Download FACTIONAL COMPETITION AND MONUMENTAL CONSTRUCTION

FACTIONAL COMPETITION
AND MONUMENTAL CONSTRUCTION
IN MID-REPUBLICAN ROME
by
John D. Muccigrosso
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Classical Studies)
in The University of Michigan
1998
Doctoral Committee:
Professor David S. Potter, chair
Professor Bruce W. Frier
Professor Rudi Lindner
Professor John Pedley
©
John D. Muccigrosso
All Rights Reserved 1998
For Christine, Sabina and Dante
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First to my wife, Christine, I cannot express sufficient gratitude for having endured
my seemingly endless studenthood, poverty, late nights, and especially the last year of work
on my dissertation. Our children, Sabina and Dante, have been a continual source of joy and
refuge from the occasional unreality of graduate school.
Many thanks to the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor for its continual support over the past five years, and especially to Susan
Sanders and Michelle Biggs for their friendship and expertise in managing a sometimes
daunting bureaucracy. Thanks also to the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies
and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for several fellowships during the course of my
graduate studies at Michigan.
Special thanks belong of course to all the members of my committee. I have learned
much from many people here and it is difficult to give proper thanks to all of them, but my
fellow students Molly Pasco-Pranger, Kristina Milnor and Jeremy Taylor are due for
special praise, as are David Potter, Glenn Knudsvig and Sabine MacCormack among the
faculty. I would not have started graduate studies in Classics had it not been for Paul
Harvey, so it is perhaps fitting that final thanks be given to him.
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ABBREVIATIONS
ILS
LTUR
MRR
RE
RS
H. Dessau, Inscriptiones latinae selectae, Weidmann, Berlin (1974)
Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, ed. M. Steinby, Quasar, Rome
(1993)
T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Philological
monographs published by the APA, vol. 15, Scholars Press, Atlanta (1951)
A. F. von Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft
in alphabetischer Ordnung, J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1839)
T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (vol. 1 and 2: third edition, vol. 3:
second edition), S. Hirzel, Leipzig (1887–1888)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..........................................................................................................iii
ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................................iv
INTRODUCTION: MODELS ....................................................................................................1
Models......................................................................................................................2
The Inevitability of models........................................................................................6
Ancient models .........................................................................................................8
Conclusion..............................................................................................................16
CHAPTER 1: STUDYING THE MIDDLE REPUBLIC...............................................................17
Reliability of the tradition: Historiography..............................................................17
Ancient political groupings .....................................................................................52
Factionalism............................................................................................................61
Conclusion..............................................................................................................67
CHAPTER 2: APPIUS CLAUDIUS CAECUS ..........................................................................68
Introduction ............................................................................................................68
More modeling .......................................................................................................68
The Career of Caecus..............................................................................................79
Conclusion............................................................................................................124
CHAPTER 3: FACTIONALISM AND PUBLIC DISPLAY ........................................................126
Factional structure.................................................................................................126
Predictions: Public display....................................................................................131
The Public works of Caecus and the others ..........................................................143
Location................................................................................................................147
Timing ..................................................................................................................151
Other examples.....................................................................................................154
Other displays.......................................................................................................161
Conclusion............................................................................................................163
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................169
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INTRODUCTION
MODELS
The period of the late fourth through early third centuries was an important one in
the development of the city of Rome. Not only did the Romans finally come to militarily
dominate their Latin and Etruscan neighbors on the Italian peninsula by, for example, the
defeat of the Latin League in 338 and the defeat of Etruscans, Gauls and others at Sentinum
in 295,1 but the Roman state reached a new stage in its ongoing evolution, as legislation
such as the lex Ogulnia and the reforms of Hortensius gave plebeians official parity with
patricians in most important magistracies and priesthoods. At the same time the city itself
took on a new look as massive building projects were completed in and around it.2
Unfortunately the first Roman historians began writing only in the late third
century. A few Greek historians did write about Rome somewhat earlier than this, though
with what detail and accuracy is unknown. Later authors were obviously even further in
time from the events of this period, yet we are extremely reliant on these sources, who
dominate the extant historical writings, for much of our information about the middle
Republic. While we clearly lack contemporary historical narratives of this period, it does not
necessarily follow that we lack contemporary sources of information. Before examining the
details of the accounts of the Roman Republic that we do possess, it is necessary to
consider our approach to them.
1 All years are Varronian BC unless otherwise noted.
2 See, e.g., T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic
Wars, Routledge History of the Ancient World, Routledge, London and New York (1995), p. 380–390.
1
2
Models
Mid-republican Rome was a complex social, political and economic system, and,
like any complex system, can best, if not only, be understood through the use of theoretical
models. A model may be defined as an idealized structuring of a real-life system in which
the complexity of the original is reduced and a simpler system that is either analogous to the
original or has fewer variables is used instead. As idealizations, theoretical models do not
have a physical existence, but they nevertheless do share several important features with
real physical scale models, features that can serve to elucidate their functioning and proper
use.
Scale models
Following Max Black, we can list some of the features of scale models.3 First a
definition, scale models are “likenesses of material objects, systems, or processes…that
preserve relative proportions.”4 They are therefore, almost trivially, always of something.
They also serve some purpose, usually beyond the sheer enjoyment to the maker of
creating them. For example, it may be easier to manipulate and observe details on a largescale model of a microscopic object than on the object itself. As representations of an
original, certain of the models’ features must be irrelevant to the representation. For
example, a scale model will obviously be built at a different scale from the original, and
will likely be composed of different materials from the original, say, a plastic model of a
metal car. In order to function usefully though, the scale model must be an icon of the
original, that is, it must embody the features of the original that are of interest.
3 This analogy and description of scale models are adapted from M. Black, Models and metaphors: Studies in
language and philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London (1962).
4 Black, Models, p. 220.
3
In its possession of irrelevant new features and the concomitant loss of original
ones, the scale model exemplifies the reductive quality introduced in our definition of a
model. At the same time as the loss of original features provides advantages over the
original, it also ensures that the model will not accurately reproduce all aspects of that
original. This necessitates the application of a correct “reading” of the model in order for
any results obtained from it to be valid. That is, only appropriate questions, those the model
was designed to answer, should be asked of it. For example, in a scale model any
measurements of distances must be multiplied by a constant factor in order to obtain the
corresponding distances on the original, but while such models are built to accurately
preserve the linear measurements of the original, they typically have no concern for its mass.
Weighing a scale model in order to calculate the weight of its original is therefore asking an
improper question of it; it is a misuse of the model and the conclusions drawn are not
necessarily reliable. So long as a model is correctly used, it should adequately represent the
original.
Theoretical models
The various properties of the scale model just outlined can easily be extended to
theoretical models. First for our purposes, as we have already noted, the model will be of a
complex system, in particular an historical human society. The purpose of modeling the
society is to come to a new and better understanding of its functioning and evolution: in
particular, we are interested in the political groupings found in mid-republican Rome. Like
scale models, theoretical models are reductive in that they reduce the number of features, or
variables, found in the original, as it was the multiplicity of these that suggested the use of a
model to begin with. In a similar way, theoretical models generally ignore variables deemed
insignificant, as, for example, in the simplest form of the ideal-gas model where the actual
volumes occupied by gas atoms or molecules are ignored and they are assumed to occupy
no volume at all. Although theoretical models are reductive, it is crucial that a model
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represent all the features of its original that are important to the reproduction. The difficulty
in trying to create a theoretical model that is such an icon of the original system is perhaps
the biggest difference between these and scale models. For example, one problem is that,
while some theoretical models may offer opportunities for measurement, these are not
always sufficient for determining that the model is not missing any relevant features, and
other models offer few opportunities at all. Fortunately, while it may seem that the
elimination of certain features of the original may be deleterious to a model’s viability, in
fact variables may often be ignored with no practical effects. Not all ignored original
features will of course be so insignificant, but it is entirely possible that they may be.5
Like scale models, theoretical models must be read in the right way. Only
appropriate measurements should be taken, and then only under appropriate conditions. To
return to the ideal gas, such a model was intended for calculations of systems under more or
less normal physical conditions. As a result, at extremely high pressures, for example, the
model fails dramatically. This does not vitiate its utility, but reinforces its limitation to
appropriate contexts. An important logical consequence of the reduction inherent in modelbuilding and the consequent limitation of models to appropriate circumstances is that
different theoretical models can be successfully used to describe the same system.6 Steven
Best has elucidated an example of this in the historical theories of Karl Marx, in which
history is viewed as both continuous and non-continuous, depending on the scale of the
variables in question.7
One important function of theoretical models is predicting the future values of
certain variables based on present or past values of those same or other variables. For
5 P. C. Roberts, Modelling large systems: Limits to growth revisited, ORASA text no. 4, Taylor and
Francis, London (1978), p. 78–79.
6 The parable of the blind men who attempt to describe an elephant based on the part they grab hold of is
illustrative. Each accurately describes the part of the elephant that he touches, but none can describe the
whole animal. What the men fail to recognize is the limitations of their perception.
7 S. Best, “Marx and the problem of conflicting models of history”, PhilForum 22(2), 167–192 (1990).
5
models of historical systems, like mid-republican Rome, in which there is no explicit
concern for or relevance of the model to the future, such predictions do not of course exist.
Nevertheless we can define prediction to cover conditions existing at a time after that of the
conditions used to generate them. In this way, an historical model of a society of the fifth
century that was able to satisfactorily predict conditions of the fourth century would be
considered a good predictor. Given that the historian must be aware of the values of all the
variables in question, both those used to create the model and those used to evaluate its
predictions, prediction might be usefully defined as “using information derived from only
one part of the set, [to predict] the values appearing in the other part”.8
In general models are inherently limited in the extent to which they can generate
accurate predictions. In the first place, the reductive nature of the model makes it an
approximation of the original from the start. As such its predictions cannot help but be of
limited accuracy, though the limits may appear only under certain circumstance, e.g., after a
long amount of time has passed since the conditions on which the model is based, or under
conditions vastly different from those on which the model is based, as in the example of the
ideal gas law examined above. Often the choice of variables on which to base the model will
determine its shortcomings.
Predictions will also be affected by noise, or random fluctuations added to the real
value of the various variables. No physical measurements are free from noise, and likewise
no predictions will be unaffected by it.9 Noise may affect the accuracy of predictions in at
least two ways: first the parameters of a model are determined in the presence of noise, and
second noise is present during the time for which predictions are made. In the case of the
ancient historian, this problem is especially acute. The establishment of the model’s
parameters, that is, the obtaining of an accurate account of events and the acquisition of the
8 Roberts, Large systems, p. 42 for quote, and p. 37–38 for a discussion of this issue.
9 Roberts, Large systems, p. 21–28.
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corresponding information to compare with the model’s predictions, may be difficult in the
extreme, since the modern historian is forced to obtain these data only through the records
of other earlier recorders—some with their own models—or through archaeological
investigation, in which the evaluation of raw data is also notably difficult. It is therefore often
difficult to determine the accuracy of these data. Historians, like others interested in human
societies, meet the further difficulty of having as their object of study independent, freewilled agents that need follow no predictable course of action.
Although several of the preceding examples were taken from quantitative physical
models, the preceding discussion applies to both mathematical and non-mathematical
theoretical models and the model to be adopted later is not a mathematical one. While such
“cliometric” models do have the advantage of producing results that are easily quantifiable
both in terms of the precise values of their predictions and their deviation from actual
circumstances, they have the disadvantage of requiring sufficiently quantifiable parameters
for their construction. The middle Republic offers little opportunity for such numerical
precision. One is tempted to agree with Moses Finley’s analysis:10
Non-mathematical models have few if any limits to their usefulness: whereas
cliometric models are restricted to quantitative data, there is virtually nothing
that cannot be conceptualized and analyzed by non-mathematical models—
religion and ideology, economic institutions and ideas, the state and politics,
simple descriptions and developmental sequences.
The Inevitability of models
Despite its various shortcomings, modeling complex systems remains an essential
part of any attempt to understand them. These systems are too complex to be understood in
their totality without theoretical aids of some kind, and this is especially true of novel
systems to which the researcher may be little accustomed. Furthermore it is the tendency of
human attempts at understanding to ask “What’s it like?” when encountering something
10 M. I. Finley, Ancient history: Evidence and models, Elizabeth Sifton Books, New York (1985), p. 66.
7
new,11 so that in trying to understand the unknown, we begin with the known, or that part of
the known that appears to resemble part or all of the object of inquiry. In so doing we create
real metaphor, in which the unknown is described in the language of the known. As the new
model evolves, it may take on features of its own and the metaphor die.12 In a political
context, for example, there is the “ship of state”, a metaphor so long extinct that even those
with a knowledge of the word’s origins refer to an elected “governor” with no nautical
thoughts.
Furthermore models are necessary because the facts of any historical situation do
not, as it were, speak for themselves. Consciously or not the historian supplies some
organizing scheme, i.e., some model, to the data under consideration. In the words of Max
Weber:
All knowledge of cultural reality, as may be seen, is always knowledge from
particular points of view.…If the notion that those standpoints can be
derived from the “facts themselves” continually recurs, it is due to the naive
self-deception of the specialist who is unaware that it is due to the evaluative
ideas with which he unconsciously approaches his subject matter, that he has
selected from an absolute infinity a tiny portion with the study of which he
concerns himself.13
If the historian…rejects an attempt to construct such [models]…the
inevitable consequence is either that he…uses other similar concepts…or
that he remains stuck in the realm of the vaguely “felt”.14
It is clearly preferable to acknowledge the existence of the model and seek to improve it than
to implicitly allow it to dominate an analysis.
11 M. H. Abrams, quoted in Black, Models, p. 240.
12 C. Condren, “Ideas and the model of political events: A problem of historicity in the history of ideas”,
PolSci 36(1), 53–66 (1984), p. 62–64.
13 M. Weber, trans. Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch, The Methodology of the social sciences, Free
Press, New York (1949), p. 82, with emphasis in the original.
14 Weber, Methodology, p. 94.
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Ancient models
Given the claims just made for the universality of model-building in historical
investigation, it is not surprising to find evidence for it in ancient historians. As with modern
authors, some ancients were more explicit in describing their model than others (although of
course the language of models does not appear at all). For example Dionysius of
Halicarnassus considered the Romans Greeks (AR 1.5), and consequently organized his
information according to this model. As a result one finds etymological exercises conducted
on this basis, like the following one in which the Roman name of an early Italian people is
derived from a Greek, not a Latin, word:
…
… (1.13)
…they were called Aborigines because they lived on mountains…(“oresin”)
Furthermore Rome itself is described in the language of Greek colonization as an
(colony) of Alba Longa (e.g., 2.2.4) and Romulus as its
(founder). Rome’s
founder, Dionysius suggests, also found in Athens his model for the division of the
populace into plebeians and patres:
…
… (2.8)
One might suppose that he took his example from the Athenian state as it
was at that time. For having divided up the populace into two groups, they
called those from elite families and with much wealth “Nobles”, while the
other citizens they called “Rustics”.
For Dionysius, as for modern historians, there were questions about the past that required
answering, and he turned to a model of the past to answer them. In all these cases,
Dionysius’ explanations are not necessarily the most obvious, but they follow naturally
from his model.15
15 E. Gabba, Dionysius and The History of archaic Rome, Sather classical lectures, vol. 56, University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles (1991), p. 77, “But [Dionysius] would picture the origins of the
9
Livy famously provides his own model for the course of Roman history in his
preface. For him, it is a record of decline:16
labante deinde paulatim disciplina uelut desidentes primo mores sequatur
animo, deinde ut magis magisque lapsi sint, tum ire coeperint praecipites,
donec ad haec tempora quibus nec uitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus
peruentum est. (pr. 9)
Then let the reader consider how at first, with discipline little by little slipping
away, behavior too was, as it were, declining; then as it slipped further and
further, it began to fall headlong, until we are come to these times in which
we are able to suffer neither our faults nor their remedy.
On the other hand, Livy is less direct than Dionysius about his model of the early Roman
state, but the first decade of his work is marked by clear signs of it. Like Dionysius, Livy
divides the early Roman citizenry into two groups. Although the patres and patricii had
been only recently created by Romulus himself (1.8.7), upon his death suspicion of the
fathers arises among the people (1.16.4), and, when the senate rules by interregnum, the first
sign appears of the patrician-plebeian struggle which is to dominate the narrative of the rest
of Livy’s first decade:
fremere deinde plebs multiplicatam servitutem, centum pro uno dominos
factos (1.17.7)
The plebs then complained that their servitude had been increased, for they
had made one-hundred masters for themselves instead of only one.
Livy continues to interpret the various events of on-going Roman history according
to this model, and it persists into the period of Appius Claudius Caecus’ lifetime, when he is
portrayed, starting with the narrative of the lex Ogulnia, as the champion of the patricians
against the plebs (10.7.1; the model is used for the last time at 10.15).
city and the early centuries in the light of a model for political life provided by classical Greece…”; p. 154–
155 for the implications of Dionysius’ model for his recreation of the institutional development of Rome.
16 T. J. Luce, Livy : the composition of his history, Princeton University Press, Princeton (1977), p. 250f.
10
Unacknowledged models
Livy also provides an example of the dangers of using unacknowledged models
when he includes material in his first decade that contradicts this patrician-vs-plebeian
framework. The plebeian struggle for access to the consulship finally ends after the LicinioSextian reforms in 367, despite Livy’s use of it to the end of book ten, and the patricianplebeian model is destined therefore to give way to another. Although it comes in book nine,
Livy’s account of the career of Cn. Flavius (9.46), a notoriously difficult passage to
interpret, does not follow his patrician-plebeian model, and part of the difficulty in
interpreting the passage rests with Livy’s use of a novel model of the state.
Four words are used significantly more frequently in this chapter than elsewhere in
Livy, and with unexpected meaning. The first, nobilis and its cognates, is common,
occurring 75 times in Livy’s first decade alone, although in only one place more frequently
than the five cases of this chapter.17 In a political context nobilis is most broadly used as
the appropriate descriptor for people belonging to families that have attained ruling status.18
By Livy’s lifetime, the term was used at Rome mainly for men whose ancestors had
achieved success in attaining Rome’s highest elective offices.19 Since originally only
patricians had access to those offices,20 in Livy’s early books nobilis is often synonymous
17 At 9.26 during the episode of C. Maenius’ dictatorship in 314. Below, p. 15.
18 This definition can be applied to the regal period as well as women and foreigners; cf. OLD s.v. nobilis
(5).
19 The exact meaning is still disputed, but it certainly included direct descendants of consuls, dictators and
consular tribunes, if not praetors as well; M. Gelzer, The Roman nobility, Oxford University Press, Oxford
and New York (1969), p. 52, and P. A. Brunt, “Nobilitas and novitas”, JRS 72, 1–17 (1982); D. R.
Shackleton Bailey, “Nobiles and Novi reconsidered” in Selected classics papers, University of Michigan
Press, Ann Arbor (1997), p. 309–313. The inherited nature of nobilitas is also emphasized in its not
uncommon listing with honores, “acquired honors”, e.g., Livy 39.42.5.
20 Livy acknowledges this definition at 4.44.2 and its limitation to patricians at 6.37.11. Mommsen also
considered patricians automatically nobiles, RS 3.462f; also S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy: Books
VI – X, vol. 1 Introduction and book 6, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1997), p. 684; RS 3.463 n. 4; J.
Hellegouarc’h, Le Vocabulaire latin des relations et des partis politiques sous la république, Collection
d’études anciennes, Les Belles lettres, Paris (1972), p. 436.
11
with patrician, and nobiles are typically portrayed, like the patricians, in opposition to the
plebs (e.g., 2.56). In non-political contexts, nobilis is most often used to mean “famous” or
“well-known”.
Livy’s use of nobilis is susceptible to close analysis because he is relatively careful
in applying the word, using it for only a few categories, most not politically relevant. Three
do not even apply to Romans: starting late in book 10, nobilis begins to be applied
frequently to foreigners (68 times);21 beginning in book 24, cities, usually Greek, receive
the appellation (25 times); and in 13 of 43 instances of the non-political “famous” or “well
known”, the metaphorical and derogatory nobile scortum is the only example of its
application to people (39.9.5 and 42.8). The remaining 30 “well-known” instances,
including all examples of the verb nobilitare,22 are confined to military circumstances.23 In
total, the uses not pertaining to the Roman political scene represent 61% of the total. In
political contexts, nobilis as “patrician” has already been discussed, and appears frequently
in the first ten books (39 times). When, in book ten, Livy stops using it as a synonym for
patrician, nobilis refers much less often to Romans, disappearing for books at a time.24 In
the first decade too, apart from the two cases discussed below, the late-republican meaning
21 Interestingly Caesar uses the word nearly exclusively for foreigners, applying it only once to a Roman
(BG 1.44). Compare this application of nobilis with Livy’s use of factio discussed below. Both seem to
conform to Oakley’s observation, Livy, e.g., p. 39, 122–123, 128, that book ten marks the beginning of
several traits that Livy maintains in the remainder of his work.
22 1.13.4, 22.43.9, 23.47.4, 30.45.7, 31.7.10, 32.19.8, 42.49.7, 45.27.5. The third definition for nobilare
in the OLD is “to raise in rank, ennoble”, but the dictionary gives only the questionable example of Vell.
2.96.1.
23 Some “well-known” cases which are not militarily connected may in fact reflect the influence of that
category. For example, the censorship of Cato (39.44.9) and the conflict between Lepidus and Fulvius
(40.45.7, where, contra the Loeb editor, nobiles should be taken with inimicitiae and not viros (cf.
27.35.7)) were nobilis perhaps because the antagonism present in those cases resembled typically nobilis
military situations. This limitation in Livy to the military sphere is not noted by the OLD. The remaining
non-political usage is a reference to horses “of good breed” at 45.32.9 (cf. OLD s.v. nobilis (5e)).
24 In contrast to nobilis as “patrician”, which appears in each of the books on the early republic (2–10), the
late-republican nobilis is absent from books 21, 23–25, 31, 33, 35–36 and 40–42.
12
is used only eight times.25 Given such consistent application, it is significant that in
describing the events surrounding Flavius, Livy opposes the nobiles to humiles, an
opposition not otherwise found in his work.
Humilis itself is not common in Livy, occurring in all its forms only 30 times in the
extant corpus, and in only 24 of these describing people or their circumstances, four of
which occur here in 9.46.26 In eight of nine applications to Romans, humilis is used in
reference to plebeians, and the one exception is also the only example of this usage after
book 9 (38.52). Since this passage appears to be no exception, it might be considered that
here Livy is using nobilis and humilis synonymously with patrician and plebeian in an
application of his early model, but the high frequency of use of these two words suggests
otherwise. Likewise when he uses both nobilis and patricii or patres as synonyms in a
passage, Livy usually gives both terms (7.40.7–8), and here the latter do not appear at all.
The other two words whose unusually high frequency seems to confirm the
suspicion that Livy’s usual semantics is not at work are factio and forensis. Of the 54 times
factio is found in Livy, 40 refer to foreign peoples, and of the remaining Roman
applications 11 refer to groups of people.27 Factio does not appear to be a word Livy often
thought appropriate for the Roman political scene.28 As Seager demonstrates, the word has
negative connotations when used in a Roman political context and, at the same time, like
25 There are also three applications of the word in its broadest political sense: twice to women (39.12.2 and
13.14) and once to the regal period (1.34.6).
26 Of the remaining six occurrences, five are literally used, i.e., mean physically “low”, and the other refers
to adulation in an oration (30.16). Humilis is not covered by E. Dutoit, “Le Vocabulaire de la vie politique
chez Tite-Live” in Hommages à Leon Herrmann, Collection Latomus 44, p. 330–338, Latomus, Brussels
(1960).
27 L. R. Taylor, Party politics in the age of Caesar, Sather classical lectures, vol. 22, University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles (1949), p. 189 n. 34, gives a total of “44”, no doubt a
typographical error, although followed by Cl. Nicolet, “Appius Claudius et le double Forum di Capoue”,
Latomus 20, 683–720 (1961), p. 703.
28 Taylor, Party Politics, p. 10.
13
nobilis, its broader definition makes it useful for foreign political situations.29 Elsewhere in
Livy, a Roman factio is always made up of nobiles.30 Here however the forensis factio Livy
mentions opposes the nobiles, and is said to have elected Flavius to the aedileship, a task for
a large group:31
ceterum Flauium dixerat aedilem forensis factio (9.46.10)
But the factio of the Forum elected Flavius aedile.
Likewise the same group of men appears to be closely related to the clearly numerous
forensis turba of section 14. This points to the final vocabulary oddity: forensis appears
three times in this chapter, but only once elsewhere, and there to describe clothing
(33.47.10). It forms no part of Livy’s usual political vocabulary.
The various terms used by Livy in this chapter and their meanings are based on
post-Gracchan practice. For the episode concerning Flavius, nobilis can be defined—with
one exception, discussed below—according to the late-republican meaning. The patricianplebeian model is therefore temporarily replaced by one in which a single dichotomy still
divides the society, but the two sides are now not patricians and plebeians, but nobiles and
non-nobiles, here called humiles. This new model is also represented by the closing praise
29 R. Seager, “Factio: Some observations”, JRS 62, 53–58 (1972), p. 56–58.
30 Actually always patricians, apart from 9.26.22 and 38.55.3. The former, again in the episode of C.
Maenius’ dictatorship in 314, Seager would interpret as an example of the mixed verbal and collective
meanings of factio, Factio, p. 55. I would stress the compilation of odd linguistic features to suggest again
that Livy’s usual semantics is not present. Seager does not mention the overwhelming use of factio to refer
to aristocratic groups. The later periochae examples of factio (77 and 84), refer to the factions of Marius and
Carbo, and, if accurate representations of Livian usage, may be more examples of the word’s negative
connotations.
31 This use of factio to refer to a large group may also be applicable to an occurrence in Cicero which
Seager, Factio, p. 53, felt was unlikely to have this meaning: invidia concitatur in iudicum et in
accusatorum factionem, contra quorum potentiam populariter tum dicendum fuit (Brutus 164); Nicolet,
Appius, p. 709–710. Sallust Iug. 41.6 reflects the same view of the plebeian side as numerous: ceterum
nobilitas factione magis pollebat, plebis vis soluta atque dispersa in multitudine minus poterat.
