.
72
89
alongside Lepidus with a triumph nonetheless. The year’s developments perfectly
encapsulate the nuances of the supposed forced-migration policy and the continuing
options facing Roman consuls.
Conclusions
Dyson is correct to demonstrate that Roman strategy in Liguria had to evolve
beyond one of yearly pillage-and-plunder before the province could be fully pacified.
He is also correct to recognize that the Senate was increasingly aware of this as the
years passed. But Roman policy did not and could not immediately and unequivocally
shift. The Senate was the central, thought not the only, figure in founding colonies, a
tactic that solidified the Roman presence in Liguria. It also played an important role in
rewarding war-less and relatively blood-less campaigns that contributed to a lasting
peace in Liguria without stipulating that consuls abide by a fixed Ligurian policy. The
Roman Senate’s ability to control foreign policy was similar to that of a modern marketoriented government’s economic control; it provided powerful incentives for certain
types of behaviours and restricted others while hardly ever legislating or mandating the
actions of the consuls.74 To do so routinely would have infringed upon consular
imperium and the long-standing tradition of consular independence.
In the period after 180, where Dyson sees a policy shift, consuls in Liguria were
faced with a broader range of options that might potentially lead to a triumph. Yet
these were indeed options. The consul determined his strategy: he could chance a
74
Vishnia (1996) 180-181: “It is doubtful, however, that any regulation would have restrained an
ambitious Roman general. On the contrary, as demonstrated in the Spanish campaigns of the
50s and 40s, it only encouraged them both to exceed their authority and to engage in
unnecessary and sometimes calamitous battles.”; North (2006) 267: “The constitutional powers
of the Senate were limited, but their informal influence was very great."
90
pitched-battle in the hopes of winning a victory so momentous that he would be
awarded a triumph or he could try to resettle thousands of Ligurians and pacify the
province in that manner. Comparison to the effects of the Purpurio triumph in 200 is
instructive. Then, a praetor had been permitted to triumph, thereby opening the
floodgates to the praetorian triumph. The triumph of Cethegus and Tamphilus created
a precedent that now rewarded consuls who sacrificed short-term military victories for
long-term peace efforts. But this pacific ‘program’ was both complex—it includes longdistance forced migrations and the less effective mountain-top removal—and coexistent with more traditional tactics. To further complicate matters, the specifics of a
consul’s campaign greatly reduced the burden of choice. That is, consuls who faced a
long, tough season of campaigning against a particularly difficult enemy were not
forced to consider resettlement as an option. Their primary task was to defeat
whichever Ligurian tribe they were engaged with. If that occupied their campaigning
season, this did not disadvantage their potential for triumph.
Without resorting to circumstantial evidence, Livy provides little corroborating
detail about consular campaigns that involved resettlement.75 One exception is the
joint effort of Cethegus and Tamphilus. Aemilius Paullus’ spectacular victory deprived
them of their Senatorial assignment so they took advantage of political disarray in
Rome and attacked the unsuspecting Apuani. The tactic worked too well and instead of
an unprepared enemy and an easy victory the consuls received the surrender of 12 000
men without a battle. With much time on their hands and little to merit a triumph, the
consuls jointly proposed a state-financed resettlement of the surrendered tribes,
75
It is patently circular to argue that all consuls who undertook resettlement clearly had time to
do so since they would otherwise have been fighting.
91
probably convincing the patres with arguments about the Roman national interest and
an enduring peace.76 Similarly, Livy tells us that the Gallic and Ligurian uprisings in 175
were quickly and easily dealt with, which helps explain Aemilius Lepidus’ removal of a
number of Ligurian tribes from the mountains.77 On both occasions we find idle consuls
with dwindling triumphi spes who resorted to tactics of pacification: Cethegus and
Tamphilus carried it out on a scale large enough to garner a triumph and set a
precedent; Lepidus was continuing a tactic he had employed in 187 but which gained
him a triumph in 175 because of the earlier precedent.
76
Their interest in the well-being of the res publica was also expressed in the lex Cornelia Baebia
of 181, an anti-electoral bribery law (Rosenstein [2006] 376).
77
Livy 41.19.3-4.
92
Chapter 4: The Popillian Affair: A Case Study in
Roman Politics and Foreign Relations
In 173 M. Popillius Laenas fought a battle with the Ligurian tribe called the
Statellae, received their surrender and proceeded to disarm and sell them into slavery.
The ensuing political turmoil consumed the remainder of his consulship as well as his
brother’s the following year; I refer to the entire episode as the Popillian Affair. Livy
weaves the Popillian Affair in and out of his narrative at the beginning of Book 42 and is
clearly disgusted with Popillian comportment. The Popillian Affair provides one of the
most striking examples of the breakdown in relations between the Senate and
individual magistrates and is often cited as the most blatant example of so-called
triumph-hunting.1 The (mis)deeds of the Popillii brothers occupy an important place in
Livy’s narrative and modern works alike, but Pittenger correctly notes that “scholarly
treatments of this curious episode are few and far between.”2 There are more than the
two treatments that Pittenger cites but she is correct to identify a conspicuous lack of
in-depth and critical investigation of a case that looms so large on the historical horizon.
The Popillian Affair serves as a fitting final case study since it highlights several
themes from the previous chapters and because it is an unusually well documented
example of the interplay between foreign policy and domestic politics. Below is an
outline of the Popillian Affair which includes all pertinent information. Following that is
1
Payne (1962) 73; Dyson (1985) 110-112, says Popillius was “engaged in simple triumph-hunting
*…+ The actions of Popillius Laenas were pure adventurism”; Rich (1993) 58; Eckstein (2009) 227228.
2
Pittenger (2008) 119 n.10, cites only Vishnia (1996) and Rich (1993).
93
a critical discussion of the Popillian Affair’s historiography which makes the case for a
renewed treatment. The analytical section scrutinizes relevant precedents and
potential motives for each party’s behaviour (M. Popillius, the Senate, etc.). It
demonstrates the adverse effects of systemic checks and balances that permitted the
participation of multiple individuals with diverse motives. A concluding section
reiterates main themes and discusses the causes and effects of the constitutional
deadlock that characterizes the Popillian Affair.
Livy and the Popillian Affair
The Popillian Affair’s narrative is derived entirely from Livy (Book 42.7-10, 2122), who imposes a moralizing tone and doctors the chronology to fit his annalistic
framework.3 But his personal opinions and the harsh historical tradition can be
separated from the narrative history and the events and their relative order are fairly
straightforward. The following is a summary of the main actions of the Popillian Affair
as described by Livy.
Livy first mentions M. Popillius’ actions in the context of a straightforward
military campaign against a group of Ligurians gathered at the town of Carystus in
Statellan territory. Ten thousand Ligurians were killed in a battle that lasted many hours;
Popillius lost three thousand men. The remaining Ligurians placed themselves in
deditionem fidem populi Romani. Popillius accepted the Ligurian surrender and
proceeded to disarm them, demolish their town and sell them into slavery. The consul
then announced his accomplishments in a dispatch to the Senate which was read aloud
by the praetor A. Atilius Serranus.
3
Harris (1979) 270-271.
94
According to Livy, the Senate was furious with Popillius. They ordered him to
remain in his province until he had purchased the Ligurians from bondage and restored
their arms, land and liberty. When Popillius learned of the decree he immediately
wintered his troops at Pisa and summoned the patres to the Temple of Bellona,
whereupon he harangued and fined the praetor and demanded that the Senate rescind
its decree and restore his victory. In response, several Senators delivered speeches
against him; Popillius returned to Liguria having accomplished nothing. Towards the
end of 173, while M. Popillius was still in a standoff with the Senate, his younger
brother Caius was elected consul for the following year.
At the outset of C. Popillius’ consular year, the Senate proposed that the decree
regarding the Ligurians be re-submitted and re-adopted. The consul P. Aelius Ligus was
willing to do this but C. Popillius threatened to veto any decree concerning his brother.
C. Popillius convinced Aelius Ligus to side with him and thus drew the two Popilii and
Aelius Ligus into a stalemate with the Senate. Since war with Macedon was on the
horizon and the potentially lucrative command was on the table, the Senate announced
that both consuls would be sent to Liguria without new troops or reinforcements if they
did not submit. The consuls responded by adopting work-to-rule, conducting only the
business they absolutely must and refusing to depart for their province.