14
of Fabius (9.46), which describes his temperatio ordinum, and by the division of the state in
duas partes (9.46.13), both late-republican concepts.32
This combination of a new model of the state with frequent use of four politically
charged words—three with meanings differing from that usually found in Livy, and one
hardly found elsewhere at all—suggests that Livy may have been borrowing directly from
his source(s) for this incident. In fact a large portion of this passage comes from Piso, the
relevant part of whose writing is happily preserved for us by Gellius (NA 7.9). Gellius
likely does not give the entirety of Piso’s account, and so it may very well lie behind even
more of the passage in Livy than now appears.33 Piso significantly does refer to Flavius’
encounter with a group of adulescentes…nobiles, whence two of Livy’s uses of nobilis
(9.46.4 and 9),34 and also makes no reference to patricii or plebei. It is likely no
coincidence that Livy’s only reference to plebeians here comes in a parenthetical editorial
reference by Livy to plebeiae libertatis (9.46.8). Piso also uses the unusual phrase pro
32 Hellegouarc’h, Vocabulaire, p. 515; Oakley, Livy, p. 684, on the post-Gracchan import of nobilis in
Livy.
33 Although Gellius writes:
Quod res uidebatur memoratu digna, quam fecisse Cn. Flauium Anni filium aedilem
curulem L. Piso in tertio annali scripsit, eaque res perquam pure et uenuste narrata a
Pisone, locum istum totum huc ex Pisonis annali transposuimus…
Since this thing that Cn. Flavius, son of Annius, did when curule aedile, which L. Piso
wrote of in the third book of his Annals, seemed worthy of recording, and it was very
simply and elegantly recorded by Piso, I have transcribed from Piso the whole of his
account of the memorable thing that Flavius did…
Piso would not have omitted all of Flavius’ political acts. Gellius’ locum istum totum should therefore be
translated “the whole of the account of the memorable thing that Flavius did”, not “the whole of Piso’s
account of Flavius”. G. Forsythe, The Historian L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi and the Roman annalistic
tradition, University press of America, Inc., Lanham, Maryland (1994), p. 341–342. This is not considered
by T. P. Wiseman, Clio’s cosmetics: Three studies in Greco-Roman literature, Leicester University Press,
Leicester (1979), p. 88. Contra E. Rawson, “The First Latin annalists”, Latomus 35(4), 689–717 (1976),
p. 712, and Nicolet, Appius, p. 692.
34 Perhaps significantly, Livy has a liking for adulescens/iuventus nobilis, using some form of the phrase
ten times in the first decade.
15
tribu,35 the reproduction of which by Livy may suggest a tendency to adopt Piso’s
wording. Since two of Livy’s four uses of humilis occur in sections clearly adapted from
Piso which do not contain that word or a cognate, Livy must either have added them on his
own—perhaps inspired by the rest of Piso’s account—or adopted the terminology of
another source.36 The similar absence of forensis and factio in the same excerpt from Piso
highlights the difficulty of proving a direct borrowing.
As already mentioned, the description of the dictatorship of C. Maenius in chapter
26 shares several of the vocabulary oddities of this chapter. In particular, nobilis appears six
times, five with the late-republican meaning and once as “patrician”. That one time occurs
in a speech, a passage, like the editorial comment of chapter 46, likely attributable to Livy
himself, and, again as in the Flavius episode, the only place in the passage where mention of
patricians or plebeians occurs (9.26.16). Factio also plays an important role in this earlier
episode. Finally both passages also share with the other two episodes in which nobilis is
frequently used, the account of C. Terentius Varro ( 22.34f.) and that of Cato’s election to
the censorship (39.40–41), the theme of an upstart novus homo fighting a hostile nobility. It
is difficult to say whether this shared theme and vocabulary reflect a common—likely pronobilis—source.37
It is also interesting to note that Pliny’s vocabulary in his account of Flavius (NH
33.17f) is, like Livy’s, unusual. In his Natural History, Pliny uses ordo 31 times outside
of natural-science contexts. Twenty-eight refer to the ordo equester alone, one to an ordo
procerum (7.170). The remaining two occur in this section on ring-wearing, where both
imply the existence of multiple ordines (33.19.2 and 29.1). Pliny’s account of Flavius’
vow of the aedicula Concordiae also shows the influence of a post-Gracchan source: as in
35 Noted by Forsythe, Piso, p. 481.
36 Licinius Macer is also quoted by Livy in chapter 46.
37 Polybius seems to use the same source as Livy for Varro’s military exploits at Cannae (3.110),
suggesting that an early annalist is responsible, but he gives no account of Varro’s behavior at Rome.
16
Livy, no mention is made of patrician or plebeian, and Pliny writes that Flavius wished to
reconcile the ordines to the populus, reflecting a late-republican model of the state.38 Pliny
did use Piso for this chapter, but, since the use of ordines to refer to the upper classes at
Rome comes into being only after the Gracchan period, he must be using another source as
well.39
Conclusion
Dionysius, Livy and Pliny all demonstrate the use of models by ancient authors,
even if these models are not explicitly acknowledged. Livy in particular shows the dangers
of such implicit usage. The precise meaning of the various political terms Livy uses in 9.46
is difficult, if not impossible, to determine, mainly because they reflect a model not
consistently used for this period. In some cases, the terms are not otherwise used by him at
all. The ruminations of modern scholarship over his meaning amply illustrate the problems
associated with an unacknowledged shift in both model and the vocabulary used to describe
it.40 As Dionysius’ Greek Romans and Livy’s anti-nobilis factio suggest, historical models
can significantly affect the presentation of events and later understanding of them. If this
passage from Livy demonstrates how the application of models by the ancient authors may
be problematic, it should not be surprising that much modern debate centers on the
application of models to those same authors.
38 Nicolet, Appius, p. 692–695, concentrates instead on the antiquity of Pliny’s source for the setting aside
of the rings; Hellegouarc’h, Vocabulaire, p. 516, states that the populus could be understood as comprising
those not in the two ordines. The same division between people and nobles is made by Diodorus in his
account (20.36); cf. below, p. 109.
39 Piso is included in NH 1 as one of Pliny’s sources for book 33; Forsythe, Piso, p. 340.
40 So, e.g., Nicolet’s reference, Appius, p. 703–704, to the factiones of the late periochae is unconvincing.
CHAPTER 1
STUDYING THE MIDDLE REPUBLIC
As mentioned at the beginning of the introduction, our major narrative sources for
Roman history date to relatively late in the Republic. They were themselves aware of the
chronological gap between the events they reported and their own time, and some created a
model of the past in which the distant past could be distinguished from the more recent.
Indeed for many ancient writers of history, the existence of eye-witnesses was a critical
factor.1 Accounts that could be verified by people who were there were worth more than
those that could not. For historians of ancient Rome, such witnesses were lacking for most
of the city’s history and so another model of reliability was designed.
Reliability of the tradition: Historiography
At least two ancient historians of Rome recognized a single watershed event for the
survival of documentation from the early republican period: both Livy (6.1.1–3) and the
Clodius mentioned by Plutarch (Numa 1.1; probably to be identified with Claudius
Quadrigarius whose extant fragments begin with the events of the sack) considered the
Gallic sack of 390 to have resulted in a great loss of documentary material.
Until relatively recently modern scholarship had been mainly in agreement.2
However archaeological investigations over the past several decades have not found any
1 Polybius, 12.4c–d; Thuc. 1.22.
2 G. de Sanctis, La Storia dei Romani: La conquista del primato in Italia, Biblioteca di scienze moderne no.
32, 33, Fratelli Bocca, Turin (1907), is the major early exception, vol. 2, p. 176: “…che ogni cosa sia
perita, compresi tutti documenti…è soltanto un mito etiologico.”
17
18
signs of widespread destruction in Rome at this time nor do several important public
buildings show signs of damage.3 The result is the current opinio communis that the
“sack” did not result in wide-spread destruction and, in any case, that records could easily
have been evacuated to Veii along with the population. In agreement with this, Livy’s
narrative, in contrast to his claims, does not suggest any break in his sources. The number
of years covered in each book shows little change: book 5, describing the sack itself, is the
second shortest of the first decade, while books six through eight cover approximately the
same number of years as book three (i.e., 20–25 years). More significant is Stephen
Oakley’s demonstration, mainly by examination of information given about office-holders
that there is no change around 390 in the quality of information that Livy gives.4
For over a century modern scholarship has accepted the ancient model’s sharp
break in the reliability of the record although it has tended to find the break later than 390.
Despite little consensus about the exact nature and source of that break, this more recent
model has a second element, the attribution of increases in information to a single source.5
In a letter appended to the preface of Jahn’s text of the periochae of Livy and the prodigy
list of Obsequens, Mommsen claimed that Obsequens chose 505 A.U.C. (= 249) as the
starting point for his compilation because in that year the pontiffs had begun to keep a
regular record of prodigies in their annals.6 Mommsen claimed that this was evident from
the title of Obsequens’ work and that Livy mentioned this event, presumably in his missing
3 Cornell, Beginnings, p. 24, 318f, and F. Coarelli, Roma, Guide Archeologiche Laterza, Gius. Laterza &
Figli, Spa., Roma-Bari (1985), p. 42.
4 Oakley, Livy, p. 39–67.
5 R. T. Ridley, “Fastenkritik: A Stocktaking”, Ath 58, 264–298 (1980) and Bruce W. Frier, Libri annales
pontificum maximorum: The Origins of the annalistic tradition, Papers and Monographs of the American
Academy in Rome, vol. XXVII, American Academy in Rome, Rome (1979), p. 161–178, for reviews of
the scholarship covering much of this ground.
6 O. Jahn, T. Liui Ab urbe condita librorum CXLII periochae. Iulii Obsequentis ab anno urbis conditae du
prodigiorum liber. Lipsiae (1853), p. xx: “qua in re dolendum est, prodigia quantum scimus ante annum DV
publice non fuisse littera tradita…eo tempore pontifices prodigiorum in annales referendorum initium
fecisse…”.
19
second decade. In 1857 Bernays further connected this new record-keeping with the many
portents and appeal to the Etruscan disciplina of that year.7 In 1882 Eduard Meyer
concluded, after examining Diodorus’ narrative, that the Greek author—who was at that
time held in higher regard than is usual today—was using a Latin chronicle that began to
record events in the mid-fourth century and that it contained a complete record of names
only after the Pyrrhic War.8 Meyer found confirmation of this both in the disagreement
between the funerary inscription of Scipio Barbatus and the annalistic account of 298, and
in patterns in the economy (i.e., number of years per book) of the various annalistic authors.
In particular, the early regal period was amply attested and therefore the tradition for that era
fixed early, while the period between the earlier mythological era and the truly historical
tradition (i.e., from the beginning of the Republic to the Pyrrhic War) was only scantily
covered.
DeSanctis in 1907 suggested that the pontifical tabulae were the source of much
information about the early Republic and that they were first publicly set up around 300,
when the beginnings of rudimentary literature guaranteed sufficient literacy among the
“basso populo” for whom they were intended.9 Rejecting Mommsen’s theory, he thought
that the increase in prodigies in Livy around 300 confirmed this, as did the record of
several supposed firsts (the secular games and closing of the doors of the temple of Janus
since Numa), which were actually only the first recorded occurrences of these events. In
1911 Tito Giorgi pushed the date of reliability of the consular fasti back to 366, nearly the
Gallic sack, after considering the contradictory nature of evidence on the consular tribunate,
an office that disappeared with the Licinio-Sextian reforms of 367.10 In 1929 Beloch
7 J. Bernays, “Vergleichung der Wunder in den römischen Annalen”, RhMus 12, 436–438 (1857).
8 E. Meyer, “Untersuchungen über Diodors römische Geschichte”, RhMus 37, 610–627 (1882), p. 612.
9 Storia, p. 16–21.
10 T. Giorgi, “I Fasti consolari e la critica”, RAL, 5 th series, 20, 315–338 (1911).
20
examined the triumphal records to find that reliability, and therefore a contemporary
chronicle, began at the turn of the third century.11 For Beloch, this date was corroborated
first by the consular fasti, which for him became reliable with the end of the dictator years in
301, and second by the first solar eclipse to be noted in the pontifical annals, connected by
Beloch to the eclipse dated by modern astronomy to 28812 (Cicero de rep. 1.25.16; in order
to obtain agreement with this date, Beloch was forced to emend the number given in the
manuscript from CCCL to CCCCL.13 ). Since, as Beloch knew, this eclipse was actually
closely preceded by two others, one in 310 and another in 297, neither of which must have
been noted in the annals, Beloch was able to conclude with some precision that the pontiffs
began to record prodigies between 297 and 288, a date in agreement with the apparent
beginning of Livy’s regular reports of prodigies in 296 and 295 (10.23.1 and 31.814 ).
Since the pontifical college had recently undergone a major reform in 300 when the lex
Ogulnia opened it to plebeians, Beloch found it natural to associate the appearance of new
records with this. Further confirmation of the importance of plebeian access to the
pontificate for the keeping of records was found in Obsequens’ beginning his prodigy list
when Ti. Coruncanius, the first plebeian to hold the office, was pontifex maximus.
Meyer’s observations on the nature of the economy of the annalists’ writings and its
roots in a lack of information on the early Republic were picked up again in 1967 by Gabba
who eliminated the “sharp break” element of the model.15 Instead Gabba explained the
11 K. J. Beloch, Römische Geschichte bis zum Beginn der punischen Kriege, Walter De Gruyter & Co.,
Berlin und Leipzig (1926), p. 86–95.
12 Beloch relied for both dates and criteria for eclipse visibility on F. K. Ginzel, Spezieller Kanon der
Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse für das Ländergebiet der klassicschen Altertumswissenschaften und den
Zeitraum von 900 v. Chr. bis 600 n. Chr., Mayer & Müller, Berlin (1899), who does not suggest 288.
13 He was not the first to emend the number; for previous rewriters, Ginzel, Kanon, p. 181.
14 Though these were not the first notices in Livy: B. MacBain, Prodigy and expiation: A Study in religion
and politics in republican Rome, Collection Latomus 177, Latomus, Brussels (1982), p. 82–106, for a list
of all reported prodigies, including those from the first two centuries of the Republic.
15 E. Gabba, “Considerazioni sulla tradizione letteraria sulle origini della repubblica”, in Les Origines de la
République Romaine, Entretiens 13, 135–169, Fondation Hardt, Vandoevres - Genève (1967), p. 168–169.
21
large amount of information on the regal period as a result of the Roman use of Greek
sources, while, beginning with the second half of the fourth century, he thought that Fabius
Pictor used a number of sources: documentary material and family and public tradition, to
which were added in the third century eye-witness accounts and other Greek historians.
Other recent writers not concerned with the nature of the sources per se have nevertheless
inherited a strong tendency to see an increase in reliability in the ancient testimony about
earlier Roman history starting around 300.16
As already noted, much of the above analyses of the sources may be traced to the
use of a model which ascribed information to a single original source. This source was the
pontifical annals, which, in order to explain various changes in the quantity or quality of that
information, was thought subsequently to have been edited several times.17 This is not
surprising, given that the nature of data in our sources may be summarized as follows:18
1. There appears to be much reliable information of a chronicle type in
ancient authors (e.g., names of magistrates).
2. Ancient authors also mention a limited number of potential sources for this
information (e.g., family records, inscriptions).
3. The pontifical annales maximi seem to be the only one of those potential
sources that would provide the needed kind and quantity of official,
archival information.19
This summary emphasizes that our knowledge of the nature and quantity of original
sources on early Rome is very limited, especially with regard to the information available to
16 So, for example, when reviewing CAH 7(2), R. Billows writes: “With chapter 9, on Rome and Italy in
the early third century…, we enter the truly historical period of Rome’s development” (“The Cambridge
ancient history, VII Part 2: The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C.”, Phoenix 46(2), 190–195 (1992)). Also Gabba,
Considerazioni, p. 19, 27; and R. M. Ogilvie and A. Drummond. “The Sources for early Roman history”,
in CAH 7(2).2, ed. F. Walbank et al., p. 1–29, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1989).
17 See especially Frier, LAPM, p. 172–174.
18 Oakley, Livy, p. 72, for a similar summary.
19 Oakley, Livy, p. 25 n. 16, rightly stresses that this assessment is dependent on one statement by Servius
auct. (Aen. 1.373).
22
the earlier writers like Pictor. Attempting therefore to explain the patterns that we can
observe is fraught with difficulties.
Oakley rejects models of the sources that seek to identify original sources when,
despite his observations (mentioned above) about the increase in information for various
magistracies in the 290s, he declines to offer an explanation. At the same time, he also offers
empirical grounds for rejecting the one-source approach when he includes several groups of
data that increase in accuracy and quantity at different points during the Republic. This
variability strongly suggests, if not demands, that one event cannot be held responsible for
all observed changes in the nature of information in the sources. It might be further noted
that it is important that any model not discount the role of literary license in shaping the
quantity and arrangement of information presented, especially in an author like Livy, who
had already problematized the issue of source reliability in the preface to book six and who,
as Oakley notes, was selective in the presentation of information of which he had knowledge
(e.g., the names of praetors).20
Two models
Modern scholarship has adopted two basic types of models for evaluating the
information on early Rome given in the sources. The first is one of Quellenkritik, and seeks
to discover the route of transmission of data from early Rome to our (mainly Augustan)
sources. These models suffer from the already noted tendency to ascribe all changes to the
Annales Maximi, and also from the lack of explicit testimony in ancient authors about the
other potential sources of information (e.g., other state archives, family records,
20 Also J. Rich, “Structuring Roman history: The Consular year and the Roman historical tradition”,
Histos (Oct. 1996, <http://www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/rich1.html>), who attributes Livy’s use of
consular years to pattern his narrative of books 21–45 to a stylistic choice that begins in book 10, which
covers the years surrounding 300. For other recent discussions of Livy’s literary manipulation of his
material, G. B. Miles, Livy: Reconstructing early Rome, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London
(1995); and A. Vasaly, “Personality and power: Livy’s depiction of the Appii Claudii in the first pentad”,
TAPA 117, 203–226 (1987).
23
inscriptions, oral tradition). Their results are often unsubstantiated by, and contrary to, the
ancient testimony we do have,21 and practitioners take a view more or less in line with this
comment of Drummond:22
The primary question is not the intrinsic credibility of the annalists’
account…but its origin and probable process of formation.
Given the limited remains of the early annalists and documentary sources and the well
known tendency of expansion and elaboration in the annalistic tradition, such models do not
predict the survival of much early textual information (although this is often not spelled out
explicitly). Scholars using these models therefore tend to be pessimistic about the likelihood
of authentic data surviving from the earlier Republic. They cannot construct an acceptable
model of textual transmission in early Rome using the available data, and they deny the
existence of the process which they cannot model.
In contrast, models of the second type tend to start with the observation that the
picture of early Rome painted by the ancient sources seems generally plausible and, where
testable, is often accurate. These models are not able to explain the means of transmission of
texts, but neither are they generally concerned to do so.23 Although they accept that no good
model of the process of transmission exists, they simply believe that this does not affect the
reality of the process. A comment by Fraccaro24 on studying the regal period well describes
this approach:
21 E.g., Cn. Flavius is said to have published in 304 the fasti, or calendar (Auctor de vir. illus. 52; Cic. ad
Att. 6.1.8, 18, pro Mur.11.25, Diod. Sic. 20.36.6, Livy 9.46.1–15, Macr. Sat. 1.15.9, Piso ap. Gellius
7.9, PlinyNH 33.17, Val. Max. 2.5.2). There is no ancient testimony that he published the consular fasti at
the same time; nor likewise that he published consular fasti to justify his unconventional dating of the
foundation of his aedicula Concordiae by years after the foundation of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter
instead of the more typical consular year (Pliny NH 33.17). Above, p. 20, for Beloch’s emendation of
Cicero’s date for the first recorded eclipse.
22 A. Drummond, “A. Guarino, ‘La Rivoluzione della plebe’, J.-C. Richard, ‘Les Origines de la plèbe
romaine: Essai sur la formation du dualisme patricio-plébéien’”, JRS 72, 179 (1982).
23 Witness again Oakley’s observations about the increase in accurate information available from the years
around 300 and his lack of explanation for this.
24 P. Fraccaro, “The History of Rome in the regal period”, JRS 47, 59–65 (1957), p. 65.
24
If, therefore, we cannot swear to the historicity of certain happenings of the
regal period, neither can we deny it just because we cannot be sure how the
record of them was preserved. Even for the fundamental facts we have only a
greater or lesser probability, and never absolute certainty.
These models also tend to incorporate comparative research from anthropology and
sociology25 and, because they tend to evaluate not the history of the text itself, but its
plausibility, often explicitly state the criteria by which the data given in a text are to be
evaluated.
At the core of this split between models may be seen to lie a series of disagreements
over fundamental attitudes towards approaching the ancient sources. The passage from
Fraccaro just quoted demonstrates one of the issues: how to deal with uncertainty about the
means of transmission; while another is to be found in differing amounts of overall trust
placed in the sources, i.e., whether they should be considered basically reliable or not. On
one side, Raaflaub writes:26
Especially for the early Republic and for social history, therefore, the only
sound method is to distrust the ancient historians unless their statements can
be confirmed or made plausible by independent evidence.
While Cornell believes that:27
the burden of proof lies as heavily on those who wish to deny as on those
who wish to affirm
and, writing on documents presented by ancient authors:28
what is quite inadmissible is the presumption that all quotations for, and
references to, archaic documents are false unless they can be proved
genuine…the burden of proof clearly lies on those who wish to deny the
authenticity of a public document cited in our sources.
25 E.g., A. Watson, “Roman Private Law and the Leges Regiae”, JRS 62, 100–105 (1972), p. 103: “This
development…is the reverse of what would be expected by persons unskilled in comparative anthropology.”
26 K. A. Raaflaub, “The Conflict of the orders in archaic Rome: A Comprehensive and comparative
approach”, in Social struggles in archaic Rome: New perspectives on the conflict of the orders, ed. K.
Raaflaub, University of California Press, Berkeley (1986), p. 22.
27 Beginnings, p. 11.
28 Beginnings, p. 16.
25
There are also no widely accepted standards of proof, as an examination of the history of
studies of the fasti, such as that of Ridley, easily shows.29 Even where agreement can be
found on broad statements about approaches to the sources, that agreement often disappears
when discussion turns to the enumeration of specific criteria for evaluation.30
If models of the first type too often lead to negative conclusions, those of the second
type often appear too presumptuous. Just as an indeterminate path of transmission does not
imply no transmission, so a plausible narrative does not imply an historical one. Rather than
make assumptions about the transmission of earlier data to the extant sources, we can
instead approach the issue of their historicity by searching out texts that can be shown to
have survived from early Rome to those later sources. Such survival belies the predictions of
models of the first type as it justifies the optimism of models of the second type about the
prospects of fruitfully studying early Rome. There are at least three such texts from the
mid-Republic.
Text 1: A Surviving speech from the early third century
The first example of a surviving text is the speech by Appius Claudius Caecus
against making peace with Pyrrhus. To judge from the ancient references to it (ORF 1.4–
11), Caecus’ speech was a famous one, even cast in poetic form by Ennius in his Annales
(194–5 W),31 and could easily have been preserved in family archives, although there it
might have been subject to some editing. We have the explicit statement of Cicero that he
had the text of this speech:
29 Fastenkritik, especially p. 276–277.
30 E.g., according to Raaflaub (Conflict, p. 49), he and Cornell (“The Value of the literary tradition
concerning archaic Rome”, also in Raaflaub, Social Struggles, p. 52–76) agree on the nature of the
annalistic tradition, yet disagree strongly over the use that can then be made of that tradition. Oakley too
approves of Beloch’s method of approach to the question of the survival of authentic ancient information in
Livy, yet comes to radically different conclusions (Livy, p. 38, esp. n. 86).
31 Ennius Annales 194–5 W (Cic. de sen. 16.1): quo vobis mentes, rectae quae stare solebant | antehac,
dementes sese flexere viai?
26
tamen is [sc. Caecus], cum sententia senatus inclinaret ad pacem cum Pyrrho
foedusque faciendum, non dubitauit dicere illa quae uersibus persecutus est
Ennius:
“Quo uobis mentes, rectae quae stare solebant
antehac, dementes sese flexere uiai?”
ceteraque grauissime; notum enim uobis carmen est; et tamen ipsius Appi
extat oratio. (de sen. 16)
Nevertheless Caecus, when the opinion of the senate was leaning towards
peace with Pyrrhus and striking a treaty, did not hesitate to say what Ennius
has thus rendered into verse:
“Whither on your road have senseless turned your senses
which hitherto were wont to stand upright?”
and other very serious things; the verses are known to you; and the speech
of Appius himself is even extant.32
Although the dialogue in which this reference appears has a dramatic date of 150, Cicero
was also referring to his own time since he includes a reference to the same speech in a
section of the Brutus dealing with extant works:
nec vero habeo quemquam antiquiorem, cuius quidem scripta proferenda
putem, nisi quem Appi Caeci oratio haec ipsa de Pyrrho et non nullae
mortuorum laudationes forte delectant. (Brutus 61)
But neither do I think that there is anyone more ancient whose writings I
consider comparable, unless by chance someone likes Appius Caecus’
speech, the one on Pyrrhus, or some of the funeral laudations.
This speech of Caecus is here suggested as one of the only speeches dating before the time
of M. Cornelius Cethegus, consul in 204, which might be appealing to someone of Cicero’s
own time.
Arguments that Cicero’s text of Caecus’ speech was not the original have little
foundation.33 First we have little idea about the language of Cicero’s speech. Its content
32 Verse translation E. H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, I, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge (1940), p. 73. I do not understand why G. Kennedy, The Art of rhetoric in the
Roman world, 300 B.C. – A.D. 300, Princeton University Press, Princeton (1972), p. 27, says that Cicero
is referring only to the text of Ennius: et tamen separates what precedes (carmen) from what follows (oratio)
and oratio ipsius Appi clearly contrasts the speech with the verses of Ennius.
33 E.g., H. Malcovati, Oratorum romanorum fragmenta, 3rd ed., Paravia and Co., Turin (1966), p. 1:
“suspicari licet…Appi orationem confictam esse…” E. H. Clift, Latin pseudepigrapha: A study in literary
27
may be similar to that given in two Greek sources (Appian Samn. 10.2 and Plutarch
Pyrrhus 19.1–3),34 while we would expect that the vocabulary and style appeared to Cicero
appropriate to the period in which the speech was supposed to have been given. In fact two
elements of Cicero’s account suggest that this is the case. First his comments in the Brutus
make clear that the speech was not generally attractive to contemporary oratorical tastes,
which leads naturally to the conclusion that it was old-fashioned. Second just prior to the
statement quoted above, at Brutus 53, Cicero places Caecus among those known to have
been good speakers because of the monumenta, and not because of surviving speeches.
Cicero uses monumenta here to refer to historical accounts of speeches and their effects.35
In Caecus’ case, the senate was persuaded by his speech not to make peace with Pyrrhus, a
plan they had been set upon. Therefore, says Cicero, Caecus must have been a good
speaker. To Cicero then the speech which he had in his possession was not by itself
sufficient evidence of Caecus’ oratorical ability, that is, it was not an acceptably good piece
of polished late-republican Roman rhetoric.36
If we then accept Cicero’s judgment that the speech he had was in an appropriately
archaic Latin, it is difficult to imagine how it could have been fabricated. The earliest
surviving example of such a fake, the pseudo-Sallustian letters to Caesar and anti-
attributions, J. H. Furst Co., Baltimore (1945), p. 81–84, comes to the same conclusion by arguing that
the speech could have been real, and not, as I do, by showing that a fake was unlikely. In general he is too
uncritical of potential republican pseudepigrapha.
34 Although neither of these begins with the sentiment expressed by Ennius in his version, the
incongruence is not surprising since Ennius is recalling a Homeric passage with his introductory lines; O.
Skutsch, The Annals of Q. Ennius, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1985), p. 360–361.
35 OLD, s.v. monumentum (3, 4).
36 At this time not much more would have been involved in such a judgment; J. E. G. Zetzel, Latin textual
criticism in antiquity, Monographs in classical studies, The Ayer Co., Salem (1981), p. 24–26, 71–74.
28
Ciceronian invective, dates to the Augustan period, and the practice of such imitation of style
was not much older.37
The rhetorical practice of writing a speech to be given in another person’s voice was
called prosopopoiia (or ethopoiia or adlocutio).38 The usual practice for this kind of
exercise was to use a fictional event in the life of an historical or mythological person as
occasion for a speech. In this way, the practice was similar to (but not the same as39 )
controversiae and suasoriae, which also typically dealt with fictional circumstances, but did
not include speaking in the voice of the famous person. Twenty-seven short speeches found
in Libanius under the heading of ethopoiia well exemplify the genre (Förster vol. 8, 372–
437). The titles of all 27 begin with
… (“What would someone
say…”), a clear indication of their fictional nature.
This practice can be observed early on in the Palamedes of Gorgias and the
Odysseus and Ajax of Antisthenes, sophistic orations on the Homeric heroes in which they
are imagined to be defending their actions in a court.40 Skill at prosopopoiia was also
admired in the Greek forensic orators whose speeches were often written in the voice of
their clients. Lysias was considered especially expert at this. These speeches differ from the
sophists’ and later practice in that they were meant to be delivered in real cases for real
people. After the fourth century, evidence for prosopopoiia falls into the obscurity of
37 R. Syme. Sallust, Sather classical lectures, vol. 33, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles (1964), p. 313–351, esp. p. 318: “The Invective attests the beliefs and practices of rhetoricians in
the age of Caesar Augustus, for there it can find an easy resting place.” Since Quintilian already considered
the anti-Ciceronian invective authentic (Inst. Orat. 4.1.68; 9.3.89), it must have rapidly lost whatever
indications, if any, it had about its true nature. The letters come to us without author in a single manuscript
containing excerpts from Sallust and other works; L. D. Reynolds, C. Sallusti Crispi Catilina; Iugurtha;
Historiarum fragmenta selecta; Appendix Sallustiana, Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca Oxoniensis,
Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York (1991), p. xiv, xvii, 203.
38 There is disagreement among ancient authors about the correct term and its precise meaning; e.g., pseudo-
Hermog 20.7–14 R vs. Theon 2.115.2f Sp.
39 S. F. Bonner, Education in ancient Rome from the elder Cato to the younger Pliny, University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles (1977), p. 285.
40 G. Giannantoni, Socrates et socraticorum reliquiae, (1990), vol. 2, p. 157–161; also vol. 4, 255–264 =
note 26, on the authenticity of these works.
29
Hellenistic rhetoric in general, only to re-emerge with the Romans. While Demetrius makes
reference to the practice,41 the first securely datable reference is by Quintilian, who
frequently refers to it (de eluc. 265).
In a context that suggests that this was a long-standing practice in the schools,
Quintilian also provides the first attestation of the practice of writing new versions of known
speeches :
neque ignoro plerumque exercitationis gratia poni et poeticas et historicas, ut
Priami uerba apud Achillem aut Sullae dictaturam deponentis in contione.
(Inst. Orat. 3.8.53)
Nor am I ignorant that mostly for the sake of practice are poetic and
historical speeches set, such as the words of Priam in Achilles’ tent, or of
Sullae in the public address when he was laying down the dictatorship.
His reference to Iliad 24.485f and to the historical end of Sulla’s public career42
demonstrates how historical and mythological or quasi-historical scenes were mixed. As the
inclusion of an Homeric scene—the original of which was of course in epic Greek—makes
clear, these exercises were meant to be written in the style that the student was being taught
and not at all in the style in which the original had been given.
Closer to what Cicero’s speech of Caecus might have been, were it a fake, is the
practice of imitatio (Greek
43 ),
or the imitation of the style of another author,
primarily for the purposes of improving one’s own style by following an accomplished
author. The starting date for this practice is unknown. It first appears in Greek with
Dionysius of Halicarnassus who wrote an entire work entitled
44
In Latin
the practice is first attested in the Rhetorica ad Herennium of ca. 85 (e.g., 4.2.1–2), and by
the time of Quintilian had become standard practice in the schools (10.2). A certain amount
41 W. Rhys Roberts, Demetrius on style: the Greek text of Demetrius De elocutione, Arno Press, New
York (1979 reprint of 1902 original), p. 40f, on his date.
42 For Sulla’s speech, see, e.g., Appian Bell. Civ. 104.1.
43 The use of the word in rhetoric is to be distinguished from earlier philosophical meanings.
44 Rhys Roberts, Demetrius, p. 20f.
30
of imitation is implicit even in early Greek rhetorical education, where students learned from
the model of their teacher (e.g., Isocrates Against the Sophists 17–18), but it is not until the
Atticist and neo-Atticist movements of the late second and early first centuries that various
older orators are turned to as models for imitation.45 In many cases, even Greek authors
served as models for the Romans.
While the mid–late second-century rhetorical schools of Rhodes (especially that of
Hermagoras) may have engaged in some imitative exercises, the practice appears to be fully
adopted only by the Romans in the early first century. The Roman sources for the practice
(e.g., Quint. 10.2.25, Seneca Contr. 1.pref.6) stress the importance of avoiding slavish
imitation of one model and recommend multiple models from each of which various
elements ought to be drawn for imitation. That they had to make such comments strongly
suggests that too close imitation was made of individual authors (Quint. 10.2.17–18 on
copying Cicero); the pseudo-Sallustian writings are proof of it.
Applying such a model of close imitation, either with or without the intention of
deceit, as an explanation for Cicero’s speech of Caecus is inappropriate for several reasons.
First, as far as we know, there were no other speeches of Caecus (or any other
contemporary of his) to imitate. Only his sententiae are mentioned and these short epigrams
were hardly substantial enough to make a speech. Second since the practice had reached
Rome only with the rhetorical schools in the late second and early first centuries, the time,
that is, of Cicero’s youth and immediately before, it is extremely difficult to imagine that
Cicero was deceived into thinking that a new work, written in the oratorical circles of which
he himself was a member, was really more than 200 years old. This is even harder to believe
if Cicero had a reference to the same speech in a second-century source which was behind
its mention in the de senectute, itself set in 150.
45 Kennedy, Art of rhetoric, p. 69–70, 240–243, 346–363.
31
A convincing non-imitatio version of the speech would also ultimately be a product
of the rhetorical schools and meet with the same problems with regard to Cicero’s
knowledge. Historians cannot be the source because they did not write speeches in a style
appropriate to the historical setting, but in their own style, and Cicero would have known the
rather limited number of historical versions in existence anyway. Claudius Quadrigarius46
might be expected to produce a pro-Claudian document, but since he lived during Cicero’s
time, he would a fortiori meet the objections already raised.
There is one further problem associated with connecting Cicero’s speech of Caecus
to the rhetorical schools. While not equivalent to prosopopoiia, suasoriae and
controversiae sometimes had as their topics historical persons. Of the controversiae given
by Seneca, only two deal with historical Romans. The subject of the older, the blinding of
Metellus Pius, dates only to 241. Seneca’s suasoriae also contain only two Roman topics,
both treating Cicero and Antony. Furthermore the deliberative questions of the ad
Herennium all concern events after the second Punic war. The early third century and
Appius Claudius Caecus in particular do not therefore appear to have been popular subjects
for rhetorical exercises.47 This apparent unsuitability of the period for rhetorical purposes is
perhaps confirmed by Cicero who says (Brutus 66–67) that not even the much more recent
Cato was considered acceptable for imitation by the neo-Atticists of his time.
The survival of Caecus’ sententiae, widely accepted as genuine, should also give
pause to those who would question the authenticity of Cicero’s speech. While no other
examples of Roman oratory before Cato are extant, several laudationes dating to the last
46 And the nameless pro-Claudian author in Wiseman, Clio.
47 Kennedy, Art of rhetoric, p. 27 n. 34, concludes that Cicero’s text was not an exercise for this reason.
32
quarter of the third century are quoted in our sources.48 Their veracity, or lack of it,49 has
no bearing on their antiquity. Since they were maintained in family archives, the survival of
Caecus’ slightly older speech by the same mechanism has inherent plausibility.50
In sum any speech which could have been mistaken for an early-third-century one
by Cicero must have been written either early in the third century or after the rhetorical
schools came to Rome in the late second–early first centuries and made the composition of a
convincing fraud possible. The third century seems not to have been a topic for rhetorical
exercises, so an imitation accidentally accepted as genuine is very unlikely. Furthermore
Cicero was too familiar with the oratorical schools to have been fooled by one of their recent
products claiming antiquity. The one extant example of a convincing fake, the pseudoSallustian letters to Caesar and anti-Ciceronian invective, dates to the Augustan period and
treats an author whose corpus was large enough to provide ample material for study and
whose style was easily recognizable, neither of which could be said of Caecus.51 We can
conclude by noting that there was little to be gained by inventing a version of this speech: it
was already widely known and praised, and, since Ennius had even incorporated it into his
Annales, a well-known version already circulated.52
48 E.g., Q. Caecilius Metellus for his father Lucius in 221 (H. Malcovati, ORF 6.2); H. I. Flower,
Ancestor masks and aristocratic power in Roman culture, Oxford Classical Monographs, Clarendon Press,
Oxford (1996), p. 145 n. 72, for an enumeration of known laudationes.
49 See the oft quoted comments of Livy (8.40.4–5) and Cicero (Brutus 62.14) on the reliability of such
records.
50 Suetonius (de gram. 2) on the second-century editing and popularizing of little-known poets; also Zetzel,
Textual Criticism, p. 71.
51 But could be of Q. Cicero and the uncertain case of the commentariolum petitionis; M. B. McCoy,
“Quintus Cicero, the commentariolum petitionis, and the political aspirations of the Ciceros”, Ancient
World 15(3), 99–104 (1987), for bibliography.
52 St. Augustine describes being assigned at school the translation of a bit of poetry (apparently Vergil’s
description of an angry Juno in Aeneid 1) into prose (Conf. 1.16). This could have happened with the
passage from Ennius (as Malcovati, ORF, p. 1, suggests: ita Appi orationem confictam esse ad exemplar
orationis eius, quam Ennius Annalibus suis inseruerat), but that kind of exercise does not seem to be what
Quintilian was referring to at 3.8.53, nor does it appear anywhere else in earlier writings on rhetorical
instruction. Also Cic. de orat. 1.154 and Quint. 10.5.4–8 against Cicero. The objections based on Cicero’s
knowledge of rhetorical schools would still apply.
33
Text 2: The Case of rhotacism
The second example of textual survival from the mid-Republic derives from the
existence in Cicero’s time and later of evidence for the early presence in Latin nomina of
unrhotacized intervocalic s.53 Surviving epigraphic evidence, though scanty, places the
transition from s to r between the early fifth and late fourth century. Literary references are
consistent with this date and indicate that fourth-century texts were available for inspection.
The earliest epigraphic rhotacized onomastic s is found in an inscription from the
temple of Diana at Nemi, datable to the late fourth century (CIL 12 .45): Paperia;54 the latest
unrhotacized is Popliosio Valesiosio of the lapis satricanus, dated to roughly 500.55 The
Fasti Capitolini, which might be expected to be a source of good information on this issue,
unfortunately are not. Despite several archaic features in the language of the inscription
(e.g., -eis for -is), as DeGrassi noted in the preface to his edition,56 the spelling of the
names clearly indicates a more recent edition. Most obviously there are no unrhotacized
nomina in the entire list, while there are unrhotacized praenomina and cognomina, the latter
notoriously suspect for the early periods.57 The entry for the consul of 460, for example,
53 Normally in Latin, s between vowels rhotacized, i.e., became r; A. L. Sihler, New comparative grammar
of Greek and Latin, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York (1995), §172–173, p. 171–173.
54 The spelling of Papirius with an e is found on several inscriptions including the Gracchan property
markers (CIL I2 .643–644). It is an example of a broader phenomenon of the spelling of long i by ei and
sometimes e; Sihler, Comparative grammar, §57, p. 52–53; R. Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften:
Sprachliche and epigraphische Untersuchungen zu den Dokumenten bis etwa 150 v. Chr., Peter Lang AG,
Berlin (1987), p. 383, who adds that the language of this inscription shows no dialectical character.
55 Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften, p. 77–80. This might be in a non-Roman dialect of Latin.
56 A. DeGrassi, Fasti Capitolini, G. B. Paravia, Turin (1954), p. 22.
57 As is filiation, where, as in the example given in the text, many of the unrhotacized nomina appear; I.
Kajanto, “On the chronology of the cognomen in the republican period”, L’Onomastique Latine, Colloques
Internationaux du CNRS #564, Paris, 13–15 Oct. 1975, 63–70 (1977); R. M. Ogilvie and A. Drummond
“The Sources for early Roman history” in CAH 7(2).2, ed. F. Walbank, p. 1–29, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge (1989), p. 628.
34
listed as P. Valerius P. f. Volusi n. Poplicola II, shows both.58 The same antiquarian
research that was able to create the Fasti was also able to supply archaic word forms and
modify names wherever it seemed necessary. Therefore the Fasti alone do not provide
chronological information about rhotacism. They do however indicate that older nomina and
cognomina, no longer in use, were somehow preserved until the Augustan period.
The grammarians confirm the evidence of the Fasti that later Romans were aware in
broad terms of rhotacism, and indicate that the phenomenon was observable in nononomastic vocabulary. They also provide evidence for the preservation of unrhotacized
nomina. Varro refers to the phenomenon in a discussion of early asas for aras in his Res
diuinae and cites the examples of the nomina of the Valerii and Furii.59 Festus makes
mention of the noun pignora, along with the Valerii, Aurelii and Papirii.60 Quintilian, in a
section on letters that undergo change (1.4.13), adds a series of nouns to Varro’s names.
Again there is no chronological information to indicate whether these authors were aware of
the timing of the shift. Livy is slightly more helpful. He provides several onomastic
examples of unrhotacized s in his first three books, all of which fall into the time period
specified by the epigraphic evidence, the last one coming in the text covering 458.61 At two
points he discusses the alternate spellings (3.4.1 and 3.8.2), the first time to caution against
thinking that a Fusius and a Furius were different men. This warning would make no sense
58 Perhaps unsurprisingly the Fasti also give an unusual form for the name of this man’s grandfather. The
Valerian nomen is usually given as Volesus (Livy 1.58.6, 2.8.6, 2.30.5, 3.25.2; Ovid ex pont. 3.2.105;
Asc. in Pis. 12; Juv. Sat. 8.182). The form with -u- may have been thought (perhaps correctly) to be the
original one. Influencing this may have been the popularity of the root of the name in central Italy,
especially in the first century. Valerius, RE 7A.2, 2292f, for possible Etruscan examples, as well as the
several men who appear with related names in the first century, e.g., the Voluseni of Caesar’s BG (3.5.2,
4.21, 41.23.5, 6.41.2) and Catullus’ least favorite author, Volusius (36). Around this same time, Vergil
also used Volusus for an otherwise unattested Volscian leader (Aen. 11.464). An authentic derivation of
Valesus from Volusus is possible, though usually not discussed.
59 Quoted in Servius Aen. 4.219, Macr. Sat. 3.2.8 and, without reference, Quint. Inst. Orat. 1.4.13. Ps.-
Placidus (Glossarium H.4) mentions only the asas and adds Lases.
60 22L, 232L, with the Papirii appearing in the latter only through a near complete reconstruction of the
locus impossibilis at 232L, line 22.
61 1.24.6, 1.58.6, 2.18.6, 2.19.2, 2.28.1, 2.30.5, 2.30.9, 2.31.8, 3.4.1, 3.8.2, and 3.25.2.
35
if widely available sources did not so name this mid-fifth-century Roman, and it suggests
that these sources had engendered some confusion. It is still possible, however, that learned
authors had themselves modified rhotacized names in order to give the impression of
antiquity to their texts, instead of reflecting authentic early sources.
Two other references are chronologically much more specific. In the first, Cicero
claims that L. Papirius Crassus, the dictator of 340, was the first in his gens to make the
change from s to r: …L. Papirium Crassum, qui primum Papisius est vocari desitus (ad
fam. 9.21.2).62 This time frame is consistent with the second reference, in which
Pomponius attributes the change from s to r, for nomina at least, to Appius Claudius
Caecus: idem Appius Claudius…R litteram invenit, ut pro Valesiis Valerii essent et pro
Fusiis Furii (D. 1.2.2.36).63 Pomponius appears to combine the popular passage of Varro
mentioned above with a piece of information about Caecus. In fact Caecus’ reform would
have been primarily orthographic since the spoken language had long lost [s] in this
context.64 The written language had merely preserved the traditional spelling for names,65
as it would continue to use C as the abbreviation for the praenomen Gaius long after the
introduction of the letter G in the third century.66
62 “…L. Papirus Crassus, who first ceased to be called ‘Papisius’”. It is remarkable that the earliest
epigraphic example of this phenomenon (see above) occurs in the name of a member of this very gens.
63 “The same Appius Claudius…discovered the letter R, so that they were ‘Valerii’ instead of ‘Valesii’, and
‘Furii’ instead of ‘Fusii’.” invenit is strange here, especially since Pomponius’ example shows that what he
is referring to is not r in general but only from rhotacized intervocalic s. Contra C. Cichorius, de fastis
consularibus antiquissimis, I. B. Hirschfeld, Leipzig (1886), p. 175, since both Cicero and Pomponius are
not clear on exactly what the men they mention were responsible for, their remarks need not be considered
contradictory.
64 Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften, p. 94 n. 234, places the shift in pronunciation at least as early as
400, based on a non-onomastic example from Falerii (p. 273 with n. 685).
65 Such conservatism can also be seen in the names of deities. For example, the god remains Numisius
Martius, e.g., CIL I2. 32–33 dated to the last part of the third century by Coarelli (R. Benedetto, et al.,
Roma medio repubblicana: Aspetti culturali di Roma ad del lazio nei secoli IV e III a. C., “L’Erma” di
Bretschneider, Roma (1977)), long after even the names of ordinary individuals had changed. Wachter,
Altlateinische Inschriften, p. 346, suggests that the divinity, with an un-Latin name, is foreign.
66 Literary and epigraphic evidence appear to agree on this; R. Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften, p. 324f.
36
It is tempting to interpret a comment of Martianus Cappella concerning Caecus’
distaste for the letter z as further evidence for Caecus having made this reform: Z idcirco
Appius Claudius detestatur, quod dentes mortui dum exprimitur imitatur (de rhetorica
3.261).67 We might better think that it was the sound of z, and not the rather trivial cosmetic
reason given, that resulted in Caecus’ dislike of the letter. Then, since [z] was in all
probability the intermediate sound in the transition from [s] to [r],68 a rejection of this letter
based on an objection to its sound would be consistent with Pomponius’ comments about
Caecus’ use of r. Since there is no evidence that the ancients were aware of the connection
between [z] and the transition from s to r, this is unlikely to have been a deliberate reference
by Capella to rhotacism. Unfortunately there are several problems with this hypothesis.
Most importantly we do not know what the sound of z was at this time.69 Greek had in
most cases evolved to a voiced sibilant, having lost its original affricate nature.70 The exact
nature of Etruscan z is unclear (if it was even consistent over the entire region in which
Etruscan was spoken), but its predominant feature seems to have been use in a voiced
environment. When z was re-introduced to the Latin alphabet in the first century, it had the
same value as the Greek letter it was meant to represent, [z], but that is of little help in
discovering the earlier usage. Martianus Cappella’s own intentions are also unclear because,
like other grammarians, he describes z as an affricate, “a et
componitur”, despite its by
then centuries-old identity as a simple voiced sibilant.71
67 “Appius Claudius cursed the letter Z because, when formed, it resembled the teeth of a corpse.”
68 C. D. Buck, Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and
London (1933), p. 133; Sihler, New comparative grammar, §173, p. 172–173.
69 Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften, §18–20, p. 43–50, offers the most complete discussion of z.
70 E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik, C. H. Beck, Munich (1934), p. 329.
71 Cappella further ignores the contemporary value for z when he writes: “duplices autem sunt X et Z”
(3.276). Whether z makes position metrically is a separate issue. Cf. the discussion of z and other letters in,
e.g., Velius Longus de orth. 7.50.8f.
37
It is possible that it was not a pronunciation that Caecus disliked, but the simple use
of the letter. This does not resolve the difficulty because, while the letter does appear in a
mid-fourth century Latin abecedarium,72 we have no examples (apart from the dubious one
of the carmen saliare) of z being used in Latin words before the first-century re-adoption of
the letter.73 Given this, the reasons for its inclusion in the fourth-century alphabet must be
considered. If there was any rationality to the creation of a Latin alphabet from a Greek or
Etruscan model by eliminating some letters and creating others (e.g., f), then there must have
been a good reason for including z in the fourth-century abecedarium. While we do not
know the date of the creation of that 21-letter alphabet, z would seem to have been in use at
that time, though perhaps only for foreign (Etruscan?) words, a usage which would find a
parallel in the later use of z in the Latin alphabet for Greek words, and perhaps to be
expected in a city like Rome whose inhabitants and allies would have given ample
opportunity for writing out foreign names.74 Whatever the case, by the third century, z was
deemed expendable and was replaced by g (purportedly by Spurius Carvilius75 ). That g
replaced z and did not find a place after c, from which it was derived, or at the end of the
alphabet, where the new letters were placed in the first century, strongly suggests that z was
in the alphabet up to the time of the adoption of g, when it was replaced.76 Some have
72 L. Gasperini, Roma medio repubblicana:, p. 71–72, M. Lejeune, “Notes de linguistique italique
XXXVII: Mézence, d’un zêta à l’autre”, REL 66, 50–54 (1988); and Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften,
§13a, p. 32.
73 “Cozuelodorieso…”, Varro LL 7.24; oddly the accompanying text refers to s and not z; Wachter,
Altlateinische Inschriften, p. 49–50. T. V. Buttrey, Cosa: The Coins, MAAR 34, L. U. Jupadre, L’Aquila
(1980), p. 22–24, has convincingly argued that the letter that sometimes appears to be written as a z on the
Cosan type II bronze half-litra issue is really a retrograde s. Of course the number of inscriptions from the
early period is small, but the lack of mention of the letter by the grammarians is significant.
74 Lejeune, Mézence, p. 53 suggests that z may have been considered by the Romans an Etruscan letter and
one whose pronunciation required a sound unknown in Latin.
75 Plutarch Rom. Qu. 55 (p. 277 D); Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften, §138–142, p. 324–325.
76 L. Havet pointed this out already in 1878: “Sur Appius Claudius et Spurius Carvilius”, RdPh 2, 15–18;
J. A. Bundgård, “Why did the art of writing spread to the West?: Reflexions on the alphabet of Marsiliana”,
AnRom 3, 11–72 (1965), for a discussion of the maintenance of unused letters in an alphabet.