While C. Popillius and Aelius Ligus were still in Rome, M. Popillius sent another
dispatch celebrating a second victory over the Statellae that left six thousand Ligurians
dead. The Senate was furious. M. Marcius Sermo and Q. Marcius Scilla, two plebeian
tribunes, were spurred by Senatorial ire and proposed a decree demanding that all
Statellae be restored to freedom by the Kalends of August. Otherwise, the Senate
95
would appoint someone to investigate and punish whoever was responsible (M.
Popillius). The plebeian assembly passed the decree with ‘complete unanimity’ and the
praetor C. Licinius was placed in charge of the investigation.
Only after the decree did both consuls depart for Liguria. M. Popillius, the
outgoing proconsul, was fearful of retribution in Rome and was compelled to return
only when another tribunician decree declared that he would stand trial in absentia if
he did not return by November 13th. He twice stood trial before C. Licinius but pressure
from the Popillii and the consul P. Aelius Ligus led Licinius to schedule the mandatory
third day of hearings for March 15th, when he would no longer possess the imperium
necessary to discharge his duties. “Thus the decree about the Ligurians was evaded by
trickery.”4 The Senate also passed a decree declaring that all Ligurians who had not
been enemies (hostes) of the Roman people since 179 should be freed and given land
across the river Po. C. Popillius was put in charge of carrying out this senatus consultum
and faced questions about his failure to do so upon his return to Rome at the end of the
year 172.
Historiography of the Popillian Affair
H.H. Scullard places the Popillian Affair within a prosopographical framework
and cites it as an example of plebeian versus patrician conflict. Scullard does not
elaborate on the supposed tensions between the Atilii Serrani and the Popillii Laenates5,
but explains the outcome of the elections for 171 (presided over by C. Popillius Laenas
4
Livy 42.22.8.
Toynbee (1965) 633 n.3, addresses the issue, suggesting that the Popillii Laenates and the Atilii
Serrani were “rivals for leadership in the Roman colonization of Cisalpine Liguria and Gaul”,
citing a series of facts that makes heavy use of prosopography to determine the tension
between the two families.
5
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and in which P. Licinius Crassus won the consulship) as a direct result of C. Licinius
Crassus’ technical dismissal of the suit against M. Popillius Laenas.6 However,
prosopography’s tantalizing promise of unlocking the vagaries of Republican politics has
fallen under increasing scrutiny and its value has been heavily curtailed if not altogether
obliterated.7
Scullard also cites the Popillian Affair as an example of the “violence and
rapacity displayed by many of the newer men who were gaining power”, which he
portrays as the symptom of a much deeper political shift in Rome: the predominance of
plebeian families in the curule magistracies in the years 173-170.8 Scullard argues that
these plebeians “were not merely flouting the will of the elder senators, but were
imperiling the mos maiorum”, without explaining why they should have clashed so
violently with the Senate.9
A.J. Toynbee offers one of the most detailed interpretations of the Popillian
Affair.10 He casts it in a long tradition of magisterial misdeeds and as a chapter in the
ongoing struggle between Senate and magistrate, he declares the Popillian Affair to be
a “major defeat” for the Senate.11 He also soundly refutes Scullard’s claim that it is
indicative of a plebeian-patrician power struggle.12 Further, Toynbee places the
6
Scullard (1951) 196; Münzer (1920 [1999]) 200-203.
See especially Hölkeskamp (2001); Millar (1984) 15.
8
Scullard (1951) 194-195. He cites 173 as the beginning of the shift, but the crux came in 172
when “for the first time in Roman history both consuls were plebeians”. Both consuls were
plebeian in 171 and 170 as well.
9
Scullard (1951) 200.
10
Toynbee (1965) 185, 206-208 and esp. 632-635.
11
Toynbee (1965) 634.
12
Toynbee (1965) 635 n.1: “The fact would, of course, have been highly significant if the date
had been in the fifth or fourth century B.C.; but, by 172 B.C., political alignments at Rome had
long since ceased to follow the line of division between the patrician and the plebeian order.”
7
97
Popillian Affair within the context of Roman agrarian policy. He prefaces his discussion
of the Popillian Affair with the following statement:
This exhaustion of Cisalpine ager publicus available for allotment pulled the
Roman Government up short in the pursuit of its policy of trying to please all
parties in the Roman state by giving the capitalists a free hand in the Peninsula
and by finding compensation for the dispossessed peasantry in the Peninsula’s
Cisalpine annex. In this impasse, which had been reached by 173 B.C., one of
the consuls for that year, M. Popilius Laenas, confronted the Senate with a fait
accompli.13
The term ‘capitalists’ is anachronistic and reveals much concerning Toynbee’s
ideological framework. He contends that Popillius accomplished “in the teeth of the
Senate’s opposition, what had evidently been his object from first to last”: obtaining
Cisalpine land to put at the disposal of the land commissioners, appointed that same
year, who would then distribute it to Roman and Latin peasants.14 He cites an
“unavowed recognition that Popillius’ atrocious conduct had exposed the bankruptcy of
the Senate’s current agrarian policy” as the reason that M. Popillius’ actions met with
such Senatorial hostility; Popillius had “had confronted the Senate with a dilemma
which the Senate was unwilling to face.”15
Apart from Toynbee’s anachronistic and loaded language, his analysis rests on
two equally unpalatable axioms. The first is that Popillius’ one and only goal was to
procure land. But it is clear that M. Popillius aimed at a triumph—the skirmish with the
Senate only began when his request for three days of thanksgiving, a prerequisite for a
triumph-request, was denied.16 Toynbee’s explanation of the Senatorial reaction
(ostensibly furious at Popillius’ despoliation of the deditio relationship, but truly
13
Toynbee (1965), 206.
Toynbee (1965), 206-207.
15
Toynbee (1965), 208.
16
Livy 42.9.1-6.
14
98
because it had been shown the futility of its agrarian policy) is unconvincing and forces
a more complicated reading of the evidence than necessary.
Secondly, Toynbee’s view of an alleged Roman agrarian policy presupposes an
aggressive long-term foreign policy, a dubious theoretical construct. Rome was
frequently aggressive and benefitted from spear-won ager Romanus but this does not
establish causality. Dyson has also pointed out that Statellan territory was “well
removed from the line of intermeshed colonial and ad viritum settlements farther
south, and their land was surrounded by untamed natives. It was hardly the place
where the Romans would place scattered farmsteads.”17
W.V. Harris calls the Popillian Affair an exercise in “blatant land-grabbing”,
adding Roman aggressiveness to Toynbee’s agrarian argumentation. Yet Harris fails to
understand the nuances of the situation when he portrays it as a Roman initiative and
reduces the affair to “a dispute at Rome about how the Statellates should be treated”.18
Harris points to supposed hostility between A. Atilius Serranus and Popillius, rejects
Scullard’s novi homines thesis and suggests that M. Popillius’ ‘untraditional’ response to
the Ligurian deditio caused the Senatorial reaction.19 He correctly notes that the
Senatorial outcry “was far from unanimous”, though it is not true that “inaccurate
statements have often had the effect of making the Senate seem more tender towards
17
Dyson (1985) 110.
Harris (1979), 226.
19
Harris (1979) 271: “M. Popillius’ offence, in so far as he was genuinely believed to have
committed one, was to have achieved traditional ends by an untraditional, even if technically
permissible, response to the Statellates’ act of deditio.”
18
99
the Ligurians than it was.”20 Harris offers the possibility that the Senate was upset
because Popillius had engulfed his province in violence on the eve of a Macedonian war.
John Rich’s analysis of the causes of middle-republican war-making situates M.
Popillius squarely within the group of magistrates who engineered wars for personal
gain.21 He cites many second-century examples and concludes that “simple triumphhunting was the exception, not the rule” because “unscrupulous triumph-hunting was
politically risky.”22 But if simple triumph-hunting was rare, long-term political
repercussions for engaging in it were rarer still. Neither of the Popillii damaged their
political prospects through their protracted standoff with the Senate.
Rachel Feig Vishnia also addresses the Popillian Affair. She characterizes the
period 172-170 as one marked by magisterial abuses of power which placed new strain
on the traditional legal system and gave rise to plebiscite-approved, praetor-conducted
inquiries against magistrates suspected of wrongdoing.23 In this respect, the Popillian
Affair helped establish certain legal precedents, though this offers little in the way of
explanation for Popillius’ or the Senate’s motives.
Vishnia addresses the Popillian Affair in a list of what she terms magisterial
‘deviations’ from Senatorial orders. Beginning with L. Furius Purpurio’s unprecedented
boldness in 200, Vishnia lists thirteen instances down to 167 when Roman magistrates
20
Harris (1979) 271, accuses Scullard in particular of making the Senate seem too ‘tender’.
Other examples Rich cites: A. Manlius Vulso (accused of unauthorized campaigns in Galatia
and Histria [Livy 38.45.6, 41.7.7-8]), M. Aemilius Lepidus Porcina (against the Vaccaei in Hither
Spain [App. Hisp. 80-83; Oros. 5.5.13]), M. Junius Silanus (the Cimbri [Asc. 80C]), L. Licinius
Lucullus (the Vaccaei [App. Hisp. 51-55]), Ap. Claudius Pulcher (the Salassi [Dio fr. 74]) and L.
Caecilius Metellus (the Dalmatians [App. Ill. 11]).
22
Rich (1993) 58; 57-59 for full discussion.
23
Vishnia (1996) 132-135.
21
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defied the will of the Senate. She concludes that magistrates had more effective power
than the Senate.24 Magistrates overstepped their boundaries because they knew that it
was unlikely they would be severely reprimanded and even more improbable that this
censure would limit their career in any way. Similarly, John North cites the Popllian
Affair as an example of the conflict created by “the charged relationship between the
Senate and the individual commander or governor.” North addresses the constitutional
issues at stake and concludes that “the Senate’s constitutional weakness is very clear
here.”25
Pittenger provides an even more recent discussion of the Popillian Affair. She
concerns herself with the triumphal culture of mid-Republican Rome, focusing mostly
on the performative aspect of the triumph-request, the triumph debate and the
triumph itself. Pittenger addresses the Popillian Affair as an inverted paradigm of the
traditional triumph-request and debate.26 By establishing stylistic similarities with
actual triumph-requests, both in Livy’s language and in M. Popillius’ actions themselves,
Pittenger argues that Popillius was unsuccessful precisely because he attempted to
invert the power relations that governed traditional triumph-requests: “Laenas refused
to play by the established rules and bow to the authority of the patres.”
24
“In fact, it was the consuls who had the power to paralyze senatorial activity if they chose to
do so.” (Vishnia [1996] 189).
25
North (2006) 271.
26
Pittenger (2008) 231: “Even without any mention of a triumph, that is, the familiar concepts,
performative elements, formulaic expressions, and basic expectations from a triumph debate
still underlie the historian’s narrative, but subtly hidden, because they have all been
systematically overturned or transgressed by the negative exemplum. In short, what we have
here is a triumph debate turned on its head”.
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Precedents and Motivations
As the foregoing discussion demonstrates, the Popillian Affair has been
approached from a number of directions and yielded various conclusions. But apart
from Pittenger’s analysis of Livy’s language and narrative structure, the treatments
have been superficial and generally contextualize the affair within a narrative of
Senate-magistrate breakdown, patrician-plebeian tensions, Roman aggression or
constitutional weakness. The scholarship has not done justice to such an exceptional
and informative episode in republican history. The Popillian Affair is exceedingly welldocumented and invites a renewed approach that fully exploits the cases particularities.
I will approach the Popillian Affair from a different perspective, one which analyzes the
motivations of every actor in the Popillian Affair. The object is to demonstrate their
conflicting motivations, the mechanisms by which these led to political turmoil and
constitutional gridlock, and some truths about Roman government and foreign
relations. Some analyses of minor actors will unfortunately be brief for lack of more
detailed information. This only reinforces one of the main findings of my analysis:
individuals whose motives are partially obscure and who were only peripherally
involved greatly influenced the course and outcome of the Popillian Affair.
M. Popillius Laenas
Popillius Laenas’ motivations are the most difficult to recover because Livy’s
obvious disgust with the consul has shaped his narrative: “the historian has cast his
own implicitly negative vote in the supplicatio debate before even allowing the consul’s
102
letter to reach the Senate floor.”27 Nonetheless, a detailed analysis of the events and
narrative structure dispels certain common explanations of Popillius’ actions and
permits a more balanced interpretation. The most persistent misconception is that
Popillius Laenas attempted to engineer a war.28 This view has persisted despite the
clear implications of Livy’s description of the initial confrontation between Popillius and
the Statellae. The Ligurians had amassed a ‘great army’ (magnus exercitus Ligurum) at
Carystus. They initially kept within the town but eventually met Popillius in pitched
battle. The battle supposedly lasted more than three hours and “hope inclined to
neither side” (ut neutro inclinaret spes) before Popillius’ deployment of cavalry
decisively shifted the prospects in his favour. Ten thousand Ligurians were killed, more
than seven hundred captured along with eighty-two military standards while more than
three thousands Romans were lost.
Livy’s description of the initial engagement lacks the moral indignation of the
Senate’s supposed response and reads like a standard battle description.29 Indeed,
Livy’s paragraph opens with the highly formulaic, annalistic statement that “the
following were the events of the year in the provinces”.30 The Ligurian army’s presence
is taken for granted and certainly neither Livy nor the Senate denies its existence.31 Nor
27
Pittenger (2008) 233; Harris (1979) 270-271. Pittenger disagrees with Harris in contending that
the language “does not represent a superficial bias on Livy’s part, beneath which the
unembellished historical truth lies hidden”. But the misunderstanding began with the Senate,
not Livy.
28
Toynbee (1965) 208, suggests that Popillius’ ultimate goal was to engage multiple tribes in an
attempt to win as much new ager Romanus was possible. He also says Popillius ‘forced’ a battle
upon the Statellae (260, 611); Rich (1993) 57; Dyson (1985) 110-111; Brunt (1971) 188.
29
Pittenger (2008) 231, describes Livy’s account as following a ‘predictable pattern’; 241-243,
for Livy’s narrative structure and its effect on the reader’s perception of the Popillian Affair.
30
Livy 42.7.1: In provinciis eo anno haec acta.
31
Contrary to Dyson’s assertion that Popillius’ claim about the presence of Ligurian forces was
“most likely an excuse designed to justify his provocation and turn it into a bellum iustum” (110).
103
do the length of the engagement and casualty numbers imply a lopsided slaughter; the
ratio of 10:3 is significantly higher than other commanders in legitimate engagements.
Unlike the remaining chapters in the Popillian Affair, Livy’s description is so
straightforward because it has not been tainted by bias. The inevitable conclusion is
that Popillius attacked a large Ligurian armed force that he believed threatened Roman
security.
We are left to wonder if Popillius’ actions were warranted. Livy, the Roman
Senate and most historians concur that Popillius wantonly attacked a peaceful people.
But consuls had been fighting Ligurian coalitions for the previous four years. In 177,
Claudius Pulcher had to defeat a group of Ligurians (Ligures concilia).32 This same group
succeeded in capturing Mutina a year later, forcing Pulcher back into the field as
proconsul.33 Later that year the consuls were occupied with multiple tribes once again.
Finally, Aemilius Lepidus removed four different Ligurian tribes from the mountain-tops
signaling that they had fought in concert against the Romans.34 Though the Statellae
had always been at peace with the Romans, amassing an army of considerable size
cannot have seemed peaceful, and Ligurian tribes had proven time and again that
surrender was nominal and peace ephemeral. Popillius took a pro-active approach in
the face of what resembled yet another Ligurian uprising. That the Statellae were
surrounded by tribes hostile to Rome further vindicates Popillius’ fear of a sudden
Statellan uprising.
The historiography is so anti-Popillius that it would be strange to find a claim, stated as fact, that
cast Popillius in a favourable light.
32
Livy 41.11.10.
33
Livy 41.14.3.
34
Livy 41.18-19.
104
After the battle, Popillius received the surrender of the less than ten thousand
remaining Statellae. Livy does not use the full phrase for a deditio (deditionem in fidem
populi Romani) but he employs the verb (dediderunt) and adds that this was done
“without, indeed, making any stipulations” (nihil quidem illi pacti). This phrase signals
that the surrendered Ligurians had no legal grounds to protest their treatment, a
sentiment echoed in their hope (speraurerant) that Popillius would show leniency.35
They had in fact placed themselves in deditionem and accepted all that the relationship
entailed.36
Popillius proceeded to disarm them, demolish their town and sell them into
slavery. Disarmament of surrendered peoples was neither new nor likely to draw the
Senate’s ire.37 The Senate’s response to M. Claudius Marcellus in 182 stipulated that if
the consuls Cn. Baebius Tamphilus and L. Aemilius Paullus were to accept the two
thousand Ligurians in deditionem they should remove their arms (receptis arma
adimi).38 In 187, the consul C. Flaminius had accepted the surrender of the Friniates and
disarmed them (in deditionem gentem accepit et arma ademit).39 A. Postumius Albinus
had disarmed the defeated Apuani in 180.40 Consuls had received enemies in
deditionem before and disarmed them, sometimes at the Senate’s urging, without
falling afoul of Senatorial opinion.