38
therefore suggested that Caecus was also responsible for the replacement and that the
addition of g and the elimination of z were one and the same act,77 but Martianus
Cappella’s remark cannot be taken that far. No ancient source connects Caecus with the
creation of g, and the coincidence between Caecus’ concern for rhotacism, the likely
existence of [z] in Latin words with this feature, and Martianus Cappella’s comments about
the letter that came to represent that sound make a tantalizing combination, but one that must
finally be considered inconclusive. In the end, Caecus’ concern for spelling is perhaps best
linked with the record-keeping duties associated with his tenure as censor.78
In sum, the versions of Cicero and Pomponius that ascribe the change to the late
fourth century (as well as Livy’s practice) are consistent with the epigraphic evidence and
seem to reflect accurate information. Such knowledge would have been impossible without
contemporary fourth-century records. Either these records were preserved or accurate
observations of them were. Since interest in the spelling of names and other words is an
antiquarian vice, it seems extremely likely that it was the texts themselves that were
preserved until the rise of antiquarianism in the late second century, nearly the time of
Cicero and Varro, and not such notices about them. In either case, there is evidence for the
preservation of detailed textual information from the fourth century.79
Text 3: The Legal tradition and the lex Valeria de provocatione of 300
Apart from the beginning of Ennius’ poetic rendition and two possible Greek
translations, Caecus’ speech against peace with Pyrrhus is not extant. The evidence of
77 E.g., Havet again in 1878.
78 G. B. Perini, “Le ‘Riforme’ ortografiche latine di età repubblicana”, Aion 5, 141–169 (1983); though F.
D’Ippolito, Giuristi e sapienti in Roma arcaica, Biblioteca di cultura moderna 931, Editori Laterza, Roma
(1986), ascribes more significance to it, as discussed below, p. 117–119.
79 Quintilian attests one process by which older forms were lost from texts: quae [sc. unusual forms in older
authors] in veteribus libris reperta mutare imperiti solent, et dum librariorum insectari volunt inscientiam,
suum confitentur (Inst. Orat. 9.4.39) (“…which forms, when discovered in old books, the inexperienced
tend to change, and while wanting to censure the ignorance of the copyists, they show their own.”).
39
rhotacism in names offers a few epigraphic examples as well as ancient secondary
references to the practice, but it is the text of a law of 300 which offers a relatively lengthy
example of textual survival.
The textual tradition concerning the laws of Rome appears to be partly separate
from other traditions.80 Witness Pomponius’ frequent reference to otherwise unknown
events or versions of events, like Caecus’ "discovery" of rhotacism: hunc etiam actiones
scripsisse traditum est primum de usurpationibus, qui liber non exstat: idem Appius
Claudius, qui videtur ab hoc processisse, R litteram invenit (D 1.2.2.36). Pomponius
presents Caecus’ discovery as likely emanating from his work on a publication de
usurpationibus, a title which is itself otherwise unattested. Whether or not this tradition was
entirely independent, legal events may be seen to form the core of the annalistic record of
the struggle of the orders. As presented in Livy, this centuries-long process is marked by
continuous legal action. Rogationes, leges and plebescita are attested at every phase;
significant events are defined by them. Even the first major episode of legislative activity in
the Republic, the creation of the decemviri legibus scribundis, was connected with the
struggle.
If the legal texts which the Romans considered truly archaic were in fact widely
known, and Cicero says that as a school boy he learned by heart the Twelve Tables (de leg.
2.59.1), citations by Cicero and others also make clear that the language of the text had
been updated from its original form.81 Given the evidence of rhotacism, a change that
affected the basic sounds of the Latin language, it is not surprising to learn that other
linguistic changes, e.g., in vocabulary and syntax, occurred as well. These changes were not
always understandable to the Romans, as Cicero’s mention of Aelius’ and Acilius’
80 M. H. Crawford, Roman statutes, Bulletin of the institute of classical studies supplement 64, Institute of
classical studies, University of London, London (1996), p. 25–34, on the publication, archiving and
diffusion of legal texts in ancient Rome.
81 Crawford, Statutes, p. 571.
40
ignorance of the exact meaning of lessum in the Tables indicates (de leg. 2.23.59). Since
confusion obscured the meaning of parts of the Twelve Tables, the most famous of early
legislation, a fortiori it affected less monumental legislation, which would have been less
important and therefore less well studied.82 This would help to explain the incomplete
differentiation between nearly identical laws (e.g., the several leges de plebescitis) and the
difficulties reconciling the force of laws as reported by the ancients with their apparent
effects as modern scholarship sees them (e.g., the laws guaranteeing plebeians access to the
consulate).
Although lack of understanding of earlier texts may sometimes have been
acknowledged, as in the case of Aelius and Acilius and of the scholars enlisted by Polybius
to help with the first Rome-Carthage treaty (3.22), at other times this ignorance was surely
either concealed or unrecognized.83 Livy appears to provide an example of the latter in his
discussion of the lex Valeria de provocatione of 300. The third of the Valerian laws on
appeal, this is the only one of the three accepted as historical by the vast majority of
scholars:
eodem anno M. Valerius consul de provocatione legem tulit diligentius
sanctam. tertio ea tum post reges exactos lata est, semper a familia eadem.
causam renovandae saepius haud aliam fuisse reor quam quod plus
paucorum opes quam libertas plebis poterat. Porcia tamen lex sola pro tergo
civium lata videtur, quod gravi poena, si quis verberasset necassetve civem
romanum, sanxit; Valeria lex cum eum qui provocasset virgis caedi securique
necari vetuisset, si quis adversus ea fecisset, nihil ultra quam "improbe
factum" adiecit. id, qui tum pudor hominum erat, visum, credo, vinculum
satis validum legis: nunc vix serio ita minetur quisquam.
(10.9.3–6)
82 The lapis niger inscription, incomprehensible by the time it was covered in the late Republic, may be an
extreme example; F. Coarelli, Il Foro romano, Edizioni Quasar, Rome (1983), vol. 1, p. 161–199.
83 Aulus Gellius recounts an episode of just such a misunderstanding and its correction: nam longa aetas
verba atque mores veteres oblitteravit, quibus verbis moribusque sententia legum comprehensa est (20.1.6)
(“For long years have erased old words and customs, by which words and customs the meaning of laws is
understood”).
41
Livy compares this law to a lex Porcia de provocatione which must be dated over a century
later (perhaps to 198).84 A large chronological leap in the narrative is unusual for Livy, and,
coupled with the subject matter, suggests that he is drawing for this comment on a jurist, i.e.,
on the parallel legal tradition.
The passage is so frequently misunderstood that an examination of its translation is
worthwhile:
In the same year, M. Valerius the consul carried a law of appeal that was
very carefully written. This same law was then carried for the third time since
the expulsion of the kings and always by the same family. I think that the
reason for so often renewing the law was nothing other than this, that the
power of a few was more effective than the liberty of the plebs. The Porcian
law, however, seems to be the only one passed for the protection of the
person of citizens, because it punished with a severe penalty anyone who
whipped with rods or killed a Roman citizen; the Valerian law, although it
forbade scourging with rods or killing with an ax anyone who made an
appeal, said nothing more than that it was “wrongly done” if anyone acted
contrary to this. Such was the modesty of men then that this seemed, I
believe, a sufficiently strong legal sanction. Now hardly in a serious manner
could anyone make a threat like this.
The first problem with the interpretation of this text is with the meaning of diligentius
sanctam and is purely syntactic. When a law is the object of the verb sancire, the phrase
means “to enact a law” (OLD s.v. sancio (2), where this passage is cited). Legal sanctions
are referred to either when a law is the subject of the verb, in which case the penalty is
usually given in the ablative (e.g., from this same passage, quod gravi poena…sanxit [lex];
also cited in the OLD entry (5)), or when those who pass the law are the subject of sancire
and the law is either not mentioned or appears in the ablative (e.g., Livy 7.16.8, 34.4.7).
Since sanctam ought therefore to refer to the law’s passage and not its sanctions,85 Livy’s
phrase is difficult to understand: grammatically its action comes before that of the main
verb, tulit, but in practice the passing (sancire) of a law can only follow its introduction
84 G. Rotondi, Leges publicae populi romani, G. Olms, Hildesheim (1966), p. 268–269; A. H. McDonald,
“Rome and the Italian confederacy”, JRS 34, 12–33 (1944), p. 19.
85 Contra J. Bleicken, “Ursprung und Bedeutung der Provocation”, ZSS 76, 324–377 (1959), p. 346, n. 51;
R. A. Bauman, “The Lex Valeria de provocatione of 300 B.C.”, Hist 22, 34–47 (1973), p. 35; B. O.
Foster, trans., Livy, Loeb classical library, London/New York (1926), ad loc.
42
(ferre), or, if tulit itself refers to passage of a law, as it sometimes does (OLD ad loc. (28a)),
passage of a law cannot logically follow itself. In the absence of any ambiguity in the
manuscript tradition, it is best to consider this an example of less than accurate use of legal
vocabulary by Livy and to treat sanctam as equivalent to scriptam. Use of the modifier
diligentius adds weight to this argument. The various forms of diligenter are often used with
regard to laws, but generally to say that they are carefully written, scriptam, insofar as, in
order to be effective, they cover most or all variables that the law will encounter, the more
explicitly, the better:86
…ita lex diligenter perscripta demonstrabitur, ita cautum una quaque de re,
ita, quod oportuerit, exceptum, ut minime conveniat quicquam in tam diligenti
scriptura praeteritum arbitrari (Cicero de inv. 2.135)
…it will be shown that the law has been so carefully composed, a warning
made concerning every matter, exceptions made where needed, that it hardly
makes sense to think that anything has been skipped over in such careful
writing.
Cicero also confirms that sanctus does not necessarily refer to sanctions: <cum>
sanctius et firmius id videatur esse, quod apertius scriptum sit (de inv. 2.147).87 In this
case, the law’s sanctions are not at issue, but only its clarity; it is on account of this that the
law is “more valid or effective.” Cicero uses the word to the same effect elsewhere when
comparing new laws to old: sicuti multa sunt severius scripta quam in antiquis legibus et
sanctius (pro Rab. 8).88 The multa in question are themselves the sanctions, so here too
sanctius cannot here mean anything like “better outfitted with sanctions.”
There are other cases in which sanctus means simply “in effect, valid” and has
nothing to do with a law’s sanctions. Festus appears to define the term in this way in his
discussion of the etymology of sagmina:
86 Cicero de inv. 2.135 (perscripta); in Pis. 90; in Verr. II 5.28 (scriptam); Frontinus de aqu. 128.3; Gai.
3.47 (scripta); Quintilian Decl. min. 329.2, where the law and its penalties are mentioned separately.
87 “Since that seems to be more effective and better established which is more clearly written.”
88 “Just as many things are more harshly written than in old laws, and more effectively.”
43
sagmina vocantur verbenae, id est herbae purae, quia ex loco sancto
arcebantur…; vel a sanciendo, id est confirmando. (414–416L)
The sacred plants are called sagmina, that is, pure herbs, because they are
gathered in a place that is sanctus;…or from “sanctioning”, that is, making
effective.
Using similar language, Servius Danielis agrees: ‘numen’ ergo ‘sanctum’ ut ‘leges sanctas’
dicimus, id est firmas, a sanciendo (Aen. 8.382).89 The firm- stem is used in these cases in
its legal sense of “established or binding in law, valid” (e.g., OLD sv firmus (11b)).
A few later texts appear to contradict the position just argued, but they can be safely
put aside. All seem to be based at least in part on a reading of Festus (or the antiquarian
tradition more broadly) which includes both the passage quoted above and likely, based on
references to city walls being sancti, another on the difference between sacrum, sanctum
and religiosum (281 M).90 In the Digest, the third-century A.D. jurist Ulpian is quoted:
proprie dicimus sancta, quae neque sacra neque profana sunt, sed sanctione
quadam confirmata: ut leges sanctae sunt, sanctione enim quadam sunt
subnixae. quod enim sanctione quadam subnixum est, id sanctum est, etsi
deo non sit consecratum: (D. 1.8.9.3)
We properly call things “sancta” which are neither sacred nor profane, but
supported by some sanction; as laws are “sanctae” because they are
supported by some sanction. For whatever is supported by some sanction,
that is “sanctum”, even if it is not consecrated to a god.
The passage appears to be a case of poor etymologizing, as Ulpian correctly rejects
sagmina, wrongly replacing it with sanctione. He also extends the basic sense of
comfirmare found in Festus by adding sanctione quadam confirmata.91 In this he may
have misunderstood a statement similar to another by Festus:
89 “We say that the numen is sanctum just as we say that laws are sanctae, that is, effective, from
‘sanctioning’.” Paraphrasing Festus or Verrius himself? K. Büchner, Vergilius, RE, 8A.2, 1473; A. Dihle
Verrius, RE, 8A.2, 1636–1645; also Frier, LAPM, p. 27–37, for an example of Servius reading Verrius.
90 Though Marcian (D. 1.8.8) cites a reference by Cassius to sanctos muros in Sabinus, who himself
postdates Verrius.
91 The entry for sanctum in Festus (420L) is severely lacunose. It does refer to sanctio and inrogation. For a
modern reading in agreement with Ulpian, see C. Gioffredi, “La ‘Sanctio’ della legge e la ‘perfectio’ della
norma giuridica”, Archivio Penale 2(1), 166–185 (1946).
44
Siquidem quod sacrum est, idem lege aut instituto maiorum sanctum esse
puta[n]t, <ut> violari id sine poena non possit. (350L)
Assuming that something is “sacrum”, they think that, either because of a
law or by the action of our ancestors, it has been outlawed, so that it is not
possible for it to be violated without penalty.
sanctum here is applied to an object or an act. This is an example of the extremely common
construction lege sanctum est…, mentioned above and seen for example in Cicero: …id
quoque ne fieret lege sanctum est (de leg. 2.60). Assuming a sanction (not necessarily a
valid assumption), what I have translated in Festus as “outlawed” is very close to “fitted
with a penalty”. Ulpian seems to make this leap and then mistakenly extend the usage to
laws, so that lex sancta est becomes synonymous with id sanctum est.92
Ulpian’s argument also does not take into account the leges imperfectae, just
alluded to, which have no sanctiones, yet are still sanctae.93 Also the use of sancire,
whence the adjectival form sancta, to indicate the passage of laws is a result of the original
religious nature of the creation of laws, as are the sanctiones themselves. The relationship
is one of common descent, not original and derivative. Ulpian’s etymology possibly had its
origins in an earlier time, but there is no earlier text that ascribes to this third-century
definition. The closest republican parallels are the texts of Livy and another of Cicero
which can be better understood according to a definition of “enacted, made valid”. During a
discussion of how to proceed in cases where an act violates more than one law, Cicero
considers various criteria by which one law ought to be upheld over another and soon
comes to the following:
deinde, in utra lege, si non optemperatum sit, poena adiciatur aut in utra
maior poena statuatur; nam maxime conservanda est ea, quae diligentissime
sancta est; (de inv. 2.146)
92 Interestingly the OLD entry for sanctus refers to this passage from Ulpian under definitions (ad loc. (1e)),
but quotes it only as far as the first colon, omitting the reference to leges sanctae.
93 See the discussion of leges imperfectae below, n. 110.
45
Then [consider] in which law of the two a penalty is added if the law is not
obeyed, or in which of the two a greater penalty is set forth; for that law most
of all ought to be upheld which has been most carefully enacted.
Cicero judges diligentia by the criterion mentioned above: completeness of the law in order
to achieve efficacy. The scale is relative: a law with a penalty has taken more care in
preventing the outlawed offense than a law without one,94 and a law with a harsh penalty has
taken more care than a law with a mild one. The more complete law is the more relevant and
therefore to be preferred, just as the newer law is to be preferred to the older: utra lex
posterius lata sit; nam postrema quaeque gravissima est (de inv. 2.145).95 There is no
need to have sancta refer specifically to the law’s sanctiones.
Two other definitions exist, but are less relevant than Ulpian’s. Marcian, perhaps
slightly later than Ulpian, writes: sanctum est quod ab iniuria hominum defensum atque
munitum est. sanctum autem dictum est a sagminibus (D. 1.8.8).96 This lacks an explicit
reference to sanctiones, though it perhaps suggests them, and returns to Festus’ derivation
from sagmina. Still later Isidore, in now familiar language, separates the sanctio from the
act of confirmare, like Festus, but, agreeing with Ulpian, includes the poena as an integral
part of the meaning: sancire est autem confirmare et inrogatione poenae ab iniuria
defendere; sic et leges sanctae et muri sancti esse dicuntur (Etym. 15.4.2).97 Notably the
etymologies of both Festus and Ulpian are rejected by Isidore, who had already supplied his
own: sanctum autem a sanguine hostiae nuncupatum (Etym. 15.4.2).98
94 See the discussion of leges imperfectae below, n. 110.
95 “…and which of the two laws is more recent, for the most recent law is the most relevant.”
96 “Anything is ‘sanctum’ which is protected against injury from men. ‘Sanctum’ however is derived from
‘sagmen’.”
97 “‘Sancire’ is however to make sure and to defend from injury by the addition of a legal penalty; thus both
laws are said to be ‘sanctae’ and walls ‘sancti’.” Isidore may perhaps be distinguishing two separate
conditions, confirmare and ab iniuria defendere, in which case he does not agree with Ulpian. The definition
of sanctus at Just. Inst. 2.1.10 may be similar though even less explicit than Marcian.
98 “‘Sanctum’ however is derived from the ‘sanguine’ (blood) of the sacrificial victim.”
46
Returning to Livy’s text, diligentius also, like saepius two sentences later, ought to
be translated as an emphatic and not a comparative because it has no stated standard of
comparison; it is only in the following sentence that something to which this law might be
compared appears. While it might be argued that, as is usually assumed, these older
Valerian laws on provocatio are to be supplied as a standard, that Livy proceeds to remind
the reader of the passage of those very laws immediately after mentioning this latest law
strongly suggests that he did not expect the reader to have them in mind. After all, it had
been several years since Livy or his audience had read the last reference to the leges
Valeriae in book 5.99 It is the (not unreasonable) expectation of a comparison with the older
laws, generated by re-reading, that leads to a reading of a comparative and not the language
itself.
This misunderstanding leads to the other common mistake of connecting improbe
factum with diligentius sanctam.100 Livy himself does not explicitly join the phrases, but
instead makes two separate statements, separated by several sentences: first that this new
law was very (or more) carefully written; second that the only thing that followed the
description of behavior which it outlawed, i.e., in the place where the sanction was to come,
was the phrase improbe factum. It may be that Livy does mean to connect the two, but if so,
he is remarkably circumspect about it. On the other hand, it is clearly possible that
diligentius sanctam does refer to something other than the sanction, perhaps to new
wording that expanded the right of appeal to the acts of dictators,101 and that Livy is simply
quoting his source incompletely. Given his already noted odd usage, it may even be that
99 T. J. Luce, “Livy’s first decade”, TAPA 96, 206–240 (1965), on Livy’s publication dates.
100R. Develin, “Provocatio and Plebiscites: Early roman legislation and the historical tradition”, Mnem
31(1), 45–60 (1978), p. 54–55; E. S. Staveley, “Provocatio during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.”,
Hist 3, 412–428 (1954), p. 414; Stuart Jones, in CAH 7, ed. S. A. Cook et al., p. 447–448, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge (1964), p. 447.
101Bauman, Lex Valeria.
47
Livy did not understand why the law was so described by his source, but felt compelled to
include the phrase anyway.102
The modern misunderstanding may be compounded by difficulty in understanding
adiecit. Here it does not mean that this latest lex Valeria added something extra to the
sanctions of previous laws, but that improbe factum was the only sanction provided (OLD
s.v. adicio (3) and the passage from Cicero just discussed de inv. 2.146). Both since
diligentius is neither a comparative nor refers exclusively to the sanctions of the third lex
Valeria and since Livy identifies all three leges Valeriae, which suggests that he is referring
to all of them when he writes in the singular: Valeria lex cum…vetuisset…
adiecit (just as he had when he wrote: tertio ea tum post reges exactos lata est), it may be
that improbe factum was the original sanction in the 509 law.103
That Livy himself was confused about the law is suggested by his lack of discussion
on how the law differed from its predecessors, especially since it was common practice in
Roman law to modify old laws without explicitly mentioning them, thereby rendering them
irrelevant or invalid.104 Livy was at least aware that this process of modification could occur,
as he writes of the second lex Valeria:
aliam deinde consularem legem de prouocatione, unicum praesidium
libertatis, decemuirali potestate euersam, non restituunt modo, sed etiam in
posterum muniunt sanciendo nouam legem, ne quis ullum magistratum sine
prouocatione crearet; (3.55.4–5)
[The consuls] then not only restored another consular law on the right of
appeal, the only safeguard of liberty, which had been overturned by the
power of the decemvirs, but even protected it for the future by passing a
102Below, p. 48–49, on the comments on the novelty of the leges Porciae by both Livy and Cicero.
103So T. Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt (1961 reprint
of 1899 original), p. 632, n. 4. I am not arguing here for the historicity of the first two leges Valeriae. All
that is necessary is that Livy or his source was able to view texts that he believed were the texts of the
earlier laws. As Livy’s source clearly post-dates the lex Porcia (below in text), these texts, if fraudulent,
could have been created any time after the first quarter or so of the second century.
104Ulpian Reg. 3; Cicero de rep. 3.33; de inv. 2.145f; Festus 61L; Crawford, Statutes, p. 11–13, for
discussion.
48
new law preventing anyone from creating a magistrate against whom there
was no right of appeal.105
Not only did the second law repeat the provisions of the first, but, as the phrase ne quis
ullum magistratum sine prouocatione crearet indicates, it modified its predecessor by
forbidding the creation of any magistracies not subject to appeal.106 As this text shows,
even if the earlier two laws were invented, some distinctions were made between them in
order to give them credibility; the earlier two must therefore have differed from the third.
That is most likely what is meant by diligentius sanctam. In contrast Livy’s explanation of
repeated passage of the law: plus paucorum opes quam libertas plebis poterat, seems to
deny any novelty to the law, just as his comment that it was diligentius sanctam does not
refer to a novel sanction. Livy’s comparison of the laws with the lex Porcia, which provided
a harsh penalty for flogging or executing a Roman citizen, reinforces this idea. This law was
one of three Porcian laws on provocatio (Cicero de rep. 2.53–54),107 and seems not only to
have increased the penalty (or at least been specific about it) but also to have extended the
right to appeal to crimes that had only flogging, and not execution, as their penalty.108
Confusion about the nature of the law seems not to have been uncommon. Cicero, perhaps
using the same source, agrees with Livy that the only novelty of the leges Porciae was the
addition of sanctions:
neque vero leges Porciae, quae tres sunt trium Porciorum, ut scitis, quicquam
praeter sanctionem attulerunt novi. (de rep. 2.54).
105Livy most often uses creare magistratum to mean “make [someone] a magistrate”, but that magistratus
should here be translated “magistracy” cannot be ruled out.
106It is perhaps significant that consuls are then replaced by tribuni militari consulari potestate, probably
an already existing office now invested with new powers, against which there was no right of appeal, for 51
of the next 78 (Varronian) years.
107A. H. McDonald, Italian confederacy. The other two broadened the applicability of the right of appeal,
one to citizens in all of Roman territory and the other to cases militiae.
108J. Martin’s suggestion, “Die Provocation in der klassischen und späten Republik”, Herm 98, 72–96
(1970), p. 89–90, that this law did not explicitly refer to provocatio but simply forbade whipping in general
is undermined by the (likely) subsequent Porcian law extending appeal to cases militiae, and, as he notes in
his text, the continued reference to provocatio in the sources. If Martin is correct, then the mistaken
understanding of Livy and Cicero is even more remarkable.
49
But neither did the Porcian laws, which were introduced by three Porcii, as
you know, add anything new besides the sanction.
However this was surely not the case for all three of them since a coin of 104 minted by
Porcius Laeca bears a legend recalling his ancestor’s legislation: PROVOCO, and appears
to refer to the expansion of the right of appeal to citizens anywhere in Roman territory.109
Since both Cicero and Livy would have had the text of the law to read, just as they had that
of the lex Valeria, that text must have used language that was incompletely understood by
them, just as the lex Valeria did. By the late Republic, all these laws had been effectively
superseded by the lex Sempronia of 123 which required that all capital cases involving a
Roman citizen be decided by the people, so it is perhaps unsurprising that neither Cicero
nor Livy was fully conversant with their exact natures and original novelty.
Livy explicitly states that the more recent Porcian law imposed a gravis poena,
while the Valeria only declared the deed improbe factum. His subsequent explanatory
comment confirms that he and possibly his source were confused by the language of the
law:110 id [sc. quod nihil ultra quam "improbe factum" adiecit], qui tum pudor hominum
erat, visum, credo, vinculum satis validum legis: nunc vix serio ita minetur quisquam.
Improbus in this case is not a moral but a legal term.111 It maintained its legal significance
as late as the Digest.112 The same phrase appears in the Oscan law of the Tabula Bantina
109M. H. Crawford, Roman republican coinage, second edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
(1983), 301, p. 313–314; McDonald, Italian confederacy, p. 19; Martin, Provocation, p. 88.
110I do not agree with Develin, Provocatio, that, like its two predecessors, the lex Valeria of 300 was
intended to have no penalty at all attached to it. If the law did not provide a penalty for the act which it
outlawed, it resembled the class of leges imperfectae, described by Ulpian (Reg. 1–2), which neither voided
the act they outlawed nor provided a penalty for the guilty party. These cases however are generally limited
to the area of civil law (Rotondi, Leges, p. 154; M. Kaser, Über Verbotsgesetze und verbotswidrige
Geschäfte im römischen Recht, Österrechische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische
Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 312, Österrechische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna (1977), p. 12), while
here we are dealing with constitutional law; it is difficult rescind a capital punishment. It is more likely that
this law did provide a sanction that Livy or his source did not understand. Such misunderstanding also
seems a better solution to Develin’s other example, the laws on plebescites.
111Mommsen, Strafrecht, p. 632, n. 4.
112E.g., Gai. 2.52–55; D. 3.2.4.5; A. Berger, “Encyclopedic dictionary of Roman law”, TAPA 43(2)
(1953), and Kleinfeller, improbus, RE 18, 1212–1213.
50
(6.30): amprufid facus, apparently with the meaning “wrongly or improperly made”,
referring to the creation of a magistrate.113 The respective texts of the laws are overall quite
similar:114
suae pis [contrud exeic post exac medd]is
<f>acus <f>ust
si quis [adversus ea
posthac magistratus
factus fuerit],
Lex Valeria: si quis adversus ea
fecisset,
Tabula Bantina:
izic amprifud facus
estud.
is improbe factus esto.
improbe factum [esto].