35
The full formulation (deditos in fidem populi Romani) is found in the Senatorial response.
Toynbee (1965) 609-611; Badian (1958) 4-7; Harris (1979) 270.
37
For debate regarding this practice under the empire: MacMullen (1974); Brunt (1975). But
they refer to long-term disarmament of imperial subjects, not immediate disarmament of a
defeated army by a republican consul.
38
Livy 40.16.6.
39
Livy 39.2.2.
40
Livy 40.41.1-2. See also P. Mucius Scaevola in 175: Livy 41.19.1-2.
36
105
But disarmament was as far as most consuls went. Popillius’ demolition of the
Ligurian town was harsh but also not without precedent. Marcellus had demolished the
Gallic town near Aquileia and though the Senate was supposedly unhappy, he was
prorogued and continued to hold command in Northern Italy.41 But that town’s recent
construction had alarmed the Senate and prompted the Roman response whereas the
Ligurian town of Carystus had presumably been around much longer and did not ‘merit’
destruction. Both Carthage and Corinth would be razed to the ground in 146 but these
were the seats of power of legitimate enemies defeated in a legitimate war and done
on Senatorial instructions.
The Senate found Popillius’ final action—the sale of the Ligurians’ property and
of the Ligurians themselves into slavery— the most repugnant. In this, Popillius can only
have had one goal: personal enrichment. Besides lining his pockets, Popillius will also
have desired the profits as donatives for his troops and as spoils to carry in what he
hoped would be a triumphal procession. The treatment of Haliartus, Coronea and
Thisbe in 171 provides comparative evidence for the Senate’s reaction. All three cities
fell to Roman forces and were equally harshly treated but only Thisbe and Coronea
received redress. Toynbee has plausibly speculated that these two cities surrendered
whereas Haliartus had not and so its destruction and the sale of its inhabitants into
slavery constituted legitimate practices of war. The Senate upheld the sanctity of the
41
Zon. 9.21; L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi fr. 35 (Toynbee [1965] 629; Briscoe [2008] 404). Toynbee
draws a parallel.
106
deditio relationship while reinforcing the dire consequences for those who held out
until final defeat.42
Popillius’ praetorship helps illuminate his treatment of the Statellae after their
surrender. He was praetor in 176 and received Sardinia as his province but requested
permission to remain in Rome, claiming that the current praetor (Ti. Sempronius
Gracchus) was doing an excellent job and that changing magistrates cum imperio at this
point would be militarily disastrous.43 Two of Popillius’ colleagues refused to take
command of their provinces as well: P. Licinius Crassus (Nearer Spain), citing his need to
perform certain sacrifices in Rome; M. Cornelius Scipio Maluginensis (Farther Spain), for
reasons unknown. Their motivations are particularly puzzling.44 Aspiring triumphators
rarely turned down opportunities for glory. Popillius’ failure to occupy his province and
conclude a war in 176 probably left him even more covetous of the public recognition
that accompanied one’s rise up the cursus honorum. His lackluster praetorship might
help explain the lengths to which he went to ensure an adequate supply of booty for
himself, his soldiers and his proposed triumph.
There is no evidence that Popillius tried to shield his record in Liguria. In fact, he
openly trumpeted his achievements in dispatches to the Senate and expected
thanksgivings to be decreed. Popillius must have believed that the Ligurian army had
presented a threat, and, more importantly, that he had successfully dealt with the
situation in an appropriate manner. Whether he had been justified in attacking the
42
Toynbee (1965) 637-639; Zon. 9.22.
Livy 41.15.6-9. Gracchus was indeed doing very well in Sardinia, eventually garnering a second
triumph (Degrassi [1947] 80-81, 555).
44
Vishnia (1996) 185-187, deals with these three and dejectedly declares “reluctantly, we have
to leave this affair shrouded in mystery.”
43
107
Statellae, his treatment of them crystallized the Senatorial opposition. When the
Senate ordered Popillius to reverse his actions, he sent the legions into winter-quarters
at Pisa and made straight for the Temple of Bellona. He harangued and fined the
praetor A. Atilius Serranus before begging the patres to repeal the decree against him
and grant him his deserved thanksgiving in order to honour to the gods and show him
some respect.
Popillius’ actions on this occasion say much about his motivations. His
convening of the Senate in the Temple of Bellona is unassailable evidence that he
aimed at a triumph. Pittenger’s careful study of the Popillian Affair places it squarely
within the context of triumph-requests. It is possible that Livy’s arrangement of the
episode casts it in the mold of a triumph-request, though Popillius’ actions themselvessending dispatches to Rome recording his achievements, convening the Senate in the
Temple of Bellona, requesting that thanksgiving be voted- point substantively to a
failed bid.
Popillius believed that a personal appearance in Rome would reverse the
Senate’s stance. His appearance changed little but he was at least drawing on a lengthy
tradition; Purpurio was successful in 200 because he was in Rome while Cotta was in
Gaul; Marcellus’ triumph-request was strengthened by his co-consul’s absence; M.
Fulvius Nobilior prevailed over the objections of M. Aemilius Lepidus and his lackey
tribune, M. Aburius. Arguing one’s own case before the Senators went a long way
towards securing votes in the curia.45
45
Pittenger (2008) 236-237, compares and contrasts Popillius’ actions with Purpurio’s in 200.
108
Popillius’ anger towards the praetor may point to some personal hostility
between the two,46 but it also demonstrates that he thought Atilius Serranus was
responsible for the decree against him. Popillius was not entirely unprecedented in
fining Atilius Serranus: Aemilius Lepidus had fined the praetor M. Furius Crassipes in
187.47 Popillius was on the wrong side of Senatorial opinion yet was still vested with the
power to fine a praetor who had personally offended him. The consul’s belief in the
praetor’s role and Popillius’ authority to fine Serranus point to a larger constitutional
problem: the propensity of individual magistrates to influence and interfere with the
workings of the Roman state. The Roman system of checks and balances—Polybius’
‘mixed constitution’— limited the absolute power of any one governing institution. But
it also meant that individual magistrates, especially consuls and plebeian tribunes,
wielded disproportionate amounts of authority. Coupled with individual ambitions,
political allegiances and ulterior motives, magistrates were capable of throwing a
wrench into the smooth functioning of government. The Senate’s will was easily
thwarted by magistrates with competing motives.
After Popillius failed to reverse the Senate’s position, he returned to his
province and wintered at Pisa. His prorogation can be inferred from Livy’s use of the
word proconsul (42.21.2); he had probably been prorogued in order to carry out his
Senatorial instructions. But Popillius instead fought another engagement with the
Statellae and killed six thousand, a feat which he trumpeted in dispatches to the Senate.
His actions on this occasion deserve a more detailed treatment than they have
46
Toynbee (1965) 633 n.3, suggests that the Atilii Serrani and the Popillii Laenates contended for
influence in Cisalpine Gaul and Liguria.
47
Diod. 29.14.
109
generally received. They cannot have been simple triumph-hunting since they assuredly
did not ingratiate him with the Senate. The Senate had already signaled its
unwillingness to grant Popillius a triumph after his first victory. A more nuanced
explanation is needed to make sense of his actions. Two possibilities suggest
themselves: the second campaign was intended to convince the Senate that the war
was more serious than they believed and force them to reverse their position, or, the
war in Statellan territory was more serious than the Senate believed.
The first possibility is that Popillius engaged the Statellae again in order to
make it seem as though they were a real danger. This cynical reconstruction of
Popillius’ motives adheres to the standard position that the consul was the unjustified
aggressor. It incorporates the traditional war-mongering and triumph-hunting
explanations but explains how Popillius sought to accomplish those tasks. It is not
enough to say that he attacked the Statellae a second time in the hunt for a triumph.