In a legal context, the improb- stem seems to refer to actions that are performed
without legal sanction. So improbare refers to the condemnation of agreements and the
“disapprobation of a person who is considered to be unqualified for certain duties…or
works”.115 Likewise an improbus litigator acts in bad faith, knowing that he is wrong and
therefore not qualified to bring a suit against someone else. A deed done improbe then
would not be legally valid, or would lie outside what is legally proper for someone to do. In
the lex Valeria, this would mean that the acts of the magistrate after he had denied the appeal
lacked the protection normally afforded by his imperium, i.e., he was subject to
prosecution.116 The lex parieti faciundo of 105 (CIL 1.6983.11–12) includes both probum
and improbum as technical terms, and the verbal forms improbare and probare, which also
appear there, always retained their legal meaning.117 In 67 Piso seems to have used the
113C. D. Buck, Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian, Ginn and Co., Boston (1904), p. 239; Crawford,
Statutes, p. 271–292, where several of the following points are made, though much abbreviated.
114Oscan and Latin texts, including suppletions, of the Tabula Bantina taken from Crawford, Statutes, p.
278 and 281, respectively.
115Berger, Dictionary, s.v. improbus, p. 495.
116Mommsen, Strafrecht, p. 167, 632–633. It is also possible, though less likely, that the improbe was to
be taken as a moral sentence, one which referred to the censor’s powers over senatorial membership, granted
by the lex Ovinia (which is of unknown date, though often placed in or shortly before 312, when Appius
Claudius Caecus performed a lectio senatus; below, p. 83–84); Bauman, Lex Valeria; Bleicken, Ursprung,
p. 361. In agreement with my view, Gioffredi, “La ‘Sanctio’”, p. 181: “È…erroneo considerare come
sanzioni puramente morali «sacer esto» ed «improbe factum».”
117S. D. Martin, The Roman jurists and the organization of private buildings in the late Republic and early
Empire, Collection Latomus 204, Latomus, Brussels (1989), for use in building contracts; D. 19.2 passim.
On the inequivalence of probus and improbus, Hellegouarc’h, Vocabulaire, p. 528–530.
51
same phrase when he argued that the tribune Cornelius’ attempt to read the text of a bill
after another tribune had imposed his veto was invalidly done: cum improbe fieri C. Piso
consul vehementer quereretur (Asc. pro Corn. 58C; likely improbe factum in direct
discourse).118 Whether the phrase still by this time had a technical meaning is unclear. The
related phrase improbus intestabilisque, originally from the Twelve Tables,119 seems to
have been used by Sallust nearly 30 years after Piso’s complaint in a non-technical way to
impugn the behavior of Turpilius: nisi, quia illi in tanto malo turpis vita integra fama
potior fuit, improbus intestabilisque videtur (BJ 67).120
The importance of all this is that despite his own ignorance, Livy preserves the
results of a careful reading of the lex Valeria of 300. At least fragments of the law were
therefore available for such study at least as late as Livy’s time. It may be possible that such
a study was performed on a version of the lex Valeria that had been updated like the text of
the Twelve Tables, but even in that case the original text itself must have been available to a
later author for modernization. Ironically it is Livy’s ignorance that provides the wording
that allows us to conclude that he had an authentic text. Had he been a better legal scholar,
he might never have mentioned the improbe factum phrase. His confusion about its
meaning also strengthens the conclusion that it was original, for it is highly unlikely that he
or his source would replace the original wording of the sanction or invent new wording that
did not make sense in a legal context.
118“When C. Piso the consul strenuously complained that it was improperly done.” Probably arguing that
a tribunician veto was absolute, covering even fellow tribunes. B. A. Marshall, A Historical commentary
on Asconius, University of Missouri Press, Columbia (1985), p. 220, does not consider improbe fieri to be
a technical term but to refer to mos maiorum, and notes, p. 228, that Cicero chose not to make any
arguments about the nature of the tribunican veto.
119Crawford, Statutes, 8.11 = XII Tab. 8.22, p. 690.
120“In any case, because a wretched life was worth more to him in such dire straits than an untarnished
reputation, he seems to be utterly dishonorable.” G. M. Paul, A Historical commentary on Sallust’s
Bellum Jugurthinum, ARCA Classical and medieval texts, paper and monographs 13, Francis Cairns,
Liverpool (1984), p. 180, translates it and comments: “‘utterly dishonorable’; legal phraseology that had
passed into ordinary speech.” Oakley, Livy, p. 148, notes that the Roman historians tend to use technical
terms loosely.
52
Summary
I have tried in the three cases just examined to follow the second type of
historiographical model by steering clear of a discussion of transmission. However it
should be noted that, in contrast with the single sources of earlier scholarship, these
examples have no necessary connection to each other and very likely were independently
transmitted, being in nature rhetorical, documentary and epigraphic, and legal, respectively.
The question of how and in what form historians of the late Republic had access to
information from the mid-Republic is not answered by a demonstration, like that just given,
that texts survived from that earlier period to the late first century. What I hope to have
shown instead is that such information was in fact available and likely in a variety of places
and forms, with the result that some confidence should be placed in the later historical
accounts we now possess. Each of the three examples might suggest different kinds of nonnarrative sources which would have preserved information apart from the annalistic
tradition. Inscriptions can easily be seen to do this; examples of early rhetoric, as was
suggested already, may have been preserved in family archives, and the texts of laws, which
are reported throughout the history of the Republic, in compilations, perhaps maintained by
the pontiffs, or in archives like those of the aediles. As was suggested in the introduction,
the sources may indeed preserve accurate information, although wrongly interpreted in
ancient models. Dionysius’ unacceptable etymology for aborigines has much in common
with Livy’s improbe factum.
Ancient political groupings
The previous section provided some justification for the faith of historiographical
models of the second type in the data provided by the ancient sources. Those models also
were noted for their reliance on comparative approaches based on anthropological and
sociological research. Before considering an interesting case from the mid-Republic, the
examination of some anthropological research will be useful.
53
As the episode of Flavius’ aedileship discussed above demonstrates, groups played
an important part in Roman politics, both on the very large scale (e.g., patricians and
plebeians) and on the small (factiones). Ancient authors provide not only models of such
groupings, but also of their mode of interaction. Both Livy and Caesar frequently speak of
foreign nobiles and factiones.121 That they could apply such terms of Roman political
structures to non-Roman contexts strongly suggests that those structures were integral parts
of the prevalent late-republican Roman model of their own society, and that this model and
its vocabulary were simply extended to foreign societies that the Romans encountered.
Although the connotations of these terms when used in a Roman context seem to have made
them unsuitable for more frequent use, the use of factio to mean “faction, group, clique”122
implies that groups of politically active individuals were part of the late-republican model of
the state. Modern scholarship has struggled to come to an understanding of the compositon
and function of groups in Roman politics, and recent anthropological research suggests a
new model that might be adopted.
Prosopography and traditional Roman factional studies
Prosopography, “the investigation of the common background characteristics of a
group of actors in history by means of a collective study of their lives”123 rose to
popularity in the first part of this century as a method for studying various societies,
including that of ancient Rome. This came about in part as a result of dissatisfaction with
the previous generation’s wide-reaching theories, laid out in works like Mommsen’s
Römisches Staatsrecht and concentrating on institutions. Prospopography instead focused
121Above, p. 11 with n. 21.
122Seager, Factio, p. 56; P. A. Brunt, “Factions” in The Fall of the Roman Republic and related essays,
Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York (1988), p. 443–502.
123L. Stone, The Past and the present revisited, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and New York (1987),
from which much of the following discussion of prosopography is taken, p. 45.
54
on individuals and their interactions as explanatory mechanisms. Those studying ancient
Rome concentrated on the relatively small group of elites and placed most importance on
family ties, including gentile relations and marriage bonds, using them to account for
political motivations and alleging that some were so stable as to span generations. The
movement as a whole relied on massive databases, mainly lists, which had been compiled in
the preceding years and contained information on individuals of interest.124 Other
contemporary influences include the rise of behaviorism and the loss of faith in political
actors and in democracy at large.
Although Roman prosopography had its greatest early success in 1939 with Ronald
Syme’s The Roman revolution, in the last years of the 19th century and the beginning of
this century, Friedrich Münzer was the most prominent student of the prosopography of the
Roman world. His work included numerous articles in RE and culminated in Römische
Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien.125 in which he examined in some detail a number of
political groups which he called “factions”. Although accepted by some, most notably H.
H. Scullard,126 the approach, especially in its extreme emphasis on family ties and lack of
allowance for individual ambition or real political philosophy, was attacked, most
successfully by Brunt.127 In Brunt’s view, which rests almost exclusively on evidence
124Note the similar phase in American archaeology from the middle of the last century until the first world
war, described by G. R. Willey and J. A. Sabloff, A History of American archaeology, W. H. Freeman and
Co., New York (1980), as “classificatory-descriptive” and in which systematic description and classification
were prominent.
125 F. Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien, J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1920).
126H. H. Scullard, Roman politics, 200–150 B.C., second edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1973).
127E.g., Factions. Its most prominent supporter in recent years has been J. Briscoe, e.g., “Political
groupings in the middle Republic: A Restatement”, in Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History,
Collection Latomus 217, ed. Carl Deroux, p. 70–83, Latomus, Brussels (1992). Robert Develin, a major
recent detractor, especially in his own work on Roman office-holding, Patterns in office-holding 366–49
B.C., Collection Latomus 161, Latomus, Brussels (1979), is overly dismissive of much potential evidence
of elite political groupings, and, in The Practice of politics at Rome 366–167 B.C., Collection Latomus
188, Latomus, Brussels (1985), p. 325–328, offers a harsh critique of some of the anthropological work
about to be discussed in the text. Karl-J. Hölkeskamp offers a short critique of Münzer’s implicit use of an
inadequate model of the Roman state: “Conquest, competition and consensus: Roman expansion in Italy and
the rise of the nobilitas”, Hist 42, 12–39 (1993), p.12–18.
55
from the Gracchan period and later, there is little evidence for long-term alliances based on
any criteria, much less kinship. Instead groups “both smaller and less durable than those
posited by the school of Münzer” 128 can be expected to have formed around prominent
individuals. For the period before the Gracchi, Brunt saw little evidence for major political
conflict, limiting that to the challenges to senatorial power that arose after 133. Instead, in the
earlier Republic, “routine politics”, a term adopted from Christian Meier, dominated. Those
times in the first century when such routine was also present were, according to Brunt,
devoid of corroborating evidence for Münzer’s factions.
Brunt also stressed the mistaken exclusion of non-elites from Roman politics. In
such a context, the episode of Flavius in Livy is relevant, since, in the analysis of Livy’s
language, non-elites appear to have had an important role. Any new understanding of
ancient political groups would need therefore to leave more room for shifting alliances and
to account for the influence of non-elites. One starting place for the latter in Roman society
is provided by the ancient sources, which stress the importance of patronage in the
Republic.
Patronage
Group-making requires that bonds be formed between individuals, and for Romans
the most prevalent ways of doing this were clientela and amicitia, both widespread and well
respected practices. The former was a personal relationship between men of significantly
unequal status in which the more powerful man provided a service to the less powerful
through which the latter became obligated to him, although the obligation need not have
been fulfilled immediately. Amicitia on the other hand involved relationships between men
128Factions, p. 446.
56
of more or less equal status.129 Amici performed services for one another just as patron and
client did, and patronus-cliens and amicus-amicus relationships did not differ in kind.
Given the complexity of Roman society, especially as it expanded with the conquest of new
territory, members of the upper classes could either provide or receive the initial favor
depending on the situation.
The late-republican model of clientela seems to have so strongly incorporated the
notion of the social inequality of the individuals involved that when Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, who provides the only extant account of clientela in early Rome, writes of its
origins (RA 2.9f), he makes the strong and weak participants patricians and plebeians,
respectively, aligning this system of social obligation and inequality along the same lines as
the most archaic division of Roman society. In part as a result of this idealized denigration
of the client, the patron-client vocabulary is eschewed in cases of more influential clients and
the relationship described in the more palatable vocabulary of amicitia. As Richard Saller
has shown for the late Republic and early Empire, patrons avoided calling their obliged
partner cliens while, conversely, clients more frequently flattered their patrons with the
complimentary patronus.130
By considering clientela and amicitia as aspects of one phenomenon, I am following
recent anthropological models of patronage131 which, with an eye toward comparative
analysis, do not distinguish between different forms of patronage based on the status of
129The semantic field of amicitia was broad, stretching from true heartfelt friendship to politically
convenient tolerance; P. A. Brunt, “‘Amicitia’ in the late Roman Republic” in Fall of the Roman
Republic, p. 351–381.
130R. P. Saller, Personal patronage under the early Empire, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
(1982), p. 8–11.
131Work in patronage was particularly popular from the late 1960s to early 1980s. For the Roman world,
E. Badian. Foreign clientelae (264–70 B.C.), Clarendon Press, Oxford (1958), was an important early work.
Standard general works include E. Gellner and J. Waterbury, Patrons and clients in Mediterranean societies,
Center for Mediterranean Studies of the American Universities Field Staff, Duckworth, London and Hanover
(1977), and S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger, Patrons, clients, and friends: Interpersonal relations and the
structure of trust in society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York (1984); studies of
ancient Roman patronage culminated in A. Wallace-Hadrill, Patronage in ancient society, Routledge,
London and New York (1989).
57
participants in a particular relationship. T. Johnson and C. Dandeker in particular have
emphasized the importance of a systems-level approach to patronage systems, especially
that of ancient Rome.132 In their model, Roman politics and society at large were permeated
by a network of interlocking relationships of mutual obligation, and the relative status of
individuals in any single relationship was of less importance than the system as a whole,
since it was the sum of all such relationships that defined the way that Roman society
functioned.
Our understanding of the Roman patronage system of the mid-Republic is
significantly limited by the paucity of relevant information provided in the sources.
Drummond’s study of the subject demonstrates the difficulty in drawing conclusions based
on the extant ancient references, although he suggests that evidence may exist for upperclass patronage in the groups of adherents called sodales.133 However, if we accept the
results of comparative analyses of patronage,134 we can make a few broad assumptions.
First patronage serves to strengthen mainly vertical ties in society, uniting as it does
members of the upper and lower classes; in so doing, it inhibits the formation of strong
horizontal (or class) ties. The ancient sources recognize this in their accounts of clients
inhibiting plebeian responses to patrician actions.135 For example a measure introduced by
Volero Publilius in 471 provided for the election of plebeian magistrates by the comitia
tributa. Patrician opposition to the bill arose, according to Livy’s account, because of its
diminution of patrician ability to get certain men elected by means of their clients:
132T. Johnson and C. Dandeker, “Patronage: Relation and system”, in Patronage in ancient society, ed. A.
Wallace-Hadrill, p. 219–242, Routledge, London and New York (1989).
133A. Drummond, “Early Roman clientes”, in Patronage in ancient society, ed. A. Wallace-Hadrill, p. 89–
115, Routledge, London and New York (1989). For perhaps similarly allied groups of men, compare the
socii of Caso Cantovios (CIL 12 .5) and M. Guarducci’s restoration of the lapis satricanus, “L’Epigrafe
arcaica di Satricum e Publio Valerio”, RAL n.s. 8, 35, 479–489 (1980).
134E.g., Eisenstadt and Roniger, Patrons, clients and friends.
135In this context one must bear in mind the relatively small percentage of the lower-class population that
were clients at any one time.
58
haud parua res sub titulo prima specie minime atroci ferebatur, sed quae
patriciis omnem potestatem per clientium suffragia creandi quos uellent
tribunos auferret. (2.56.3)
This by no means trivial matter was introduced in this form, which, at first
glance, seemed hardly offensive, but it would take away from the patricians
the power to make whomever they wanted tribune through the votes of their
clients.
Second, as a result of the voluntary nature of the formation of patronage relationships,136
clients are a valuable and sought-after resource. The resultant competition for clients leads
to alliances among potential patrons.137
Patronage in ancient Rome therefore led to the formation of groups of politically
active individuals in at least two ways. First men were bound to one another by ties of
patronage, usually, in the case of politically active individuals, under the name and in the
language of amicitia. Second upper-class individuals would form alliances in order to
maximize their success as patrons, i.e., to compete successfully for a limited number of
clients whose allegiance was voluntarily given. Likewise men with shared interests seeking
patrons among the elite could form their own alliances in order to compete more
successfully for patrons. These potential clients should be imagined actively seeking to
achieve their own goals. Patronage does not however completely account for the formation
of political groups in Roman society. Although it did form the system in which Romans
acted, success within that system was not the primary goal. Rather Romans strove for
success there in order to achieve other ends. Although they date up to a century later than
our period, the Scipionic epitaphs provide good evidence for these primary goals.
136The ability of prospective and existing Roman clients to add a new patron or shift from one to another
was not absolute, but it was real. Clients’ ability to have more than one patron also contributed to patronal
competition by allowing the clients to maintain competing patrons among whom they might potentially
have to choose; on a client’s need for multiple patrons, J. Waterbury, “An Attempt to put patrons and
clients in their place”, in Patrons and clients in Mediterranean societies, ed. Ernest Gellner and John
Waterbury, 329–342, Duckworth, London (1977), p. 331–332.
137A. Wallace-Hadrill, “Patronage in Roman society: from Republic to Empire”, in Patronage in ancient
society, ed. A. Wallace-Hadrill, 63–87, Routledge, London and New York (1989), p. 78–81; Johnson and
Dandeker, Patronage, p. 228–231.
59
Political success in ancient Rome
The inscription on the sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus has until recently generally
been dated to somewhere around or shortly after 200, but Rudolf Wachter and Harriet
Flower have convincingly argued that a date near the death of Barbatus (surely by 260) is
more appropriate.138 The inscription reads:
C ORNELIVS LVCIVS S CIPIO BARBATVS, G NAIVOD PATRE,
PROGNATVS FORTIS VIR SAPIENSQVE QVOIVS FORMA VIRTVTEI PARISVMA
F VIT. CONSOL CENSOR AIDILIS QVEI FVIT APVD VOS. T AVRASIA C ISAVNA
S AMNIO CEPIT; SVBIGIT OMNE LOVCANAM OPSIDESQVE ABDOVCIT.
(CIL 1 2 .7)
Cornelius Lucius Scipio Barbatus, whose father was Gnaivus,
a brave and wise man, whose appearance was equal to his virtue.
Consul, censor and aedile was he among you. He captured Taurasia and Cisauna in
Samnium; he subdued all Lucania and took hostages from there.
Setting aside the clear reference to the Greek virtues of beauty, concern for a few areas is
evident: mental virtues, success in office-holding and war, and there is also some concern for
family connections. Barbatus’ son’s epitaph, usually dated to the 230s, is concerned with
basically the same things, although with increased emphasis on favorable public opinion and
his public acts:
HONC OINO PLOIRVME COSENTIONT R[OMAI]
DVONORO OPTVMO FVISE VIRO
LVCIOM S CIPIONE FILIOS BARBATI.
C ONSOL CENSOR AIDILIS HIC FVET A[PVD VOS].
HEC CEPIT C ORSICA ALERIAQVE VRBE.
DEDET TEMPESTATEBVS AIDE MERETO.
(CIL 1 2 .8)
This one alone most at Rome consider to be the best of men,
Lucius Scipio, the son of Barbatus.
Consul, censor and aedile was he among you.
He captured Corsica and the town of Aleria.
He gave a temple to the Tempestates deservedly.
138Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften, §125–146, p. 301–342; Flower, Ancestor masks, p. 160–180.
60
These same virtues are included in the impressive list given by Caecilius Metellus in a
laudatio for his father Lucius, given at that man’s funeral in 221. As reported by Pliny,
Caecilius said that his father:
voluisse enim primarium bellatorem esse, optimum oratorem, fortissimum
imperatorem, auspicio suo maximas res geri, maximo honore uti, summa
sapientia esse, summum senatorem haberi, pecuniam magnam bono modo
invenire, multos liberos relinquere et clarissimum in civitate esse;
(NH 7.139 = ORF 6.2)
For he wanted to be the leading warrior, the best orator, the bravest general,
to do great deeds under his own auspices, to exercise the highest offices, to
be exceedingly wise, to be considered the leading senator, to make himself
wealthy in a respectable way, to leave behind many children and to be the
most famous man in the state.
To the virtues we have already observed of personal fame, family, wisdom, office-holding
and military success are added political success in general and economic success. Although
more expansive and detailed, this list still agrees overall with the Scipionic inscriptions. It is
notable that in none of these lists does success as patronus or amicus appear. To be sure,
success in the Roman patronage system was required for achievement in most of the arenas
mentioned in these texts, but such success appears to have been considered useful only for
the acquisition of other goals, and not desirable as an end in itself. Some of the primary
goals (e.g., a strong family) can even have been met without appeal to the patronage system.
Since success in the patronage system was not the primary goal of politically active
Romans and in fact, as Drummond has shown, we do not well understand the form that
system took during the early and mid-Republic anyway, it is best to move away from a
concern with patronage as a model through which to understand political groups in this
period. Fortunately other recent work in anthropology offers the opportunity to do this.
61
Factionalism
In the 1950s anthropologists studying contemporary cultures became interested in
the role that conflict played in politics.139 Partly in reaction to earlier emphasis on social
order in the study of political systems, these researchers came to focus on competing
groups they called factions, and defined as informal groups, recruited by leaders and not
forming part of the formal political structure of their respective societies. This work
continued into the 1960s, resulting in several important publications in the middle years of
that decade.140 Despite continued attention to factions at the end of the ‘60s and the first
half of the ‘70s,141 the topic lost the prominence it had achieved until it was taken up again
in a pair of meetings in 1975 organized and subsequently published by Marilyn Silverman
and R. F. Salisbury.142 Interest in factions had so waned by this time that the participants
even discussed whether the study of them should be considered a “dead horse”.143 Much
as Johnson and Dandeker144 were to do for patronage, Silverman and Salisbury shifted the
focus from the details of individual instances of factional competition to factionalism as a
system of interaction. Research was still concentrated on local political systems fitting
139For a history of the study of factions and factionalism, M. Silverman and R. F. Salisbury. “An
Introduction: Factions and the dialectic”, in A House divided?: Anthropological studies of factionalism, ed.
Marilyn Silverman and R. F. Salisbury, p. 1–20, University of Toronto, Toronto (1977); and E. M.
Brumfiel, “Factional competition and political development in the New World: An Introduction”, in
Factional competition and political development in the New World, ed. Elizabeth M. Brumfiel and John W.
Fox, p. 3–13, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1994), from which comes much of the following
formulation.
140E.g., R. W. Nicholas, “Factions: A Comparative analysis”, in Political systems and the distribution of
power, ASA Monograph 2, ed. M. Banton, Tavistock, London (1965), and M. J. Swartz, Local level
politics, Aldine, Chicago (1968).
141Most notably perhaps J. M. Bujra, “A Dynamics of political action: A New look at factionalism”,
AmAnthr 75, 132–152 (1973).
142M. Silverman and R. F. Salisbury, A House divided?: Anthropological studies of factionalism, Social
and economic papers no. 9, Institute of social and economic research, Memorial University of
Newfoundland, University of Toronto, Toronto (1977).
143M. Silverman and R. F. Salisbury, Introduction, p. 2.
144Johnson and Dandeker, Patronage; above, p. 57.
62
within a national framework, and the interaction of factions with patronage systems was a
frequent subject.145
Despite these meetings, interest in factions again faded, this time as a result of rising
interest in world systems.146 Although factions had remained of interest in the study of
peasant politics, the same local arena in which they had originally been of use, their broader
application, championed primarily by Elizabeth Brumfiel,147 brought the study of factions
again to the fore in the early 1990s. Dissatisfied with the “behavioral determinism”148 of
ecosystem and Marxist theories which increased the role of impersonal group and natural
forces at the expense of the individual, Brumfiel responded with an appeal to the
consideration of factions, along with gender and class, as allegiances felt by individuals who
acted based upon them. The parallel to the early prosopographers who also rejected a
systems-wide institutional approach to focus on the individual is evident. Just as the early
researchers in factions had responded to conflict in place of order, the emphasis was now on
explaining the dynamism of political structures instead of their stability.149
The emphasis on the individual reflected factionalism’s origins in the study of local
politics, although Brumfiel and her collaborators expanded the application of factionalism
beyond those origins to more complex political structures, such as states and empires.150 It
also fits well with historical approaches—especially to the ancient Mediterranean—where
the sources are so strongly focused on the individual. It is not surprising therefore to find
145E.g., R. Sandbrook, “Patrons, clients, and factions: New dimensions of conflict analysis in Africa”,
CanJPolSci 5, 104–119 (1972).
146Brumfiel, Introduction, p. 4.
147“Distinguished lecture in archeology: Breaking and entering the ecosystem—gender, class, and faction
steal the show”, AmAnthr 94, 551–567 (1992).
148Brumfiel, Introduction, p. 13.
149Brumfiel, Distinguished lecture, p. 551.
150E.g., in M. E. Pohl and J. M. D. Pohl. “Cycles of conflict: Political factionalism in the Maya
lowlands”, p. 138–157.
63
that only two of 14 chapters in Brumfiel and Fox’s volume do not treat cases which rely on
either ethnohistorical or historical accounts.151
Definition and description
For a formal definition of factions, Brumfiel is the most recent:
…factions are defined as structurally and functionally similar groups which,
by virtue of their similarity, compete for resources and positions of power or
prestige. In this definition factions are understood to be groups engaged in
political competition which are neither classes nor functionally differentiated
interest groups.
Introduction, p. 4
It is also possible to delineate several typical features of factions. First factional leaders tend
to come from the dominant group in society. These elites have both the resources to gather
supporters in large numbers and a vested interest in the functioning of their society. A
consequence of the societal success of factional leaders is that they have no wish to
overthrow or significantly disrupt the society in which they thrive. Factions are therefore
typically not revolutionary in intent. Since faction leaders share social standing and goals,
“debate in factional disputes generally centers upon the relative legitimacy of each faction’s
claims rather than the merits of substantively different social programs.”152 This feature is
strengthened by members of different classes having different reasons for belonging to the
same faction; they do not typically share the same political interests. It resembles Brunt’s
limitation of pre-Gracchan Roman political groups to “routine politics”. Neither approach
carefully defines “routine” or “substantial” and so the precise limits of each in this regard
are unclear.
Factions comprise people from all social classes, thereby filling in one of the gaps in
prosopographical factionalism noted by Brunt. As in patronage systems, this vertical
grouping tends to reduce horizontal class solidarity, because members of factions have ties
151The articles of J. E. Clark and M. Blake, p. 17–30, and C. S. Spencer, p. 31–43.
152Brumfiel, Introduction, p. 5; Bujra, Factionalism, p. 136–137.
64
to people of other classes, especially to the elite faction leader, and at the same time,
factionally based conflicts with members of their own classes. As a consequence, classbased conflicts are minimized in a factionally divided society. This feature of factionalism
has even been suggested to have been one of the motivating forces behind elite support of
factions.153
There are several important consequences of these factional features. First is the
“inherent dynamism”154 of factionalism: as various factions compete for success within
the existent political system, they tend to respond to challenges not precisely as they are
offered, but in new ways. Inevitably entirely novel strategies and practices result, and the
rules of the political game slowly change. Constant imbalance thereby characterizes the
conflict, and factions function as real agents of change. Due to its emphasis on the local
scale and with systems constrained by national politics, early work on factions
underestimated this feature of factional conflict. These transformations can result both in the
introduction of competition into new arenas as well as the downfall of a political system,
which, as a result of the accumulation of numerous small changes, is left critically unstable
and unable to withstand further challenges.
Unlike the rather rigid corresponding elements of the Münzerian factionalism, the
anthropological model offers no specific requirements for membership in factions, nor does
it require long-standing membership or even existence of a given faction. Indeed its close
relationship with patronage in which alliances may easily shift, or belong to more than one
person, suggests to the contrary that factions would not typically be of long duration.
153Brumfiel, Introduction, p. 8–9, with bibliography.
154Brumfiel, Introduction, p. 5.
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Factional analysis of mid-republican Rome
As emphasized in the discussion of modeling in the Introduction, it is necessary for
the success of any model that it account for a sufficient number of relevant features of the
system to which it is applied. In the case of a factional approach to mid-republican Rome,
this criterion is met. Structurally Rome had an elite, upper class which was active in politics
and had groups of supporters. By the end of the fourth century, office-holding was
practically limited to patricians and a relatively small number of plebeian families. The
emphasis on the individual in Roman society, in which laws, building projects and other
public works were referred to by their elite sponsor’s name compounded the already
existent competition among the elite for elective offices. Given the Roman assemblies’
inability to introduce legislation, any formal reforms must have had an elite sponsor, further
increasing the importance to the lower classes of alliance with the elite.155 A strong
patronage system, like Rome’s, was, as mentioned above, also an important part of many of
the earlier studies of factionalism.
Behaviorally too Roman society showed signs consistent with factional conflict
during the mid-Republic. The state continued to evolve while no real attempts at revolution
occurred. Reform programs seem to have been based on several basic concepts, such as the
continuing expansion of access to political power, that were accepted by all, although the
acceptability of particular expansions was the subject of dispute.156 Finally there was little
class-based conflict, and historical descriptions seem to confirm the role of factions in
155 Although the sources often portray the plebs as a monolithic body, recent work tends to separate out
the wealthier portion, emphasizing its connections to the patricians. After the discussion of Livy’s model of
the Roman elite above, it should come as no surprise that the full complexity of plebeian membership is
not well represented in the sources. We should then consider that legislature such as the Licino-Sextian
rogations thus required real alliance between the poorest plebeians and their wealthier fellow plebeians and
the supporting members of the patriciate.
156Hölkeskamp, Conquest, p. 21, makes the observation that the upper-class plebeians did not question
basic premises of patrician power-building, but only wanted to have a share in it. See the discussion below,
p. 126–130, on the appeal of Appius Claudius Caecus and Q. Fabius Rullianus, to wealthier plebeians.
66
preventing it. For example, split colleges of plebeian tribunes torn by allegiances to
competing elites appear frequently in the sources, as in Livy’s account of the contested
extension of Appius Claudius Caecus’ censorship (9.34.1–25), in which six plebeian
tribunes supported their colleague P. Sempronius in opposing Caecus and the other three
supported Caecus instead.157 This form of anthropological factionalism appears then to
offer a fruitful way in which to examine the mid-Republic, maintaining a role for political
groupings in line with ancient sources which suggest their presence, and avoiding the
elements of the traditional prosopographical model to which Brunt and others have
objected.
The Low-land Maya
Although the recent understanding of factionalism has not yet been applied to such
an organized city-state as mid-republican Rome, it has been applied to other state societies,
in particular, the classical and post-classical lowland Maya state which occupied the modern
territory of southernmost Mexico, Belize and Guatemala from roughly the third century
A.D. until European contact in the 16th century. That both societies share a number of
relevant characteristics suggests that a factional analysis might be used to better understand
Republican Rome.158
As at Rome, the Maya elite competed for elective offices in which both hereditary
and personal achievement were valued, and the chief of these political offices, like the
Roman consulship, was primarily military in function. The elite enjoyed usufruct of
publicly held land, and their monopolization of it was sometimes occasion for class-based
conflict, as the commoners demanded a share in it. The elite were, like their Roman
counterparts, also tied to the lower class by strong bonds of patronage. The Maya also had
157 Below, p. 91. See however the recent work of Fergus Millar on the role of the plebeian masses in
Roman politics.
158 Material for this section was taken from Pohl and Pohl, Maya lowlands.
67
religious specialists who garnered power in part by their maintenance of certain lore and a
politically important calendar. Commoners eventually attacked this elite-manipulated
calendar as part of their attack on elite rule. The parallel to the pontiffs, to be discussed
below,159 is striking. Rebelling commoners also often supported lower-class claimants to
office, not unlike the Roman poor supporting rising wealthy plebeians.
One other feature of Maya society is worth noting for later consideration. Political
competition extended into the realm of material culture, and many of the most famed Maya
remains were in fact used in such competition. One area in particular is of relevance to
Rome: when the elite dynasties of the classic period were weakened, new players entered the
political contest and monumental architecture and gladiatorial combat became two new
arenas for competitive display.
Conclusion
The foregoing discussion of the uses of modeling in history and of particular
models of both Roman historiography and society enable us to proceed to the examination
of an important period in the mid-Republic. Recent developments in the study of political
groupings, called factions, appear to be useful to the study of republican Rome, and will be
applied to the period and men discussed in the next chapter.
159Below, p. 111f.
CHAPTER 2
APPIUS CLAUDIUS CAECUS
Introduction
Appius Claudius Caecus was a major figure in the mid-Republic and intimately
involved in activity which has important implications for our understanding of Roman
politics and monumental construction. The intersection of these two areas will be the subject
of the next chapter, but before proceeding it is necessary to examine in greater detail
Caecus’ career, the accounts of which have already provided several examples for earlier
discussion. Although Caecus is one of the most important political figures of his time and
the secondary literature on him is extensive, no satisfactory analysis of the entirety of his
known career exists. This chapter is an attempt at one.
Ultimately three results will emerge. First, when interpretative material is eliminated,
the various sources do present an understandable portrait of this major political figure of the
mid-Republic. Second that figure appears to have an identifiable policy or political
tendencies. Third, although I limit myself to only the most clear-cut examples and avoid
excessive reconstruction, other figures from the period can nevertheless be identified as
consistently opposing or supporting him.
More modeling
As was pointed out in the previous chapter, much disagreement over how to
understand the ancient Roman world results from differing basic models of the sources.
Those underlying models often go unstated and therefore unrecognized, with the result that
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69
there is much debate, not over the models, which are the real sources of disagreement, but
over conclusions based on them.1 Although the discussion of the first chapter demonstrated
that the sources can present accurate information from the mid-Republic, that information is
not found in isolation, but mixed with other information which either does not date to that
time, is inaccurate, or both. Any adequate model of the sources must take account of this
and offer some help in identifying the accurate data.
A model proposed by Arnaldo Momigliano in 1977 provides a starting point.
Momigliano recognized that one can distinguish between types of information in the
sources, so that, while it is impossible to determine a priori which pieces of information are
false, certain valid generalizations can be made. His model is bipartite:
La nuova ricerca si muove dunque inevitabilmente in due stadi—quello di
isolare i dati strutturali che sembrano fuori dubbio; e quello di una
interpretazione genetica di questi dati, che tenga conto delle narrazioni in cui
questi dati sono inseriti, ma non identifichi a priori la validità dei dati
strutturali con quella delle narrazioni sottostanti.2
The new research is moving inevitably in two directions—that of isolating
the structural data which seem beyond doubt; and that of a genetic
interpretation of these data, that takes account of the narratives in which these
data are inserted, but does not identify a priori the validity of the structural
data with that of the underlying narrative.
When distinguishing structural data (consuls elected, temples constructed, laws passed, etc.)
from interpretation (personal motivation, legal significance and historical import, etc.),
Momigliano was careful to recognize the inherent ambiguity in the status of the former. We
can add that the two types may be distinguished not only by their natures but also by the
likelihood of their having mid-republican origins. Structural data clearly may derive from
1 A. Momigliano, “Prolegomena a ogni futura metafisica sulla plebe romana”, Sesto Contributo, p. 477–86
(= Labeo 23(1), 7–15 (1977)), p. 485: “Non importa tanto la ricostruzione a cui si arriva quanto la chiarezza
delle premesse: e per chiarezza si intende la franca ammissione e giustificazione delle preferenze su cui la
ricostruzione si fonda.”
2 Prolegomena, p. 484; followed recently by Oakley, Livy, p. viii; Cornell, Literary Tradition, p. 73, who
adopts Momigliano’s vocabulary of “structural data”; R. Develin, “The Integration of plebeians into the
political order after 366 B.C.” in Social struggles in archaic Rome: New perspectives on the conflict of the
orders, ed. K. Raaflaub, p. 327–352, University of California Press, Berkeley (1986), p. 331; and Raaflaub,
Conflict of the orders, p. 11–12, 23.
70
contemporary sources, including publicly posted documents and various kinds of archives.
Most notable of the latter are those of the pontiffs, the contents of which were described by
Cato:
non lubet scribere quod in tabula apud pontificem maximum est, quotiens
annona cara, quotiens lunae aut solis lumine caligo aut quid obstiterit.
(apud Gell. 2.28.6 = fr. 77 Peter)3
It gives me no pleasure to write what is in the pontifex maximus’ tablet, how
many times there was famine, how many times darkness or something else
blocked the light of the sun or moon.
In contrast interpretation had little place in contemporary documentation, and was limited to
oral tradition and perhaps privately preserved speeches and commentarii.4 Due to their
personal and potentially highly politicized nature, uncertainty attaches to these examples,
and interpretations should therefore be considered unreliable.5
This model is complicated by the fact that not all data fall neatly into one or the other
group. Between the two extremes lies a continuum into which individual bits of information
may be placed sometimes only with great uncertainty. For example, while few would
suggest that the text of a speech is reported as a datum of the historical tradition, is the very
occurrence of a speech by the same speaker on the same occasion to be treated likewise? Or
which details of the contents of that speech are invented for the sole purpose of literary
effect and which are of the same nature as the data given outside a speech? Erring on the
side of caution, these intermediate data must initially be considered along with
interpretations.
3 The information on the tabulae need not have been obtained by extant authors from direct examination of
those original boards, or even from a collected edition of them. On the archives maintained by the plebeian
aediles, Livy 3.55.13; Zonaras 7.15; and Pomp. Dig. 1.2.2.21; also R. Besnier, “Archive privées,
publiques et réligieuses á Rome au temps des rois”, in Studi in memoria di Emilio Albertario, vol. II,
Società Tipografica “Leonardo da Vinci”, Città di Castello (1953). P. Culham, “Archives and alternatives in
republican Rome”, CP 84(2), 100–115 (1989), provides information on a variety of such sources, though
she is (overly) sceptical of their consultation by ancient authors.
4 Speeches from this period seem to have been few in number; above, p. 25–32, on the speech of Appius.
Flower, Ancestor masks, on tituli, elogia and other written family portrayals of the past.
5 Livy (8.40.4–5) and Cicero (Brutus 62.14) on falsehoods in tituli and laudationes, respectively. Oakley,
Livy, p. 100–102, is less confident about the distinction between the “hard core” and “invented details”.
71
Approach to Caecus
Given the extended foregoing discussion of modeling above, a brief summary of the
approach I will use to evaluate the events of Caecus’ career as presented in the sources is in
order. First the just elaborated bipartite model of Momigliano will be adopted, and
interpretive material will be considered unreliable—although it will happen that some agrees
with my own conclusions. Where possible the conclusions of modern scholarship about the
reliability of certain kinds of structural data will be applied, e.g., in the identification of
military theaters of operation, as will relevant results from various disciplines such as
epigraphy and historical linguistics.
With regard to specific kinds of data, many need to be evaluated based on their place
in the functioning of the Roman state of this time, and while it may be impossible to
describe briefly a working model of the entirety of mid-Republican Roman institutions and
practices, a few details important for the following discussion can be enumerated. Since we
have little contemporary data on mid-Republican organization in Rome, such a model is
based on what we do know about the late Republic. Primary historical sources like Livy
provide what they considered to be the earlier situation, although, as we shall see at several
points in the following discussion, there is good reason to think that they were not
necessarily always correct.6 Works like the commentariolum petitionis also provide details
of the functioning of the Roman state in the late Republic. In modern scholarship
Mommsen’s Römisches Staatsrecht7 is the fundamental work—now modified in many of
its details—on the functioning of the Roman state. For the late Republic, Lily Ross
6 E.g., alternating curule aedileships in Livy; below, p. 110–111.
7 T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, S. Hirzel, Leipzig (1887–1888).
72
Taylor’s Party politics in the age of Caesar and Roman voting assemblies from the
Hannibalic war to the dictatorship of Caesar8 are also invaluable.
As discussed above, the Roman state always operated with a strong system of
patronage, and political success depended on success within this system. Although the
possibility of real philosophical tendencies should not be completely ignored, the effects of
any action on a politician’s clientela, real or potential, must be considered. Particular details
of Roman patronage are also important. Since clients could be maintained for long periods
of time, even inherited, when, with the growth of the Roman state, men came to Rome to
participate in politics, they still kept and inherited clients at home, maintaining their influence
there.9
A second area of concern is the details of elections. In the centuriate assembly, only
the votes of the wealthy, who were the first and often only voters, were usually effective.
In contrast the tribal assemblies usually showed the influence of whoever was present in
Rome at the voting. For the rural tribes, in practice this typically meant the landed wealthy,
who either lived in Rome, but were enrolled in a rural tribe because of their land-holdings, or
could afford to travel to the city for elections.10 As for the candidates, colleagues in the
highest offices would normally have been allies. Men usually actively sought and obtained
the office, and repeated office-holding with the same colleague in the same or different
office is especially difficult to explain without co-operation.11 We often have no explicit
evidence either way for collegial relations, and this rule will certainly have had exceptions,
but the one most often presented, Caesar and Bibulus in 59, dates to an extraordinary
8 Taylor, Party politics; Roman voting assemblies from the Hannibalic war to the dictatorship of Caesar,
Jerome lectures 8th series, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor (1966).
9 R. P. Saller, Personal patronage, p. 135–136.
10 L. R. Taylor, RVA, p. 64, states that “almost all [freeborn] landholders who lived in Rome” were in
rural tribes, while freedmen were in the urban ones.
11 Contra Develin, Practice, p. 64, with whose theories on office acquisiton I obviously do not agree.
73
period of Roman politics and should be used as a model for usual practices only with
extreme caution.
Finally, since a consul’s main duty was to lead an army and Rome was constantly at
war during the mid-Republic and without an abundance of magistrates, the use of
prorogation and other devices, such as the dictatorship, to add military commanders
indicates a severe military situation in which no consul would be left inactive in Rome.
Caecus in the sources
The final element of my approach is specific to the case of Caecus. The annalistic
tradition, despite the relatively large amount of information that it gives on other aspects of
his career, is nearly silent on Caecus’ considerable literary output. (The ancients knew his
oratory, sententiae, and a legal work.12 ) Livy mentions Caecus’ eloquence only in two
passing references (eloquentiae consultus at 10.22.7, eloquentia praestantem at 10.15.12)
and an extended diatribe by an opposing colleague (10.19.6–9). He also apparently made
some reference to his politically significant speech against making peace with Pyrrhus in
279 (periocha 13).13 While the first two books of the lost second decade may have
12 Respectively, Malcovati, ORF 1.4–11; W. Morel, Fragmenta poetarum latinorum epicorum et lyricorum
praeter Ennium et Lucilium, 2nd ed., Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana,
Teubner, Stuttgart (1963), p. 5–6; Pomponius Dig. 1.2.2.36. Cicero (Tusc. Disp. 4.4) and the author of
the pseudo-Sallustian letter ad Caesarem (1.1.2) refer to the sententiae as carmina; G. B. Conte, Latin
Literature: A History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London (1994), p. 19–22, for the
broad range of literary styles covered by this word.
13 Wiseman, Clio, p. 88, overstates the case for Livy’s portrayal of Caecus as a “fast-talking politician”
since the evidence of this first comes only in Livy’s account of 296. In contrast, despite many speeches
given in the first decade by Claudii other than Caecus, only the military tribune of 403 is described in
language suggesting eloquence, and this ambiguously: haec taliaque vociferantes [tribuni] adversarium haud
imparem nacti sunt Ap. Claudium, relictum a collegis ad tribunicias seditiones comprimendas, virum
imbutum iam ab iuventa certaminibus plebeiis, quem auctorem aliquot annis ante fuisse memoratum est per
collegarum intercessionem tribuniciae potestatis dessolvendae. Is tum iam non promptus ingenio tantum
sed usu etiam exercitatus, talem orationem habuit…(5.2.13) (“Shouting about these and like things the
tribunes found a not at all unequal adversary, Ap. Claudius, left behind by his colleagues to suppress
tribunician sedition, a man steeped already from his youth in struggles with the plebs, who, as has been
recounted, some years before had devised the plan of combatting tribunician power through the intervention
of their own colleagues. He then, not only prepared by nature but also practiced from experience, gave such
a speech…”). The ambiguity resides in the fact that the last sentence is usually taken to mean that this
Claudius was by nature a good speaker, but it might also refer to his hatred of the tribunes.
74
contained other references to Caecus’ writings, the treatment of this aspect of his career in
the preserved books suggests a consistent negligence. This neglect is typical of the poor
treatment received by the Claudii at the hands of the annalistic tradition, although this antiClaudian feeling may have its origins in public opinion: Polybius’ report of the treatment
given P. Claudius Pulcher, consul 249, after his naval disaster indicates that he was not
greatly liked (1.52),14 and older anti-Claudian sentiment may be reflected in the
unpopularity of the clan between the time of the Decemvir and Caecus, when they achieved
few high magistracies (only six offices during those 140 years, including an abdicated
dictatorship, held by four—or five—men15 ). Wiseman has done the most extensive analysis
of this aspect of the tradition, although his conclusions have not been widely accepted.16
More typical on the topic is Drummond:17 “…the Claudii are repeatedly disparaged…The
authorship of this tradition is unknown.”
Given the emphasis in much of the secondary literature on this treatment of the
Claudii by the sources as well as their inventive nature in general, it is important to note that
I do not reject any of the structural data on the basis of their use by the sources to further
14 Naevius may also be referring to P. Claudius Pulcher: superbiter contemptim conterit legiones (fr. 45M)
(“Haughtily with contempt he destroyed the legions”): W. Strzelecki, Cn. Naevius, Belli Punici carminis
quae supersunt, Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, Teubner, Leipzig (1964), p.
xxix; T. Cornell, “T. P. Wiseman: ‘Clio’s Cosmetics: Three studies in Greco-Roman literature’”, JRS 72,
203–206 (1982), p. 205; contra T. P. Wiseman, “The Credibility of the Roman annalists” LCM 8(2), 20–
22 (1983), p. 21–22.
15 MRR 2.544–548. This might reflect only a dearth of males in the family, though obviously at least one
must have been alive in each generation: Develin, Practice, p. 97 and 124.
16 In contrast to A. Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins, Jerome lectures 7th series, University of Michigan
Press, Ann Arbor (1965), p. 159–164, who attributes the anti-Claudian sentiment of the annalistic sources
to Fabius Pictor writing at the end of the third century, Wiseman, Clio, sees it as the work of a writer of
the 50s. Drummond, Sources, p. 27: “The stereotyped arguments and attitudes involved, together with
Cicero’s apparent ignorance of [the annalistic disparagement of the Claudii] before 46 B.C., have suggested
that it is largely the work of a single comparatively late annalist but neither consideration is conclusive.” A
particularly problematic shortcoming in the context of this dissertation is Wiseman’s lack of an explanation
for the demagogic Appius of book 9 of Livy, on which briefly J. Briscoe, “The Historiography of the last
century of the Roman Republic: T. P. Wiseman: ‘Clio’s Cosmetics: Three studies in Greco-Roman
literature’”, CR 31, 49–51 (1981).
17 Sources, p. 27.
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the annalistic portrayal of the reprehensible anti-plebeian Claudians. I think instead that it is
preferable to see the actual behavior of Caecus, misinterpreted, as one of the impetuses for
this portrayal, rather than to assume vice versa that the negative portrayal led to the creation
of events in his life.
Like his ancestor the Decemvir, Caecus is portrayed by Livy as a populist who
executes an about-face to become an avid supporter of the patricians in their struggle against
the plebeians.18 There seem to be several traditions combined in Livy’s Decemvir. His
introduction, for example, suggests a history as an anti-plebeian about which nothing else is
mentioned:19
plebicola repente omnisque aurae popularis captator evaderet pro truci
saevoque insectatore plebis (3.33.7)
Suddenly a plebeian supporter and hearer of every populist whisper
appeared in place of the severe and harsh persecutor of the plebs.
Wiseman also notes the tradition, attested during the Augustan period in the fasti capitolini
and literary sources, identifying the Decemvir with the consul of 471 (who is the father of
the Decemvir in Livy’s account) who may have been the original insectator plebis.20 Such a
conflation would also be consistent with Livy’s description of the Decemvir as both an older
man at 3.35.3 (ea aetate) and a younger man at 3.35.7 (minimus natu), junior to those
graves aetate of the ten. Confusion about the various prominent Appii Claudii seems to
have been common in the late Republic and Empire, especially when referring to events
dating to the period before cognomina became part of official records, i.e., to as late as the
18 As plebeian supporter, witness the Decemvir’s description of the Twelve Tables: suum infelix erga
plebem romanum studium quo aequandarum legum causa cum maxima offensione patrum consulatu abisset.
(3.56.9). Although Livy makes no explicit statement about the change in Caecus, by the debate over the
lex Ogulnia in 300 (10.6–8), Appius is a strong advocate for the patricians. Vasaly, Personality and power,
provides an enlightening analysis of Livy’s use of this tradition in his first pentad.
19 R. M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1 – 5, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1965), p. 376.
20 Clio, p. 77.
76
late second century B.C.,21 and need not be interpreted as attempts to manipulate the
sources. Such confusion may well have contributed, for example, to Atticus’ misdating of
Cn. Flavius (Cicero ad Att. 6.1.8),22 Pliny’s attribution to the consul of 495 of the hanging
of shields in the temple of Bellona (NH 35.12), Plutarch’s attribution to the Decemvir of
Caecus’ conflict with the tibicines (QR 55),23 and Cicero’s assignment of illegal acts during
an interregnum (Brutus 14.55).24
While Livy’s narrative betrays conflicting sources on the Decemvir, the importance
of the Twelve Tables to concordia ordinum (although they were ultimately unsuccessful in
restoring domestic stability) and Appius’ leading role in their creation are unambiguously
attested. Just as the elder Appius was successful enough to be made decemvir and lead the
senatorial effort to promote concordia ordinum, so his descendant Caecus, as is evident
from his interregna, two consulates and dictatorship, continued to be popular both in the
senate and with voters, even after his own supposed “conversion” sometime between the
aedileship of Cn. Flavius in 304 and the passage of the lex Ogulnia in 301. If Appius
Claudius Caecus is, as DeSanctis maintained, the first “living personality” of Roman
history,25 the sources portray him as a split one, and his unmotivated reversal of behavior
and character is difficult to believe.
21 I. Kajanto, The Latin cognomina, Commentationes humanarum litterarum, vol. 36(2), Helsinki (1965),
and B. Salway, “What’s in a name: A survey of Roman onomastic practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700”,
JRS 84, 125–145 (1994).
22 A. K. Michels, The Calendar of the Roman Republic, Princeton University Press, Princeton (1967), p.
109.
23 H. J. Rose, The Roman Questions of Plutarch, Biblio and Tannen Booksellers, New York (reprint of
1924 Clarendon original), p. 194; below, n. 141.
24 Below, p. 119–120. Pais, Ricerche, p. 240, on confused Appii Claudii.
25 Storia, vol. 2, p. 229.
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The Consistency of Caecus
In order to understand Caecus, I therefore assume that he remained relatively
consistent in his political and personal behavior over the course of his career. Livy’s
portrayal of a reversal in Caecus’ character, whether a creation of his own or not, is
obviously an interpretation of the record and can safely be jettisoned along with
explanations of Caecus’ motivation. While politics and personality are of course always
subject to change, the radical reversal offered by Livy in the case of Caecus is a rare
occurrence. While an assumption of consistency might be construed as a misguided attempt
at rationalization, a desire to organize into one schema acts which cannot be so organized,
the results of this chapter will, I think, justify this assumption. Since the argument might be
made that a later author fabricated or changed details to suit a particular version of Caecus, if
the basic data can be interpreted to create a consistent Caecus, one not portrayed in any of
our sources nor who appears to be the creation of a now lost source, then the original
assumption will be further justified. Fortunately details of Caecus’ career are present in
abundance.