Popillius needed to change the Senate’s sentiment towards him.48 They had already
dismissed the validity of the war based on his post-deditio treatment of the enemy. But
if he could fight them again and somehow strengthen his case that this was a bellum
iustum, he could reverse the Senate’s initial stance and be properly rewarded. The
second campaign was effectively a double-or-nothing bet which would clear Popillius if
he were successful or else further enrage the Senate. The Senate, skeptical of Popillius’
claims and infuriated with his newly elected brother, did not buy it. This explanation
does not absolve M. Popillius of wrongdoing but provides a fuller picture of his
48
Pittenger (2008) 235: “the imperator sought to paint one self-portrait whereas the solemn
vote of his aristocratic peers inscribed something quite different into the historical record.” It is
unfortunate that Pittenger astutely recognizes the duality of Livy’s narrative but rarely
challenges the ‘official’ version.
110
motivations. Whereas Marcellus had tried to convince the Senate that a Histrian war
was necessary by words, Popillius tried twice to do the same with actions.
The second possibility has received virtually no attention since it is taken for
granted that Popillius engineered a war against an innocent Ligurian tribe. But the
Senate’s initial outrage was caused by his treatment of the surrendered Statellae and
the consequent (mis)perception of the casus belli. Popillius’ second campaign was
devoid of booty, enemy enslavement and personal enrichment. Further, he felt
compelled to tell the Senate of his feat, an odd thing for a consul who had just directly
contravened Senatorial instructions. He cannot have hoped to win any support in the
Senate by flouting its authority so brazenly. We should thus entertain the possibility
that his second campaign was waged in self-defense against Statellan attacks. Livy’s
brevity certainly does not preclude this conclusion. Popillius’ spoil-less victory suggests
he refrained from the practices that had earlier landed him in hot water. The proconsul
had learned his lesson and attempted to stay on the Senate’s good side, contenting
himself with victory in battle alone.
Both possibilities are inherently plausible yet entail vastly different
ramifications for our understanding of the Popillian Affair. Fortunately, Livy’s statement
immediately following the announcement of Popillius’ second victory clarifies the
situation: “because of the injustice done in this war the rest of the Ligurian peoples also
took up arms.”49 A Ligurian uprising was one of the Senate’s main concerns but there is
no evidence that it occurred to any significant extent after Popillius’ second campaign.
The consuls in 172, C. Popillius Laenas and P. Aelius Ligus, achieved nothing of note
49
Livy 42.21.2-3: propter cuius iniuriam belli ceteri quoque Ligurum populi ad arma ierunt.
111
because “it was considered more useful to the state that the thoroughly aroused
Ligurians should be restrained and calmed.”50 But this is not evidence for widespread
military action and suggests that the consuls were restrained from pursuing bellicose
agendas rather than engaged in pacifying rebellions. Furthermore, Liguria remained
quiet for several years following the Popillian Affair. No magistrate was sent there until
170 and even then Livy notes that he had a quiet year in Gaul and Liguria since “neither
did the enemy take up arms, nor did the consul lead the legions into their fields.”51
Serious warfare in Liguria did not resume until 167 and this can hardly be attributed to
Popillius’ actions.
Livy’s statement makes more sense if the Ligurians who took up arms are the
same ones whom Popillius defeated in his first campaign. In other words, if Livy or his
source has misinterpreted or misrepresented the sequence of events, then Popillius’
initial attack on the Statellae forced others to rebel and prompted the second battle.52
This chronology accords well with the Senate’s supposed response that Popillius had
“roused pacified people to rebellion”.53 Thus Popillius’ second campaign was a
successful defense against an attack that his first campaign had precipitated. Popillius’
victory in self-defense would have demonstrated that the Ligurians had in fact
represented a threat and prompted a dispatch to Rome which asked for the Senate to
recognize the legitimacy of his actions. Thus the statement’s content supports the view
that Popillius’ second campaign was waged in self-defense; the statement’s position in
the narrative probably reflects Livy’s internalization of the Senate’s concerns or else the
50
Livy 42.26.1.
Livy 43.9.1-3.
52
Pittenger (2008) 240, seems to support this interpretation.
53
Livy 42.21.4: pacatos ad rebellandum incitasset.
51
112
effects of a hostile historiographic tradition. Evidence that Popillius’ second campaign
caused a real rebellion is lacking.54
The rest of M. Popillius’ actions are self-explanatory. He was initially fearful of
retribution in Rome and was forced to return only by a decree that granted the praetor
the power to try Popillius in absentia. He twice stood trial before Licinius before his
entreaties and those of P. Aelius Ligus prevailed and forced a compromise that allowed
him to save face.
The Senate
Determining the Senate’s motivations at any particular time is more difficult
than has generally been allowed. The Senate’s task involved protecting Roman interests
while safeguarding its own interests as well. Families looked out for one another and
individuals protected themselves and their friends. Tension between competition and
consensus was the defining factor of Senatorial dynamics and is responsible for the
seemingly inconsistent nature of Roman policy. However, there are a few issues in the
Popillian Affair on which the Senate seems to have agreed almost unanimously.
First, it should be emphatically noted that Senatorial sympathies did not lie
with the Statellae per se. Harris is correct to identify the locus of Senatorial opposition
in something other than pro-Statellan leanings.55 Roman magistrates routinely
perpetrated offences against allied, friendly or neutral peoples and were only
occasionally called to account for it, generally following a plea by the aggrieved party or
54
Dyson (1985) 113, writing of the military dimension of Popillius’ actions: “The actions of
Popillius do not seem to have had negative repercussions.”
55
Harris (1979) 271. Harris overstates the opposing case; Scullard does not accuse the Senate of
pro-Ligurian sympathies.
113
else an investigation undertaken by political opponents. Pittenger correctly notes that
“at a different moment another imperator who had dealt with the Statellates no less
harshly might well have met with praise rather than censure.”56
We must also be wary of accepting that the Senate acted unanimously and
univocally. According to Livy, Senatorial consensus prompted the plebeian tribunes to
pass the Marcian decree.57 But we know that for various reasons, C. Popillius Laenas, C.
Licinius Crassus and P. Aelius Ligus—two consuls and a praetor—sided with M. Popillius
at various stages of the Popillian Affair. It would be highly unlikely if the Popillii had no
other political or personal friends in the curia. A majority of Senators could recognize
the gravity of the situation and, for a multitude of public, political and private reasons,
express the corporate will of the Senate. But there must certainly have been others
who advocated on Popillius’ behalf. Thus we may legitimately speak of a Senatorial
reaction having been conditioned by certain considerations, but should bear in mind
that it was probably not unanimous.
Protection of the deditio relationship was the strongest initial factor in the
Senate’s reaction. The Senate’s outrage against Popillius was sparked because of his
brutal treatment of the surrendered Statellae. It is this objection that comes through
most forcefully in Livy. Popillius had established “the worst possible precedent” and
debased the deditio relationship, one based on trust and expectation of fair treatment.
We have seen that protection of the deditio and of Rome’s public image was one of the
Senate’s prerogatives. Senators who seldom agreed could see the value in restraining
56
57
Pittenger (2008) 234.
Livy 42.21.6: hoc consensu patrum accensi…
114
the most vicious practices in favour of later payouts on the battlefield. Even Harris
agrees: “M. Popillius’ offence, in so far as he was genuinely believed to have committed
one, was to have achieved traditional ends by an untraditional, even if technically
permissible, response to the Statellates’ act of deditio.”58
Popillius’ conscious inversion of the triumph-request paradigm probably
entrenched the opposition. Consuls and praetors calling the Senate to order in the
Temple of Bellona and outright demanding recognition of their feats was nothing new
but Popillius took the behavior to the extreme. Rather than submitting to the Senate’s
wishes or celebrating an unsanctioned Alban triumph as unsuccessful applicants
occasionally did59, Popillius went on the offensive, fining the praetor Atilius Serranus,
haranguing the Senate for depriving him of due credit before storming off to Liguria.
Such brazen flouting of authority could not fail to enrage at least a majority of the
Senators and is responsible for escalating tensions between the wayward consul and
the conscript fathers.60
A third possible motive for concerted Senatorial action against Popillius
involves geopolitical calculations. The Roman republic was gearing up for war against
Perseus of Macedon and preparations were taking place on a massive scale.61 With war
on the horizon the Senate cannot have been eager to let Popillius drag them into a
Ligurian war against tribes that had previously been peaceful whether the consul was
58
Harris (1979) 271; cf. Dyson (1985) 111.