The Scholarship
With one exception, modern scholarship on Caecus, while still unhappy with the
man as presented in the tradition, has not taken this approach.26 Some writers have chosen
to believe in only one of the two Livian personalities: the reformer or the reactionary.27
Others have chosen to ignore the parts of Caecus’ career that pose problems to their
particular interpretations. Most notable among these is Staveley who, while acknowledging
the difficulty in successfully interpreting Caecus’ career as it is presented in the sources,
26 B. MacBain, “Appius Claudius Caecus and the Via Appia”, CQ 30, 356–372 (1980), is one exception.
27 The contrasting pair of Mommsen, Römische Forschungen, Weidmann, Berlin (1879), 1.301f, and B. G.
Niebuhr, Römische Geschichte, G. Reimer, Berlin (1828), 32 .344f, who favored the reformer and
reactionary, respectively, are usually invoked in this regard.
78
chose to rely solely upon the evidence for Caecus’ acts as censor.28 Garzetti subsequently
has achieved some acceptance by turning Caecus’ apparent turnabout into a simple
(simplistic?) example of factional politics, thereby depriving several of his acts, including his
opposition to the lex Ogulnia, for example, of any real political significance. It is a less than
satisfactory solution to have one of the most successful politicians of any period respond to
a significant piece of legislation solely on the basis of personal enmity.
None of these approaches attempts to find a systematic way to understand the
sources’ portrayal of Caecus and all ultimately fail to explain Caecus’ career in its entirety.
In contrast Ferenczy begins with the assumption that the annalistic and other literary
sources are corrupt and should be used only as secondary sources, replacing them with the
consular fasti and the Augustan elogium as main sources.29 He still presents no
methodological way for dealing with the annalistic tradition, and his dismissal of its
“anecdotal character” (p. 77) only results in the replacement of its unverifiable
interpretations with his own. He relies on the fasti for more than they can provide and
subscribes to several interpretations of Roman electoral practice that are not widely
accepted.30 The way therefore lies open to an analysis that treats the sources with a
consistent and enunciated methodology.
28 E. S. Staveley, “The Political aims of Appius Claudius Caecus”, Hist 8, 410–433 (1959), p. 412–413.
29 E. Ferenczy, From the patrician state to the patricio-plebeian state, Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam
(1976), which reproduces his earlier work on Caecus’ career before and after the censorship.
30 For example, Ferenczy, Patrician state, creates a tie between Appius and Q. Fabius Rullianus based on
the beliefs that sitting consuls have a great influence in the election of their successors, that they can
prevent or bring about the extension or prorogation of imperium, and that the election of praetors is tied to
that of consuls: contra Develin, Practice, p. 28–30, 132–134.
79
The Career of Caecus
Before the censorship
The narrative sources for Caecus’ career all begin with his censorship in 312. Apart
from the fact that he held no major magistracies before this, we have no information on his
early career apart from that given by his elogium in the Forum Augusti:31
Appius Claudius | C. f. Caecus |
censor
cos bis
dict
interrex III |
pr II
aed cur II
q
tr mil III
Com|plura oppida de Samnitibus cepit, | Sabinorum et Tuscorum exerci|tum fudit, pacem
fieri cum [P]yrrho | rege prohibuit; in censura viam | Appiam stravit et aquam in | urbem
adduxit; aedem Bellona[e] | fecit.
Appius Claudius Caecus, son of Gaius,
censor, twice consul, dictator, thrice interrex, twice praetor, twice curule aedile, quaestor,
thrice military tribune,
took many strongholds from the Samnites, routed the army of the Sabines and Etruscans,
prohibited peace from being made with Pyrrhus, laid out the Appian Way and led water to
the city during his censorship, and built the temple of Bellona.
This was very likely a product of the same antiquarianism that produced the contemporary
fasti capitolini. The filiation may therefore be suspect, but Caecus’ fame assures the
correctness of the cognomen.32
Statues of famous men of the Roman Republic were prominently featured in the
Forum Augusti, along with statues of members of the gens Iulia, the Alban kings and a few
31 CIL I2, p 192, n. IX, and p. 193, n. XI. A copy from Arezzo (= A. DeGrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae, La
Libreria dello stato, Rome (1931), #79, p. 59–60), the text of which is given here, is preserved in full; that
from Rome only partially. Only Frontinus mentions Caecus’ original cognomen, giving it as Crassus.
32 Which is not to say the reasons given for it in other sources; below, p. 124.
80
members of Augustus’ family.33 Underneath the statue of each man was a titulus listing the
offices and priesthoods he had held. Below that was an elogium, a short account of certain
highlights of his career.34 The 19 summi viri (so called by SHA AlexSev 28.6) appear to
have been chosen for the exceptional nature of their accomplishments, mainly military but
also in other areas. They seem to uphold the function Augustus is supposed to have given
them as standards for his own career (Suet. vit. Aug. 31.5) in that many had exceptional
military accomplishments, singular achievements or awards (e.g., Scipio Aemilianus
received the corona obsidionalis as did Augustus and no other (Pliny NH 22.13.6)), held
many offices, or held ones in unusual circumstances.35
Caecus’ elogium emphasizes both the number of offices held (most attested only
here) as well as his military career. The latter is perhaps over-emphasized, as Caecus never
triumphed.36 Nevertheless even the suggestion of Caecus as a successful military leader is
contrary to the biased annalistic tradition of bungling Claudii.37 Apart from the militarily
oriented aspects of Caecus’ career, including the prevention of peace with Pyrrhus, the
only deeds mentioned are the visible elements of Caecus’ acts: a road, an aqueduct and a
temple, all naturally appealing to Augustus since he himself had repaired a road (the
Flaminian), improved and added to the city’s aqueducts, and restored and built many
33 G. K. Galinsky, Augustan culture: An interpretive introduction, Princeton University Press, Princeton
(1996), p. 197–213; B. A. Kellum, Sculptural programs and propaganda in Augustan Rome: The temple of
Apollo on the Palatine and the Forum of Augustus, Dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge (1981); P.
Zanker, The Power of images in the age of Augustus, Jerome lectures, 16th series, University of Michigan
Press, Ann Arbor (1988), p. 210–215; J. C. Anderson, The Historical topography of the imperial fora,
Collection Latomus 182, Latomus, Brusells (1984), p. 80–88.
34 Degrassi Inscr. Ital. 13.3, p. 1–36 for text.
35 A thorough analysis of both the men included in the group and the nature of their careers is still lacking.
36 Contra Kellum, Sculptural programs, p. 117, the speech against peace with Pyrrhus is not heavily
stressed.
37 The elogia often differ from Livy’s accounts of military activity (T. J. Luce, “Livy, Augustus, and the
Forum Augustum” in Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and his principate, ed.
Kurt A. Raaflaub and Mark Toher, p. 123–138, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles
(1990), p. 121, 134), but this area is one of much disagreement in all the sources. Livy makes reference to
the problem in his own sources (e.g., 8.40); Oakley, Livy, vol. 2, p. 772.
81
temples. The temple of Bellona also contained the city’s first gallery of ancestors, in this
case Claudian (Pliny NH 35.12–13), an obvious parallel to Augustus’ summi viri.38 Some
have suggested that it was the unpopularity of Caecus’ other censorial actions, as portrayed
in the annalistic tradition, that led to their omission. If so, it seems odd that L. Papirius
Cursor’s elogium should include in some detail (although preserved only up to the point of
Fabius’ disobedience) his violent reaction when dictator in 325 to the disobedience of his
magister equitum, Fabius Rullianus, an event portrayed by Livy (8.30–37) as repugnant to
virtually everyone in Rome.39 Something other than annalistic unpopularity seems to be
involved. It may be that Augustus wished to recall certain features of a man’s career
without explicitly enumerating them. The story in Cursor’s elogium would bring out his
iustitia and clementia,40 while the listed acts of Caecus’ censorship serve metonymously to
recall elements that are not mentioned, particularly the firsts of that tenure, like the lectio
senatus, as well as its unusual length and Caecus’ lack of colleague.41 The impermanence
of these acts may have contributed to the feeling that their explicit inclusion was
inappropriate.
Caecus apparently held no priesthoods, since none are listed for him as they are in
other elogia, including that of Valerius Maximus, dictator 504, which contains the only
mention of that man’s augurate.42 Based on the later republican cursus honorum, of
38 Kellum, Sculptural programs, p. 118.
39 Degrassi, Inscr. Ital., #62, p. 39–40.
40 Kellum, Sculptural programs, p. 146 n. 43.
41 Cf. Augustus’ Res Gestae 8.3: …lustrum solus feci… P. A. Brunt and J. M. Moore ed., res gestae divi
Augusti: The Achievements of the divine Augustus, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York
(1988), notes on 6.1, p. 45–46, and 8.3, p 50–52. In 39 the IIIviri, like Caecus, also adlected the sons of
freedmen into the senate (Dio 48.34.4).
42 Degrassi, Inscr. Ital., p. 58. Livy 10.8.5, in which Decius seems to suggest that Caecus was a priest
should be taken as a rhetorical device, using Caecus as a representative of all patricians, including those
who were actually priests. Contra F. Càssola, I Gruppi politici romani nel III secolo a.C., Università degli
studi di Trieste, Facoltà di lettere e filosofia, Istituto di storia antica, “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, Rome
(1968), p. 136 n. 35; E. Pais, “Divulgazione dell’’Ius Civile’” in Ricerche sulla storia e sul diritto pubblico
di Roma, p. 215–240, Ermano Loescher & Co., Rome (1915), p. 221 n. 2.
82
Caecus’ listed offices, the curule aedileship, quaestorship and military tribunate are the ones
we can expect him to have held at least once before 312. He may have iterated in the
aedileship and tribunate after his consulate, as was the custom with the praetorship, which
appears in this period sometimes to have been held after the consulate as the functional
equivalent of prorogation.43 This may have been a subject of some interest to Augustan
readers, since Augustus, Agrippa and the less well known P. Paquius Scaeva (ILS 915) held
lower offices after their consulates, but whatever may have been the later custom regarding
holding these offices, we do not know what it was at this earlier time. Livy, our best source,
often does not give the names of the holders of non-consular offices in this period,44 and
when he does, it is often in passing, where no account of iteration can be expected (e.g.,
8.40.2, where the praetor is mentioned only because of illness). For the aedileship, for
example, we know the names of one or two members of only 15 colleges from the origin of
the office in 366 to 290, and six of these are undated.45 Of these Caecus and possibly
Fabius Rullianus are the only known iterators.46 Although the listing of multiple iterations
may seem so (to us and Augustan-age Romans), we cannot tell from his elogium whether
Caecus’ early career was exceptional.
43 E.g., Caecus in 295, Atilius in 293, Papirius in 292. MRR 1.130 n. 2 and p. 150 n. 3, both for praetor;
Develin, Patterns, p. 17–18.
44 Oakley, Livy, p. 39–56.
45 Four other examples of aedileships may have been plebeian. Of the 15 certain ones, six have no firm
dates and one is only a conjecture based on attested activity which appears aedilician; one other, based again
on attested activity, has no name associated with it. MRR and Oakley, Livy, p. 50–51, for details, with the
addition of Caecus II. Without mentioning the extreme paucity of data, RS 1.522, cites Caecus as the only
example of iteration. Contra Develin, Patterns, p. 21 n. 29. T. J. Luce, Forum Augustum, p. 132,
describes the iterations as “oddities”.
46 Fabius Rullianus may have been curule aedile in 299 after his third consulate; MRR 1.173–174. R. A.
Bauman, Lawyers in Roman republican politics: A Study of the Roman jurists in their political setting,
316–82 B.C., Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 75, C. H.
Beck, München (1983), p. 56–57, suggests that these were unusual.
83
The Censorship
When elected censor, Caecus became the first member of his family to hold a major
elective office since 349.47 Tenure of the censorship by someone who had not yet held the
chief magistracy (whether consul or military tribune) was an infrequent, although not
unheard of, practice at that time. It had occurred as recently as the previous censorship in
318, while between 403 and 312 it occurred approximately once a generation, or in more
than one out of three colleges.48 It is therefore difficult to say whether this reflected any
special achievement by the non-consular censor, or was an unremarkable, although less
common, career path. Early tenure of the censorship is in agreement with the view that the
censorship was regarded as a relatively unimportant office which slowly gained in
importance as it gained more authority.49 One piece of legislation generally thought to have
increased the power of the office is the lex Ovinia. According to Festus, this law shifted the
power of choosing members of the senate, the lectio senatus, from the consuls to the
censors:
donec Ovinia tribunicia intervenit, qua sanctum est ut censores ex omni
ordine optimum quemque curiati<m> in senatum legerent. (290L)
…until the Ovinian tribunician law intervened, according to which it was
required that censors choose for the senate the best men from each order
according to curiae.
47 His father may have been the dictator vitio creatus of 331, though the validity of this notice in Livy
(8.15.5–6) is disputed; MRR 1.143. RS 2.331-469, remains the standard source for the censorship. J.
Suolahti, The Roman censors : A Study on social structure, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki (1963),
relies heavily on him.
48 Precisely five out of 13, though we may be missing some, in the years 403, 393, 378, 318, 312, with
an average gap of 24.25 years. It happened for the last time in 209, leaving aside the extraordinary
censorship of Sulpicius in 42.
49 R. V. Cram, “The Roman Censors”, HSCP 51, 71-110 (1940), p. 105; MacBain, Appius Claudius
Caecus, p. 161.
84
Caecus’ is the first known censorial lectio and so the law is generally dated to the years
immediately preceding his censorship.50
Building projects
Two of Caecus’ building acts from his censorship are well known, bearing,
unusually, his praenomen: the via and aqua Appia. The latter was the first aqueduct in
Rome and brought water to the Clivus Publicii near the Porta Trigemina by the Forum
Boarium.51 It ran mostly underground, being visible only for a short distance near the Porta
Capena. The level of the aqueduct was so low that it could only with difficulty, if at all,
deliver water to the higher points in the city. As a result, it seems to have fed only the lowlying Forum Boarium, Circus Maximus and southern Campus Martius, conspicuously
avoiding any discharge at the Porta Capena, where the aqueduct could easily have delivered
water due to its appearance above ground, but which was already supplied by the fons
Camenarum. Given the location of its terminus, an area otherwise lacking in water sources,
the aqueduct likely brought in water nearly exclusively for commercial use, which was
growing at this time.52 This is consistent with Frontinus’ claim that republican aqueducts
brought in water for public use:
apud antiquos omnis aqua in usus publicos eroga<ba>tur et cautum ita fuit:
“ne quis privatus aliam <aquam> ducat, quam quae ex lacu humum
accidit”—haec enim sunt verba eius legis—id est quae ex lacu abundavit;
(de aqu. 94)
Among the ancients all water was taken for public use and there was this
rule: “Let no individual take any water other than that which falls to the
50 The terminus post quem is supplied by the 319 censorial punishment of Mamercus Aemilius without
removal from the senatorial roll: RS 2.418 n. 2. Càssola, Gruppi, p. 140, suggests that the law would only
have been passed when censors were in office and so suggests that it may date to 311. Staveley, Appius
Claudius Caecus, p. 413, has suggested that the law was really a response to Caecus’ lectio and actually
limited the censors’ freedom, but this directly contradicts Festus.
51 Much of the following detail about the aqueduct is from H. B. Evans, Water distribution in ancient
Rome: The evidence of Frontinus, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor (1994).
52 Cornell, Beginnings, p. 380–390.
85
ground from the basin”—these are the words of the law—that is, from that
water which overflows from the basin.
Caecus’ other major building project as censor was to build a road that led from
Rome out the Porta Capena to Capua, the via Appia.53 Its path was the same as the via
Latina until the two diverged almost a kilometer from the Porta Capena. Both had the same
terminal city as well,54 although the Latina took a route to the northeast of the Appia,
winding its way from city to city while the Appia went directly to Tarracina on the coast and
then made its way more indirectly through several cities to Capua. Both the names and
paths of these roads betray their relative ages. The older Latina had no single creator and so
took its name from the territory through which it ran, while its path shows little of the
surveyor’s linearity.55 In contrast, the Appia is remarkable for the straightness of its course
from Rome to Tarracina, and took its name from the individual who organized its
construction.56 The Appia was not entirely new.57 Close to Rome it passed right by the
aedes Martis, dedicated in 388, where Livy describes the army meeting in 350, perhaps a
regular event (7.23.3). Livy says too that in 342 the rebellious Roman troops infesto agmine
ad lapidem octavum viae quae nunc Appiae est perveniunt (7.39.16).58 The Appia
53 Livy 9.29.5–6; Diod. Sic. 20.36; Pomp. Dig. 1.2.2.36; Frontinus de aqu. 1.4; auct. de vir ill. 34.6.
Diodorus, Pomponius and the auctor de vir. ill. are wrong to say that Caecus paved a road; the auctor
compounds his error by giving Caecus credit for the full later extent of the road to Brindisi.
54 While it is tempting to connect the name of the gate through which the roads exit Rome with the name
of this terminal city, there is no accepted way to derive Capena from Capua.
55 Evidence of an inland route in central Italy using approximately this same path as early as the ninth–
eight century can be discerned from analysis of material goods and trade: A. M. Bietti Sestieri, The Iron age
community of Osteria dell’Osa: A study of socio-political development in cental Tyrrhenian Italy,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1992), p. 70–75, map, p. 75.
56 Both roads are of course extremely linear near the city. The Appia straightens out about 100 meters
before the second milestone, and even as close as Bovillae (the ninth milestone), the contrast between the
surveyed Appia and the less constrained Latina is notable; De Rossi, Giovanni Maria Forma Italiae, Regio
1, vol. 15, Bovillae, Leo S. Olschki, Florence (1926), p. 12, fig. 2.
57 M. D’Amico, G. Matthiae, Mostra, p. 20: “un tracciato di origine antichissima”; De Rossi, Forma
Italiae, p. xi–xii.
58 “Arrayed in marching order, they came to the eighth milestone on the road that is now the Appian Way.”
86
continues on to the old Latin towns of Bovillae and Aricia (the ninth and sixteenth
milestones, respectively), which were surely connected to Rome by an earlier road, although
again the linearity of the Appia suggests that Caecus did not follow the older course exactly.
At its other end, from Tarracina to Capua the road again probably followed an extant route,
since the various towns connected by the road were surely in communication before 312,
although possibly unreliably.59
Like most Roman roads, the Appia was built primarily for military needs. Rome had
an increased interest in the area to its south at least since her involvement with Capua in 342.
Since that time, four new tribes had been formed to the southeast of Rome, two as recently
as 318 (the Falerna and Oufentina); new colonies had been founded in southeast Latium
and northern Campania; and several military campaigns fought in the same region in which
allies were made and lost repeatedly. The via Latina ran far to the northeast of this
important area and was inadequate to Rome’s new needs. Caecus’ road in contrast cut
straight through the new tribes (probably establishing a settlement along the way at Forum
Appii) and connected Rome to the important gateway city of Tarracina,60 itself the site of a
colony in 329 and the important battle of Lautulae in 315. More recent colonies and allied
towns were also included on the road, including Formia (given civitas sine suffragio 338),
Minturnae (defeated in 314 and in 295 the site of a colony) and, depending on the actual
route of the earliest road, either Suessa (site of a colony in 313) and Cales (site of a colony
in 334), or Sinuessa (site of a colony in 295).61
From the lack of road and aqueduct projects between 109 and the time of Augustus,
Wiseman rightly concludes that significant political advantages accrued to the builder,
59 T. P. Wiseman, “Roman republican road-building”, PBSR 38, 122–152 (1970), p. 130. Note also the
Roman fighting in the territory of the Aurunci in this area during the 340s.
60 S. Mazzarino, “Aspetti di storia dell’appia antica”, Helikon 8, 174–196 (1968), p. 178.
61 Though the road certainly later took a path further along the coast to Sinuessa (e.g., Horace Sat. 1.5), at
this time it probably took a more inland route; Wiseman, Road-building, p. 130, and E. Rawson, “More on
the clientelae of the patrician Claudii”, Hist 26(3), 340–357 (1977), p. 231.
87
advantages that could not be allowed in the unstable final years of the Republic.62 There is
no reason to think that such advantages did not exist in the late fourth century. Most directly
Caecus’ projects provided employment for inhabitants of the city, many of whom were
citizens, and for those living along their routes.63 In addition to giving long-standing
citizens much improved access to Rome, Caecus’ road presented the added opportunity to
its builder of going through the area of two new tribes, full of new citizens.64 Caecus’ new
allies, especially those not too distant from the city, were able to help him in elections at
Rome, particularly on the occasion of announced comitia—like the electoral ones. Lily Ross
Taylor cites the mid-second-century leges Aelia and Fufia that forbid legislative comitia on
the days preceding elections as evidence that large numbers of citizens who were usually
unavailable for voting were in Rome at those times. Since citizens of all economic classes
were equally affected by the road, both centuriate and tribal elections would have been
affected, although one might suspect that without special appeals (of which we do have
evidence) only the wealthier might typically travel to Rome for elections. These would have
included both citizens with commercially based wealth and land-holders from the new
southern parts of the Roman state. The first group at least might be expected to share a
similar outlook to their Roman counterparts, while the second would be particularly
concerned with issues that concerned them and, one may suspect, Caecus.65 In the tribal
assemblies in contrast, bringing in rural citizens to vote would have diminished the effect of
62 Wiseman, Road-building, p. 150–151.
63 P. A. Brunt, “Free labour and public works at Rome”, JRS 70, 81–99 (1980), especially p. 97–98; also
W. V. Harris, “On war and greed in the second century B.C.”, AHR 76, 1371–1385 (1971), p. 1375–1376.
64 See esp. the story in Suetonius Tib. 2.2 in which a Claudius, most likely not Caecus, is charged with
having a diademed statue of himself erected at Forum Appii. MacBain, Appius Claudius Caecus, stresses
the resultant confict between Caecus the road builder and the various other Roman aristocrats with already
existant ties to the regions traversed by the road, due either to family origins or on account of the recent
creation of the tribes.
65 Visitors to the city arriving at the Porta Capena, especially those coming for commerce, would be
reminded by the sight of the aqua Appia of benefits brought to them by Caecus’ projects. This was likely a
happy coincidence for Caecus since the path taken by the aqueduct was constrained by the city’s topography.
88
the votes in the rural tribes by their urban members. As already noted, it is the landed
wealthy living in the city that this reform most affected in the tribal assemblies, since they
belonged predominantly to rural tribes.66
The other major role for the road was commercial. At the time of its construction,
Rome was an important and growing commercial center. Caecus’ aqueduct filled
commercial needs, and the road further contributed to Rome’s growth in this area, benefiting
the population at large as well as individual merchants.67 Although water-borne traffic was
no doubt already important to Rome, many goods reached the city by road. At this time, the
focus at Ostia was on military and not commercial functions.68 Still in the imperial era, even
after Claudius’ construction of the ocean port of Portus, significant quantities of goods still
reached the city by road.69 Therefore despite the primacy of the military purpose for
Caecus’ road, there in no reason to exclude the commercial benefits as an intended
consequence.
C. Plautius Venox
The role of Caecus’ colleague C. Plautius Venox in this activity is disputed in the
sources. Diodorus suggests that Plautius was the minor player,
…
(20.36), a natural conclusion perhaps, since it is Caecus’ name that was
given to the construction products. In contrast Livy states that Caecus handled these
projects alone after Plautius had resigned in shame over Caecus’ conduct of the lectio
senatus (9.29.5–8). Frontinus takes the middle position and claims that Plautius resigned
66 Akove, p. 99–102.
67 Staveley, Appius Claudius Caecus, p. 419–426.
68 R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1973), p. 20-24.
69 G. E. Rickman, “Portus in perspective”, in “Roman Ostia” revisited: Archaeological and historical papers
in memory of Russell Meiggs, ed. Anna Gallina Zevi and Amanda Claridge, p. 281–291, British School at
Rome, London (1996), p. 290: “Portus was supported by Centumcellae and Tarracina…Road and river
transport were interconnected in a subtle and complex web of communication.”
89
after work on the aqueduct had been at least begun, and the usual 18 months in office had
elapsed (de aqu. 5). Given its laudatory function, it is not surprising that the elogium says
nothing about any scandal surrounding Caecus’ tenure of this or any office. In this it
unsurprisingly agrees with the fasti capitolini.
That Plautius resigned over Caecus’ handling of the lectio is very unlikely, since as
colleague he could have vetoed it.70 Frontinus’ claim that Plautius was tricked into
resigning by Caecus, deceptus collega tamquam idem facturo,71 appears nowhere else and
rings of the annalistic disparagement of the Claudii mentioned above. The further claim of
Frontinus and the fasti capitolini that Plautius’ cognomen Venox derived from his skill at
finding underground water sources, venae, is also clearly false:72 Latin cognomina were
not formed with such unusual (putative) suffixes (-ox) and other members of Plautius’
family appear earlier in the fasti with the same or obviously related cognomen Venno.73
The name is in fact probably not Latin,74 as a little noted Oscan inscription from a fifthcentury stamnos from Capua, now lost, suggests.75 The inscription states that the stamnos
was dedicated by Vinuchs Veneliis, apparently a transplanted Oscan with an Etruscan
name, to a relative, Venil Viniciis, probably his father. Vinuchs is the nominative form of the
stem of the patronymic Viniciis and translates to Latin Venox. A gens Vinicia, several
70 Livy 40.51.1 and 8, 42.10.4 for examples of such disagreement between colleagues; RS 2.339. Develin,
Practice, p. 32.
71 “…deceived by his colleague, who acted as if he were about to do the same…”.
72 F. Münzer, Plautius, RE, 21.1, 2: “Venox von vena klingt wenig glaublich.”
73 The sources in fact give some men both cognomina; MRR for the consuls of 347, 341, 330 and 318. By
itself the earlier appearance of the same cognomen is not decisive since various cognomina in the fasti
capitolini seem to have been retrojected onto early members of a gens to whom they did not belong, e.g.,
the Augurini of the fifth century; Kajanto, Latin cognomina, and A. Alföldi, “Les Cognomina des
magistrats de la république romaine”, in Mélanges d’archéologie offertes à André Piganiol, 709–722,
(1966), p. 720.