M. Claudius Marcellus in 211 (Livy 26.21.1-13); Q. Minucius Rufus in 197 (Livy 33.23.1-3); C.
Cicerius in 173 (Livy 42.21.6-8); Pittenger (2008) 231-245, for paradigm inversion.
60
Pittenger (2008) 236ff.
61
Both praetors in charge of the investigation against M. Popillius were also busy with
preparations for war against Macedon (Livy 42.27.1-8; MRR 1.411). Harris (1979) 231, doubts
the urgency with which Rome viewed the war with Perseus, calling the war preparations
‘unhurried’ and suggesting that Rome was the aggressor and need not have gone to war.
59
115
justified in his actions or not.62 The Senate might have contented itself with letting
Popillius triumph and focusing on the war with Perseus if it were not for two factors:
doing so would have set a most dangerous precedent wherein consuls were rewarded
for reckless behaviour (Popillius’ despoliation of the deditio) if it were politically or
militarily expedient to do so; as outlined above, Popillius’ first attack had actually
roused other Ligurians to rebellion. Rome had spent the better part of two decades
pacifying Liguria tribe by tribe and the hard-won (if fleeting) respite had been
interrupted at precisely the wrong time. The Senate had expressed such geopolitical
calculations before: Marcellus had been forbidden from attacking the Istrians in 183
because regional peace would allow for the successful founding of Aquileia.
Livy explicitly references such a calculation in 172. The consuls C. Popillius and
Aelius Ligus achieved nothing of note since “it was considered more useful to the state
that the thoroughly aroused Ligurians should be restrained and calmed.”63 The Senate’s
instructions to the two consuls were meant to restrain the usually free hand consuls
enjoyed in making war. That Livy frequently notes uneventful consulships without
providing explanation speaks to the plausibility of his comment here.64
These rationales are not mutually exclusive. All three would presumably have
surfaced during the rancorous debates after Serranus’ reading of Popillius’ dispatches
and when Popillius himself came to Rome. Senatorial response to the Popillian Affair
62
Pittenger (2008) 234: “It did not matter much whether the consul’s deeds actually fell within
the bounds of the ius belli or outside them.
63
Livy 42.26.1; Pittenger (2008) 234, 240, suggests quite improbably that the Senate knew the
stalemate would continue and gave the consuls Liguria in order to buy time in Macedonia and
not appear the aggressor.
64
Contrast with Livy 43.9.1-3, where Aulus Atilius Serranus, consul in Liguria in 170, achieved
nothing of note because the enemy did not engage him, nor he them.
116
was conditioned by political, military and geopolitical considerations rather than any
affection for the Statellae as staunch allies and buffers against more aggressive tribes to
the North. These considerations do not constitute a frontier ‘policy’ but do
demonstrate an uncommon level of cohesion in the face of an overzealous consul
whose actions threatened Roman security and the aristocratic ethos.
One further Senatorial action has been the subject of speculation. The Senate’s
decree that all Ligurians who had not been enemies of the roman people since 179
should be restored to freedom and given land across the Po has been explained several
ways. Toynbee cites the mass movement as evidence that the Popillian Affair was
always about land and that the Senate supported Popillius’ aims but abhorred his
method.65 Pittenger interprets the decree as a Senatorial muscle-flex intended to “leave
no doubt that the senate meant business now in defending its interests and curbing
men like Laenas.”66 But the year 179 was a “more or less arbitrary terminus ante
quem”67 and there had been significant Roman activity in Liguria between 179 and 172.
C. Claudius Pulcher had triumphed over Ligurians in 177, both consuls had been sent
there in 176 and both consuls had triumphed over Ligurians in 175.68 The mid-170s had
seen much action in Liguria and the Senate had awarded a number of triumphs in those
years, so the Senate’s stance is prima facie confusing and contradictory.
Dyson’s interpretation limits the decree’s scope and accords well with our
picture of the Senate. He thinks the decree “provides another insight into a persistent
frontier problem”: the illegal enslaving of Ligurians. The decree singled out only those
65
Toynbee (1965) 208; Harris (1979) 271.
Pittenger (2008) 244.
67
Pittenger (2008) 244.
68
Harris (1979) 259, speculates that both consuls were also sent there in 174.
66
117
Ligurians who had not been enemies (hostes) of the Romans and “was not intended to
abrogate any legitimate actions of victorious Roman generals.” The Senate intended to
restore to freedom Ligurians who had been enslaved by “well-organized slaving
operations.”69 Dyson draws an instructive parallel between the Popillian Affair and
ongoing developments in Spain. The illegal enslaving of Spanish tribes and their reinstatement had led to an ‘inner frontier’ of Romanized natives whose leaders were at
the forefront of the mid-century Spanish Wars. Dyson thinks the Senate purposely
settled the newly freed Ligurians across the Po, away from their former habitations.70
Dyson’s interpretation is attractive because it does not presuppose a Senatorial
reversal of ‘policy’—the Senate did not declare the victories and triumphs of the last 7
years null and void. The retroactive de-legitimization of consular victories and triumphs
would have been an unprecedented breach of the Senate-magistrate relationship.
Instead, the decree reinforced the illegitimacy of Popillius’ war by declaring that his
enemies were not official Roman hostes. It further ordered the return to freedom of all
Ligurians who had not been hostes since 179, which implies that frontier slavingoperations had reached a breaking point. Popillius may have been the most visible and
flagrant perpetrator in a long line of entrepreneurial Romans that the Senate was now
attempting to stop.
69
Dyson (1985) 112.
On a traditional reading of the Senate’s decree, it is the most blatant example of forced
Ligurian migrations at the Senate’s insistence. But Dyson does not endorse this point of view and
notes that “policy considerations for northern and southern Liguria were different, however”
(112). The northern tribes were not moved en masse because they supposedly formed a good
buffer against invasion.
70
118
A. Atilius Serranus
The praetor urbanus read M. Popillius’ initial dispatches in the Senate because
the other consul was in Campania. His subsequent role in the decree against Popillius is
less clear. Toynbee suggests that the Atilii Serrani and the Popillii Laenates contended
for influence in Cisalpine Gaul and Liguria, though there is no way to confirm this.71
There is no direct evidence that Atilius Serranus was responsible for conditioning the
Senate’s response but Popillius’ actions indicate that he at least thought so. The praetor
may have used his messengerial role to be the first to denounce Popillius Laenas and
thereby augment his own visibility and reputation. His tone, body language and other
communicative devices could have deeply influenced the Senate’s reception of
Popillius’ dispatch.
Serranus’ cursus honorum provides further evidence that he may have
benefitted politically. He had been moderately successful as praetor in 192 and was
prorogued into 191 but failed to reach the consulship thereafter. Serranus’ odds of
winning the consulship were greatly diminished with every passing year since his initial
praetorship. Thus his praetorship in 173 amounted to a second political life. Serranus
was prorogued in 172 and sent to deal with troop levies in Brundisium. He was also part
of a Senatorial delegation sent to Greek communities to keep them allied with Rome
against Macedon. Finally, he was elected consul for the year 170, the earliest possible
date under the lex Villia annalis. It is possible that Serranus’ early advocacy of what
would become the Senate’s position in the Popillian Affair ingratiated him with the
71
Toynbee (1965), 633 n.3.
119
patres and afforded him recognitions and opportunities for advancement that
culminated in his attainment of the consulship.72
C. Popillius Laenas
Caius’ motives are straightforward though revealing. He tried to protect his
older brother from the Senatorial decree levied against him .73 The initial decree against
M. Popillius ordered him to reverse his actions without stipulating any political
consequences; Caius was protecting his brother’s victory and honour, not his brother
himself. There is no reason to doubt that C. Popillius was motivated by brotherly love
and family solidarity in his opposition to the Senate. Other Roman pairs of brothers
acted similarly. The Scipii had shown similar close relations in 194 and again during the
trials of the Scipios.
More important is C. Popillius’ ability to hold up proceedings with the consular
veto. His threat to veto the re-adoption of the decree against his brother caused the
political system to breakdown. The Senate responded by allotting the consuls Liguria
and denying their request for new armies or reinforcements, to which the consuls
responded with essentially work-to-rule. Politics was very much a family affair at Rome
and familial ties turned Senatorial consensus into a political stalemate.
72
Praetorship in 192: Livy 35.20.12-13, 22.1-3; Zon. 9.19. Prorogation in 191: Livy 36.11.9, 12.9,
20.7-8. Praetorship in 173: Livy 42.6.10. Prorogation: Livy 42.27.4. Delegation: Livy 42.38.1-47.3;
Polyb. 27.1.1, 2.11-12.
73
The brothers were likely only a year apart: Marcus was praetor in 176 and consul in 173; Caius
was praetor in 175 and consul in 172. This suggests that in accordance with the Lex Villia Annalis
(passed in 180) the brothers held these magistracies at the earliest possible point in the cursus
honorum.
120
P. Aelius Ligus
P. Aelius Ligus initially sided with the Senate but was prevailed upon by his coconsul to relent. His new allegiance to the Popillii extended so far as pressuring the
praetor C. Licinius to let M. Popillius escape his trial unscathed. The reason a consul
from a little known family would side with a pair of brothers who were invoking the
Senate’s wrath is not immediately obvious.74 The only clue apart from Livy’s statement
that Caius discouraged Aelius Ligus from acting is to be found in the pair’s cursus
honorum. The likely date of P. Aelius Ligus’ praetorship is 175, though the chapters of
Livy which name the year’s magistrates have been lost.75 Thus Aelius Ligus and C.
Popillius had probably been praetorian colleagues. It is probable that neither man was
assigned a province, raising the possibility that they spent their praetorship in Rome
together, perhaps as praetors urbanus and peregrinus. In addition to simple persuasion,
(political) friendship between Aelius Ligus and C. Popillius might have cemented their
alliance in 172.76 This would partially explain why Aelius Ligus supported his co-consul
against the wishes of the Senate. He might also have supported the Popillii knowing
that the Senate had little power to formally reprimand him and that his political
prospects were not endangered.77
74
Scullard (1951) 195, notes Ligus’ obscurity and his connection with the ‘new men’ (plebeians)
who were rapidly wresting control of the consulship from older gentes.
75
MRR 1.403-404.
76
Admittedly a tenuous argument, we do know that pairs of consuls frequently developed
strong working relationships and went on to hold the censorship together.
77
He was part of a Senatorial delegation to aid in an Illyrian settlement in 167 (Livy 45.17.4; MRR
1.435).
121
M. Marcius Sermo and Q. Marcius Scilla
These two plebeian tribunes introduced what Livy refers to as the ‘Marcian
proposal’ (rogationem Marciam de Liguribus), spurred by a strong consensus against M.
Popillius and the two new consuls. The plebeian assembly’s overwhelming support for
their decree shows that they were acting on behalf of plebeian interests if nothing else.
When Popillius failed to return to Rome they proposed a second decree that would
permit C. Licinius to pass judgment on the ex-consul in absentia if he did not return by
November thirteenth. Unfortunately, little else is known of these magistrates and they
do not appear to have gone on to illustrious careers.
C. Licinius Crassus
C. Licinius Crassus was the praetor urbanus placed in charge of investigating M.
Popillius. Livy says that Popillius twice stood trial before him but that he set the third
trial date for March fifteenth, when he would no longer be praetor. He effectively let
Popillius off the hook since his imperium would at that point be finished. Livy explains
that Licinius was “overcome by the influence of the absent consul [Aelius Ligus] and the
entreaties of the house of Popillius”. Though Scullard’s prosopographical explanation is
tempting yet unverifiable, it is obvious that the administration of justice was easily
disrupted by political concerns.78
The trials of three former Spanish governors provide a contemporary parallel.
In 171, envoys from both Spains complained about mistreatment at the hand of three
former governors. The praetor L. Canuleius was directed to assign five recuperatores to
78
Scullard (1951) 196; Münzer (1999 [1920]) 202.
122
each case and allow the Spanish to choose Roman advocates on their behalf. They
chose men of illustrious birth: Cato, Scipio Nasica, Aemilius Paullus and Sulpicius Gallus.
But political manipulation and the supposed unwillingness of these four to prosecute
their own kin hampered progress. The charges were dropped in one case and the
accused fled into ‘exile’ at Praeneste and Tibur in the other two. Canuleius gave up and
left for his province without completing the investigation.79 The Senate passed
legislation designed to curtail future abuses but its constitutional impotence in making
magistrates accountable was on full display.
Outcomes and Conclusions
The fate of the Ligurians who were to be returned to freedom remains unclear.
Most scholars accept that the Ligurians were in fact moved and that Livy’s statement
about the Ligurian decree being evaded by trickery (ita rogatio de Liguribus arte fallaci
est) refers only to Popillius’ political maneuver.80 But while in the Temple of Bellona at
the end of his consular year, Caius Popillius was assailed by Senatorial outcry over why
he had not restored the Ligurians to freedom.81 There is no reason to doubt Livy and it
seems more probable than has been allowed that the Ligurians received no actual
redress. This would confirm the ephemeral political interests at stake, the Senate’s
concern with image rather than reality and its relative impotence in controlling
magistrates. So long as Rome appeared to have corrected the problem, magistrates
escaped unscathed and the issue was permitted to lapse. The Spanish trials followed a
similar pattern.
79
Livy 43.2.1-12; Toynbee (1965) 636-637.
Harris (1979), Toynbee (1965), Salmon (1982), Dyson (1985) and Vishnia (1996).
81
Livy 42.28.2-3.
80
123
The future careers of the Popillii provide strong evidence that politics
dominated the Popillian Affair. Those who found themselves on the wrong side of
Senatorial opinion need not have feared lasting ill-effects. In 169, M. Popillius served as
a military tribune under the consul Q. Marcius Phillipus in Macedon, undertaking
special commissions for him. He was elected to Rome’s most prestigious office, that of
censor, in 159.82 His row with the Senate had not permanently damaged his political
prospects.
C. Popillius invoked Senatorial ire for failing to carry out their instructions but
he was in Aetolia only two years after his consulship, successfully preventing Perseus
from capturing the town of Stratus, strengthening bonds between Greek communities
and Rome and commanding the key stronghold of Ambracia. He was part of a
delegation to Egypt in 168 and obtained the friendship of Antiochus IV by infamously
demanding his answer before he stepped out of the circle in the sand. A decade later,
the year after his brother was elected censor, Caius Popillius was elected consul for a
second time.83
Miriam Pittenger shows the interconnectedness of politics, pageantry and
performance in Livy’s exemplary rendition of republican politics; M. Popillius plays his
role of pessimum exemplum perfectly. For Livy, the Popillian Affair is a theatrical
performance with a host of actors: the overzealous consul recklessly bent on glory; the
consul’s younger brother who lets family ties determine political action; the easily-
82
Military tribune: Livy 44.4.11, 5.10, 8.8, 9.1-10, 13.1-6; MRR 1.425. Censor: Cic. Brut. 79; Gell.
4.20.11; MRR 1.445.
83
Aetolia: Livy 43.22.2-3, 43.17.2-10; Polyb. 28.3; MRR 1.422, 1.426. Egypt: Polyb., 29.2.1-4; Livy
44.19.1-3, 29.1-5; 45.10-12.8; MRR 1. 430. Consulship: Pliny NH 34.30; MRR 1.446.
124
cowed co-consul overwhelmed by political influence; the praetor derelict in his duties
to administer justice; the univocal Senate protecting Roman interests and traditional
Roman values. The Popillian Affair looms so large in part because Livy transformed it
from a crisis exposing constitutional weakness into an exciting narrative of heroes and
villains.
Livy’s amplification of the theatrical elements of the Popillian Affair has
obscured facts and motives in favour of character development, plot structure and
moral outcome. A detailed, historiographically critical analysis of the episode speaks
volumes about politics and policy in the late-middle republic. Several conclusions can
be drawn from a close reading of the Popillian Affair.
First, the system of checks and balances that kept tyranny at bay also fostered
constitutional crises and governmental inertia. Power was so decentralized that the
Senate had difficulty holding magistrates accountable for flouting authority. The Senate
could withhold triumphs and pass senatus consulta but justice was obstructed by
uncooperative consuls and intimidated praetors.
Second, the Senate was not concerned for the Statellae. The patres’ reaction
consisted of three complementary factors: cultivation of Rome’s public persona and
maintenance of the deditio’s enduring value; geopolitical calculations meant to ensure
regional stability in the face of more pressing issues; the scoring of quick political points
by opponents.
Third, the Senate was ineffective at policy-implementation for structural reasons.
The implementation of a majority decision required the co-operation of consuls,
125
praetors and other magistrates in the field. If their co-operation could not be secured,
the Senate could threaten a number of outcomes, but there was neither a guarantee
that this would force the offending magistrate to submit nor that he would actually face
the proposed punishment upon his return. Gargola identifies the same problem: “The
Senate’s leadership depended on the willingness of officeholders to submit in
important matters to the senatorial consensus and on the readiness of more junior
senators to follow those who were more senior.”84
Lastly, defiant magistrates rarely suffered permanent damage to their careers. Both
Popillii brothers crossed the Senate on multiple occasions and were not only re-elected
by the people but participated in Senatorial delegations shortly after the Popillian Affair.
Any short-term political objectives had been met; the Senate had publicly upheld
Roman virtues and the offending magistrates were virtually unscathed. The dynamic
perfectly illustrates the result of the tension between competition and consensus.
84
Gargola (2006) 162.
126
Conclusion
The Popillian Affair did not mark the end of Roman campaigning in Liguria
though, owing to the disappearance of Livy’s narrative after 167, “our information
about subsequent operations in Cisalpine Liguria is scanty.”1 Livy reports that A. Atilius
Serranus had a quiet year in Liguria and Gaul in 170.2 In 167, the consul M. Junius
Pennus held command at Pisa against unnamed Ligurians.3 Both consuls celebrated
triumphs over different Ligurian tribes the following year: M. Claudius Marcellus over
the Contrubrian Gauls and Ligurian Eleiates(?) and C. Sulpicius Galus over the
Taurini(?).4 In 159, M. Fulvius Nobilior was sent as consul against the Eleiates. He was
prorogued and awarded a triumph de Liguribus Eleatibus in 158.5 Marcellus was elected
to a second consulship in 155 and fought once more with the Eleiates and the Apuani,
celebrating a second triumph de Eleatibus.6 Three triumphs over the same Ligurian
tribe in barely a decade including two by the same consul imply that ‘policy’ had not
changed and that the forced migration of Ligurian tribes was not the only option.
Consuls were fighting yearly campaigns and triumphing.
However, the military subjugation of Ligurian tribes was but the first step in the
lengthy process of integrating Liguria into the Roman republic. Ligurians had played a
central role in Carthaginian armies during the Second Punic War. They had even fought
1
Toynbee (1965) 281.
Livy 43.9.1-3.
3
Livy 45.16.3, 17.6, 44.1.
4
Degrassi (1947) 556-557; Livy Per. 46; Dyson (1985) 113; Toynbee (1965) 281. The entries in
the fasti are only partially legible.
5
Degrassi (1947) 557; Toynbee (1965) 281; Dyson (1985) 114.
6
Polyb. 33.8; Degrassi (1947) 557; Dyson (1985) 114; Toynbee (1965) 281; Harris (1979) 233234.
2
127
alongside Hannibal at the Battle of Zama, buoyed by the prospect of descending from
the mountain-tops to the fertile plains of Northern Italy.7 But Ligurians had never
served as auxilia in a Roman army either before or after the Second Punic War, which is
why their presence in a consular army destined for Macedon in 171 is an important
development.8 Livy does not specify which Ligurian tribe(s) provided the 2 000 soldiers,
but their employment as auxilia marks the beginning of a new, more peaceful phase of
Ligurian integration. It is also noteworthy that three years later, during a battle in the
Third Macedonian War, the Ligurian shield is said to have been of defensive value to
the Roman soldiers: “at close quarters the Romans were steadier, and better protected
by either the cavalry targe or the Ligurian rectangular shield.”9 The wordings in both
Polybius and Livy suggest that the shields did not just belong to the Ligurian auxilia but
had actually been employed by other auxilia and the Romans themselves. The
relationship between Rome and Liguria was not entirely unidirectional.
As the wars of pacification ended, colonial foundations and road-building
increased as Rome more fully incorporated the new territory into its existing
structure.10 Evidence for the process is patchy, but the Sententia Minuciorum of 117,
also known as the Tabula Polcevera, provides an excellent example of the balance
between Romanization and local traditions.11 The Romans had been called on to settle
a land dispute between the inhabitants of Genoa and a Ligurian tribe, the Langenses
Viturii. The inscription outlines the results of the arbitration carried out by two Minucii,
a family believed to have a special connection with Genoa dating back to the campaigns
7
Livy 30.33.1-8.
Livy 42.35.6; Brunt (1971) 169 n.3.
9
Livy 44.35.19; Polyb 29.14.4. See Diod. 5.39.7, for description of Ligurian shield.
10
Dyson (1985) 114-123.
11
CIL 5.2.7749.
8
128
of Q. Minucius Rufus in 197. Centuriation of the land is evident and indeed some of the
termini described in the arbitration have been found and identified. The inscription also
employs the Roman legal categorization of lands (ager publicus, ager privatus, etc.),
demonstrating that Rome had significantly influenced the pattern of land-holding in
and around Genoa.
The more interesting elements of the Sententia Minuciorum show the degree
to which local culture and practices continued to flourish. The inscription employs
indigenous names for topographical features (Manicelum, Edus, Lemuris) as well as
people (Mocus Meticanius son of Meticonus, Plaucus Pelianus son of Pelionus),
suggesting adherence to the local language after almost one hundred years of Roman
domination. The inscription also mentions payment in the form of 400 victoriatus
(“victory stamp”), the equivalent of 300 denarii. The Romans struck this coin as an
equivalent to the Massilian drachma, a popular currency whose use in the region
actually increased following the Roman occupation. Rather than force the Ligurians in
and around Genoa to adopt the denarius, Rome designed a coin meant to
accommodate the existing currency structure.12
Conclusions
The almost yearly campaigns waged by Roman consuls in Liguria between 200
and 172 have received curiously little attention from historians. Toynbee integrates
them into a narrative of Roman expansion for the sake of obtaining agricultural land.
Harris places them in the context of aggressive Roman imperial expansion, though he
12
For discussion: Dyson (1985) 123-124; Bispham (2007) 50, 138; esp. Williamson (2005) 171,
201, 295. Williamson emphasizes the nuances of the document and the insights it provides into
the process of acculturation. Significance of the victoriatus: Crawford (1975) 629-630.
129
finds it more difficult in Liguria than elsewhere to deny the contribution of defensive
imperialism. Dyson, whose treatment is the most detailed of the three, portrays Liguria
as but one theatre in the development of the republican frontier. His attention to
regional details and variations and their effect on Roman policy greatly enhances his
analysis. However, Dyson’s insistence on a ‘big picture’ approach which separates
politics and policy is mistaken.
This thesis has systematically re-evaluated the ancient evidence concerning
Roman involvement in Liguria during the first three decades of the second century BC,
analyzing consular and praetorian actions in Liguria on a yearly basis. The result might
appear to some to have “obscured continuities in both policy and action”13, and indeed,
the analysis may seem jerky at times owing to the strictly chronological framework. Yet
this was part of the organizational objective: to demonstrate that the rotation of offices
under the republican political system significantly determined and contributed to
Roman ‘policy’ in Liguria.
Furthermore, though Dyson claims that a focus on “individual power politics
and elite group dynamics” as well as “stress on personal and familial control” obscures
the continuities he sets out to expose, this thesis has not done so.14 We agree that
certain continuities existed and even that a fundamental shift in Roman ‘policy’
occurred in the year 180. I disagree with Dyson, however, on the mechanisms which
created and sustained the continuities and shifts. Dyson envisions the Senate as a body
of wise elder statesmen whence foreign policy emanated. The demands and pressures
13
14
Dyson (1985) 6.
Dyson (1985) 6.
130
of domestic politics rarely, if ever, interfered in the consular task of carrying out Roman
foreign policy in Liguria and elsewhere.
This was simply not the case. We can only meaningfully comprehend consular
decision-making by understanding its full context; decisions were made by men who
were at once generals and politicians. It is counterproductive to imagine a Roman world
in which field magistrates operated in a vacuum, unconcerned with their political
fortunes in Rome. Similarly, many Senators were consulares and most had at least some
experience in war. But they were also rivals in the same high stakes game of republican
politics. Under these conditions, the possibility that politics and policy would converge
became a certainty. Isolating provincial policy from Roman politics fails to accurately
account for the development of the Ligurian frontier, as it would for any republican
frontier. The only way to properly understand developments in Liguria is to take
account of the driving force of aristocratic competition and how this shaped the
Senate-magistrate relationship.
131
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