74 As such it is not included by Kajanto, Latin Cogmomina.
75 J. Heurgon, Récherches sur l’histoire, la réligion et la civilisation de Capoue préromaine des origines à la
deuxième guerre punique, Bibliotèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, fasc. 154, E. De Boccard,
Paris (1942), p. 101–104.
90
members of which are attested with the Oscan Vinuc- stem, appears in late Republican
Rome and achieves further success in the Empire.76 This later branch at least was still based
in Campania, at Cales near Capua (Tac. Ann. 6.15). Plautius’ cognomen then is an example
of the well attested phenomenon of a foreign family name retained as a cognomen.77
The identity of Plautius might also be called into question. Livy says nothing else
about his career, and an earlier Plautius with the same tria nomina lacks a complete entry in
the fasti capitolini so that no filiation is known for him. With the exception of the censors of
378,78 in all known pre-Punic-war colleges that included a non-consular colleague,79 that
man is always a patrician, while his consular colleague is a plebeian with at least 10 years
since his last consulship. The censor of 312 perhaps ought therefore to be identified with
the consul of 347 and 341. Diodorus or his sources perhaps assumed that the censor
should have been identified as the consul of 318, since he gives the censor’s nomen as
Lucius, not Gaius, but the manuscript tradition—or the source itself—may be confused
about the name.80 In any case, there is no source that positively state that Plautius was not a
consular. If he in fact was, Caecus’ censorship would be even less unusual.
76 CIL 6.7401, 16772, 28959–74; 7401, 16772, 28962 and 28973 indicate that the i preceding the n was
long. For the writing in Latin of long i with an e, above, p. 33 n. 53. H. Gundel, Paperius, RE 9A.1,
109–110 and R. Hanslik, Paperius, RE 9A.1, 110–120, respectively, on the republican and imperial
families. H. Dessau, Prosopographia imperii romani saec. I, II, III, P. de Rohden and H. Dessau ed., G.
Reimer, Berlin (1898), vol. 3, p. 435–437, V 443–448. The members of the gens attested by Vinuc- are
RE 1 (republican) and 6 (imperial, = PIR V 444).
77 Kajanto, Latin Cognomina, under “rare and obsolete praenomina”, p. 41–42: “The praenomina included
here were drawn chiefly from the Italic dialects…”; for other examples, e.g., Sabine Nero, p. 175–178; also
Festus 116L on Mamercus. There have been proponents of the idea that the fourth century, after the
Hortensian reforms, saw a large influx of powerful foreign families into Rome: e.g., W. Schur, “Fremder
Adel im Römischen Staat der Samniterkriege”, Herm 59, 450–473 (1924). Plautius could now also be
included in such a list.
78 Themselves created, according to Livy, for the odd reason of investigating the debt crisis (6.31.2).
79 Partially listed already in n. 48, but here with the inclusion of 247 and even the questionable cases of
272, 265 and 340.
80 The manuscripts read L. Claudius, which is universally corrected to L. Plautius. Could the tradition
Diodurus presents have converted the ‘s of PLAVTIVS F. N into ’s? Oakley, Livy, p. 50–51.
91
In short, the sources give us no reliable description of the relationship between the
two censors. Plautius was at least neutral toward Caecus’ reforms. The monumental work
of building Rome’s first aqueduct and major road might easily have required an extended
stay in office,81 and the attested request by the censors of 168 indicates that an extension
was not impossible (Livy 45.15.9). So although Livy provides a long speech by the tribune
P. Sempronius (surely P. Sempronius Sophus, consul of 30482 ) who brought an action
against Caecus for not respecting the lex Aemilia which limited the censorship to 18 months
(9.34.1–25), Caecus may have legally carried on alone.83 Caecus is saved by three tribunes
who oppose the other six that supported Sempronius. The speech is full of the usual antiClaudian charges of the annalistic tradition, which are to be ignored, but the question of
actual opposition, and by whom, remains open.84 If Plautius did in fact have a connection to
Capua and therefore clients there,85 he may have been even more important for the road
project than he is said to have been for the aqueduct.86 At least his family connection to the
consul of 318, whose tenure saw the creation of the tribes of Oufentina and Falerna, through
whose territory the road ran, would have been useful.
81 As Mommsen first suggested, RS 2.351.
82 Wiseman, Clio, p. 87, without comment calls Sempronius “otherwise unknown”, but see MRR for
these years, and F. Münzer, Sempronius (85), RE 4, 1437–1438.
83 RS 2.351 n.2, and Cram, Censors, p. 79, suggest that since the principle of collegiality was not needed
after the lectio and census, when vetoes might arise, there may have been no real difficulty in allowing one
censor to resign and the other to stay on, in this case past the usual term. If Plautius was an older consular,
his resignation would not be surprising. In this scheme the crediting of Appius with most of the college’s
acts would also be more sensible.
84 P. Sempronius Sophus is one of the priests created in 300 as a result of the lex Ogulnia, opposed by
Caecus, on which, below, p. 116–119.
85 Above, p. 72 on the maintenance of clientela ties to places of origin.
86 That said, I will nevertheless continue to speak following the sources, as most modern scholars do, and
credit Caecus with the acts of the censorship; that the road and aqueduct bear his name and not Plautius’
makes this reasonable.
92
Expenditures
Diodorus alone makes two comments about Caecus’ spending of money on what
must have been extremely costly building projects. Rather than have the two large-scale
projects occur in parallel, as might be expected, Diodorus has them occur sequentially.
When describing the aqueduct, he writes:
…
(20.36)
…he spent much of the public moneys on this construction project without a
decree of the senate.
This claim that Caecus spent money without explicit senatorial approval is perfectly
acceptable. Censors were given public money to spend, only part of which may have been
earmarked for specific projects.87 There need be nothing wrong with Caecus’ behavior as
described here. Then when speaking about the road, Diodorus writes:
…
(20.36)
…he spent all of the public revenue [on the road project] with his cutting
down the high points and leveling with noteworthy fills the ravines and
hollows, but he left behind an undying memorial for himself, pursuing the
common good.
The final
of the passage makes Diodorus appear almost apologetic, but again there is no
reason for it. If Caecus spent the entirety of the sum allotted him, there was nothing wrong
with that. If he spent more than the original sum and in fact did empty the treasury, it could
only have been with senatorial approval.88 The lack of mention of this prodigality in other
sources, including those less favorable overall to Caecus, strengthens the conclusion that
there was in fact nothing wrong with Caecus’ handling of the finances, and Diodorus or his
87 E.g., Livy 41.27.11, where one censor refuses to build without senatus Romani populive iussu; RS
2.453, on the senate’s demolition of the theater already built by C. Cassius, the censor of 154.
88 RS, p. 3.1141.
93
source may be drawing the wrong conclusions about the significance of Caecus’
expenditures.89
Lectio senatus
From Caecus’ building projects, Livy proceeds immediately to Caecus’ lectio
senatus, giving it as the cause of Plautius’ resignation: ob infamem atque invidiosam
senatus lectionem verecundia victus collega magistratu se abdicaverat (9.29.7).90 It
appears again soon after (9.30.1–2) when the consuls ignore it and choose instead to use
the previous senatorial membership (ordo). Further details are provided 14 chapters later
with the account of the election of Cn. Flavius to the aedileship in 304 (9.44.10). There we
are finally told that Caecus had enrolled the sons of freedmen into the senate. Diodorus
Siculus agrees with this account of the new senatorial members although without the
derogatory attitude (20.36), as does Suetonius (vit. Claud. 24).
There is a discrepancy between the accounts of Livy and Diodorus. Whereas Livy
attributes the lectio to 312 and says that it was rejected by the consuls of 311, Diodorus
attributes the election of the censors and all other censorial activity he mentions to 310,
making the consuls of that year reject the lectio and use instead the list of the previous
censors.91 This is especially odd because Diodorus’ account of the year seems otherwise in
89 Both these comments of Diodorus suggest that he was drawing on a tradition that was not universally
favorable to Caecus, despite his otherwise favorable remarks.
90 “On account of the disgraceful and inviduous choosing of the senate, his colleague, overcome with
shame, abdicated the office.”
91 Diodorus does not say that there had been a previous censorial lectio:
…
(“The consuls…assembled the senate not according to his lectio, but using the list
written up by his predecessors”). He carefully uses different words for Caecus’ lectio (
) and
the action of the previous censors, which seems to be a simple listing (
). This suggests
that he knew Caecus’ lectio to be the first, but thought that the censors were still responsible for the
official drawing up of the list before this. This appears to contradict the account of Festus, who claims that
until the lex Ovinia it was the consuls that chose the senate, and this would presumably not have to be
done only when there were censors to write down the list: …post exactos eos [sc., reges] consules quoque et
tribuni militum consulari potestate coniunctissimos sibi quosque patriciorum, et deinde plebeiorum
legebant (290L) (“…after the expulsion of the kings, the consuls and also the military tribunes with
94
agreement with Livy’s. Diodorus’ placement of the censorial elections in 310 is also
disturbing because it results in three very closely spaced censorships preceded by one at a
relatively large distance: 318, 310, 307 and 304.92
Livy usually does not say explicitly when a lectio took place. It is often listed at the
beginning of a term along with the other censorial actions of a college. On the other hand,
the lustrum is, with only one exception, always placed where it occurred, namely, in the
second year.93 On several occasions Livy explicitly places the lectio before the departure on
campaign of the consuls under whom the censors were elected (e.g., in 174 at 40.53.1). It
may therefore be that Livy assumes this to have been the normal procedure for all lectiones
and so places Caecus’ there, not allowing for a different procedure at an earlier time, even
for the first censorial lectio.94 We have no explicit mention of the timing of any lectio before
that of 179 (40.53.1)95 , by which time the length of a lustrum had been regularized at five
years. Since the length of the lustrum does not appear firm until the mid-to-late third
century,96 it may be that in the earlier period the timing of the lectio was not fixed, and
consequently not always held at the start of a college’s tenure.97
consular power chose those closest to themselves, first from the patricians, then from the plebs”); the fact
that there were no censors before at least the mid-fifth century also belies this, though it is possible that the
practice evolved over time. More likely, Diodorus assumed that the censors were responsible for
maintaining the list even before the lex Ovinia; contra Cornell, Beginnings, p. 369.
92 At this time censorships were not uniformly spaced at five-year intervals; RS 2.345–346. Nevertheless
consecutive two and three year intervals (309 is a dictator year) without abdications would be odd.
93 The exception occured in 204 and appears to be an error. Livy says that the lustrum took place serius
(29.37.5), while implying that it was summer, but the summer of 204 was in no way late for censors
elected in the early spring.
94 This also despite Livy’s belief in an extended tenure for Caecus.
95 At 19.37.1, Livy appears to say that the lectio was completed after the consuls left on campaign, but this
probably is a result of all censorial acts being given together.
96 204 begins the string of consecutive five-year lustra, but, allowing for irregularities due to the Punic
wars, the date might be pushed back as early as 253; RS 2.345 n. 4.
97 For the unfixed nature of the date of the lectio and its later usual place, RS 2.419–420.
95
It seems from the language of Livy (…senatum primus libertinorum filiis lectio
inquinaverat (9.46.1))98 and Diodorus (
…)99 that
Caecus’ lectio was at some point accepted.100 In later practice the lectio was put into effect
immediately, but at this time it may not have been.101 If Caecus’ lectio were completed after
the consuls of 311 had already taken office, perhaps at the same time as the census was
completed, when other kinds of estimations were made,102 the consuls of 311 may or may
not have been required to act on it; if the consuls of 310 had already been designated, the
decision may have fallen to them from the start. Whether the lectio was accepted in 311 or
first rejected and then accepted by a later consular college, if we suppose that the consuls of
310 reject it, Livy’s and Diodorus’ accounts can be easily reconciled. If both Livy and
Diodorus believed that the lectio took place in the same year as the election of the censors,
both could have applied this rule with different results, because applied to different
information.103 If Diodorus or his source found only the year of the rejection of the lectio
(310) but not the year of election, while Livy instead found the year of the election (312)
and the year of the rejection of the lectio only in relative terms (e.g., “the year following the
lectio”104), then they would each have placed the rejection just as they have. While it is not
necessary that the two accounts be reconcilable, the procedure taken to achieve this has
suggested only a minor change in each account, and both based on the same principle.
98 “…he first debased the senate by filling it with sons of freedmen.”
99 “He also mixed the senate…”
100Mazzarino, Aspetti, p. 177, claims that the lectio allowed Caecus to obtain the funds needed for his
building projects.
101On the immediate efficacy of the lectio, RS 2.422.
102Even though the lectio was not part of the lustrum: there are several examples in Livy of colleges that
completed a lectio but not a lustrum; RS 2.419–420.
103Diodorus’ source would then appear to be knowledgable of Roman constitutional practice.
104Such an hypothesis is strengthened by Livy’s description of the rejection: itaque consules qui eum
annum secuti sunt…negaverent eam lectionem se…observaturos…(9.30.1) (“Therefore the consuls who
followed that year…said that they would not follow that lectio”.).
96
Given Diodorus’ otherwise accurate account of this and nearby years, it is rash to attribute
to him such a careless error. Perhaps in corroboration of this dating, Plutarch claims that
Fabius Rullianus did throw descendants of freedmen out of the senate (Pomp. 13.5). While
this is usually attributed to Fabius’ censorship in 304, it could instead refer to his rejection
of Caecus’ previously accepted lectio as consul in 310.105
Brindisi elogium
One further piece of evidence might be offered for this dating. In 1950 a
fragmentary inscription was found in Brindisi:106
P RIMVS SENATVM LEGIT ET COMITI[
BARBVLA COS CIRCVM SEDIT VI[
DIVMQVE HANNIBALIS ET PRAE[
MILITARIBVS PRAECIPVAM GLOR[
He first chose the senate and…the comitia…
during the consulship of Barbula…, he beseiged…
…of Hannibal and…
…military [affairs]…exceptional glory…
Dating to the mid-first century AD and clearly an elogium, the inscription belongs to
the fragmentary remains of a base for a statue, presumably of the honoree. This fragment
seems to include the beginning of the elogium, so the lost portions of the monument would
have included the name and a titulus for the man.107 Since the elogium has generally been
accepted as belonging to a magistrate of the Roman state and not a local man,108 the acts
105Plutarch attributes Fabius’ cognomen Maximus to this expulsion from the senate, but Livy (9.46.15),
Valerius Maximus (2.2.9) and Ampelius (18.3) attribute it to Fabius’ reversal of Caecus’ tribal reform.
Plutarch may therefore be confused about the censorial reforms of Caecus. Below, p. 100 for his mistake
regarding the tribal reforms.
106G. Vitucci, “Intorno a un nuovo frammento di elogium”, Riv. di Fil. e di Istr. Class. 81, 43-61 (1953);
L. R. Taylor, “The Centuriate assembly before and after the reform”, AJP 78(4), 337-354 (1957); E. Gabba,
“L’Elogio di Brindisi”, Ath 36, 90-105 (1959); F. Càssola, “Ancora sull’elogio di Brindisi”, Labeo 8, 307316 (1962); R. Develin, “Appius Claudius Caecus and the Brindisi elogium”, Historia 25, 484-487 (1976).
107In this respect the monument followed the practice of the elogia of the Forum Augusti, though this
inscription matches none of the preserved examples from there.
108Pace Gabba, Elogio.
97
described in the first line can have taken place only in the years 317, 311, 281 and 230, when
a Barbula was consul.109 There is no record of anything occurring in 317 or 281 that could
be described as a lectio senatus, certainly there were no censors, and so only 311 and 230
remain as possible dates. The censors in 311 were, of course, Caecus and Plautius, while
those of 230 were Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator and M. Sempronius Tuditanus.
Most explanations of the inscription start with the presence in line three of Hannibal,
taken to be the most famous possessor of that name, and conclude that the honoree was
Fabius, Hannibal’s opponent in the second Punic war, both a successful military leader who
operated in the area near Brundisium, and one whose actions could easily have been
described by a variety of plausible reconstructions of lines two – four.110 The first line
however presents some difficulties, as nothing notable is recorded elsewhere of Fabius’
censorship. Various proposals therefore have been made to account for the claim of a some
kind of first lectio senatus.
Robert Develin has suggested that the process of identification start instead with the
first line (or as much of it as we have).111 Caecus is the only man who primus senatum legit
and his tribal reforms (discussed below) could easily have been the motivation for the
reference to the comiti[a] in line one. Since military successes are emphasized in Caecus’
Augustan elogium, their presence here is no problem. The tradition about military theaters is
also sufficiently unclear that Caecus could have been involved in operations around
Brundisium, although nowhere else is this mentioned; in Caecus’ second consulship, as
Develin notes, the Romans were fighting the Sallentini in this area. It is therefore the
presence of Hannibal that now becomes a problem, since Caecus had no recorded
interaction with anyone by that name. It is possible that another man could have had the
109Cf. MRR.
110E.g., Vitucci, Nuovo frammento; Gabba, Elogio; Càssola, Elogio.
111Develin, Appius Claudius Caecus.
98
same name as the later Carthaginian general; the Barcids were known to have repeatedly
used a limited number of names, e.g., Hamilcar and Hanno. Develin has also cited the
existence of a Rome-Carthage treaty in 306 to suggest that Roman successes in southern
Italy, potentially by the consul Caecus in 307, had driven the Carthaginians to negotiate.112
For either Caecus or Fabius, the elogium is somewhat unusual, differing as it does
from the better known Forum-Augusti elogia for both, and presenting in each case
otherwise unattested activity. In favor of Caecus, one might add to the evidence of an
independent derivation of a lectio in 311 that at this time Brundisium was the end-point of
the via Appia and, although it was not extended this far by Caecus himself, the road
retained his name, and his importance to the city may therefore have been more strongly
felt.
The Importance of the lectio
The objectionable nature of Caecus’ lectio is clear in the sources: he chose sons of
freedmen to be senators, something which had not been done before (Livy 9.46.11 and
Diodorus 20.36). Livy further says that he passed over worthy men: potiores aliquot lectis
praeteriti essent (9.30.2), which is not the same as removing someone from the senate, an
action that Diodorus explicitly states Caecus did not perform:
(20.36).113 With few exceptions,114 modern scholarship views the new senators as
members of the wealthy urban commercial class.115 Caecus therefore again appears to
112Ferenczy, Patrician State, p. 186, though with less reason, also suggests that Caecus was involved in
the Rome-Carthage treaty.
113“He threw none of the unworthy senators off the senatorial list.”
114L. R. Taylor, The Voting districts of the Roman Republic: the thirty-five urban and rural tribes,
MAAR, vol. 20, American Academy, Rome (1960); followed also by Bauman, Lawyers, p. 32; Wiseman,
Clio, p. 89, suggests rejecting the reform entirely.
115S. Treggiari, Roman freedmen during the late Republic, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1969), p. 38,
on the rise of this class.
99
favor commercial interests in the city, now granting them political standing. The duration of
this reform is unclear. As already mentioned, it appears from the language of our sources
that the lectio was at some point put into effect. We hear of no removal of these men from
the senate by later censors, even although we are told that Caecus’ other reform, of the
tribes, was later reversed. As Develin points out, Caecus could have adlected only a relatively
few men to the senate, since the number of vacancies available to be filled by freedmen must
have been small.116 Nevertheless they may have been influential in the balance of power
within the senate, and Caecus was surely also interested in gaining the support of the class
at large by appointing their leading members to the senate.117
Tribal reform
Caecus enacted another reform in his performance of the census, this one of the
tribes. According to Livy, when his plan to dominate the senate by his lectio was thwarted
(although as just mentioned this is unlikely to have been his plan), Caecus changed the
distribution of citizens in the tribes:
…posteaquam eam lectionem nemo ratam habuit nec in curia adeptus erat
quas petierat opes, urbanis humilibus per omnes tribus divisis forum et
campum corrupuit. (9.46.11)
After no one considered his lectio valid and he did not obtain the influence
he wanted in the senate, he corrupted the forum and campus by distributing
the urban poor into all the tribes.118
116Develin, Practice, p. 220. Mazzarino’s theory about Caecus’ new senators securing his funding (above,
n. 100) is therefore unlikely.
117Only the wealthy of course would have been eligible, even in the absence of strict census-class
guidelines.
118There is a notable textual problem with this passage. The manuscripts read opes urbanas, but the
emendation to urbanis is widely accepted, though not by L. R. Taylor, VDRR, p. 135–136 with n. 13. I do
not think that either reading greatly affects the relevance to my discussion. The precise meaning is in both
cases unclear, but the reference is to the urban sphere.
100
As discussed above, Livy’s language here is heavily laden with political vocabulary from the
later Republic, as it is later when he describes the reversal of this reform by Q. Fabius
Rullianus Maximus, the censor of 304:119
Fabius simul concordiae causa, simul ne humillimorum in manu comitia
essent, omnem forensem turbam excretam in quattuor tribus coniecit
urbanasque eas appellavit. (9.46.14)
Fabius, both for the sake of concord and lest the comitia be in the hands of
the lowest element in society, selected the whole forum crowd and cast them
into the four tribes and called them “urban”.120
humilibus, humillimorum, forensem turbam are not precise terms. Livy uses them, and
factio, in an unusual way here, with the result that they can, and have been, variously
interpreted.121 Since later reforms moved freedmen and their descendants from the urban
tribes and subsequent reversals put them back in,122 the description of Fabius’ action in
304 strongly suggests that Caecus’ reform also affected only those men. Plutarch, although
clearly mistaken in his claim that Caecus gave the vote to freedmen:
(Popl. 7.5)
Much later Appius, acting the populist, gave the power of the vote to the
other freedmen.
does nevertheless confirm the conclusion that Caecus’ actual reform affected only freedmen
and their descendants. Diodorus again offers a slightly different version, agreeing that
Caecus changed the way in which tribal affiliation was assigned, but exaggerating the extent
of the reform:
119Dutoit, Vocabulaire, especially p. 332 on factio.
120The sense of the last part of Livy’s statement, urbanasque eas appellavit, is probably that Fabius
insisted on calling the four tribes “urban” even though they contained men with land-holdings and perhaps
habitations outside the city. It should not be taken to say that Fabius coined the term “urban” for those
tribes.
121E.g., Treggiari, Freedmen, p. 39–42, with whom I mainly agree, though I consider Livy’s humiles to
have included many men of reasonable wealth. See the more complete discussion above, p. 10–16.
122Treggiari, Freedmen, p. 42–52, for events in 234–219, 169, 115, and at various points in the first
century.
101
He gave to the citizens the right to be enrolled in whatever tribe they wanted
and to be placed in whatever census class they chose.
The essence of Caecus’ reform then appears to be the ending of the conventional
practice of limiting freedmen and their descendants to the four urban tribes, despite
landholdings some may have had elsewhere. It might have been more restrained, applying
only to property-holding descendants of freedmen, but there is no explicit mention of landholding in any account, while Livy seems to describe a more radical change and Diodorus’
misstatement seems best understood as only a minor substitution of “citizen” for “son of
freedman”. The extent of Fabius’ reversal is likewise unclear. He may have allowed landholding descendants of freedmen to stay in the tribe of their landholdings. Later reversals of
similar reforms certainly varied in extent.123
Whatever the details and however radical or moderate Caecus’ reform, its purpose
was partly to give more political power in the tribal comitia to part of the urban population.
This group was made up at least in part of freedmen and their descendants, men engaged
mainly in commerce.124 Any tribal reforms would have affected both the electoral and
legislative functions of the comitia. In particular the assignation of large numbers of these
citizens to the rural tribes would have diminished the influence of the wealthy land-holders
who lived in the city but belonged, by virtue of those landholdings, to rural tribes.125 These
men, traditionally powerful in legislative matters—as they would also have been in the
centuriate assembly because of their wealth—were now threatened by Caecus’ reform.
Since legislative comitia were called with only 22 days notice (a trinum nundinum) and so
relied for attendance mainly on the urban population, new tribal assignments would have
123See previous note.
124Treggiari, Freedmen, p. 38, 162f.
125Taylor, RVA, p. 64–70; above, p. 72.
102
had the most influence there. Elections of the minor magistrates, which also took place in the
tribal comitia, would also have been affected, although the role of the rural population may
have somewhat mitigated the effects of the reform here.126
If the rejection of Caecus’ lectio is properly placed during Fabius’ consulship in
310, then Fabius explicitly rejects both of Caecus’ censorial reforms.
“Religious” acts
There remain only a few recorded acts of Caecus’ censorship, and these are usually
considered in the religious context in which they are presented by the sources.127 The first
is the shift of the care for the cult of Hercules at the ara maxima from the patrician families
of the Pinarii and Potitii to the state. There are various accounts128 which differ in various
details, suggesting that a single original has been misinterpreted. Caecus is said to have had
the Potitii teach public slaves the rites of the cult and then hand it over to those slaves. The
account in Festus adds the detail that Caecus paid the Potitii in exchange for this act. As a
result of the transfer, Caecus is later blinded and the Potitii quickly die off.
Two inconsistencies suggest that this story has not been accurately transmitted by
any source. The first has long been noted: there is no record elsewhere of a gens Potitia.
The second is the lack of any role for the family that did exist, the Pinarii. R. E. A. Palmer
has resolved the problem by demonstrating that the Potitii were not a gens but a familia of
slaves (famuli) who maintained the cult, probably called potitii because their slavery placed
them in someone else’s power and so made them potiti (from archaic potio, to enslave, be
126Below on Flavius, p. 109–116, for evidence perhaps that the rural population affected voting only
mildly. Develin, Practice, p. 317-319 for an attempt to estimate voting participation.
127R. E. A. Palmer, “The Censors of 312 BC and the state religion”, Hist 14, 293–324 (1965).
128Livy 9.29.9–11, also mentioned at 9.34.18–19; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in excerpt, 16.3.1; Val.
Max. 1.1.17; and Festus 240L, also cf. 270L.
103
master of).129 The patrician family in whose care the cult actually was, the Pinarii, were in
serious decline at this time and hence Caecus’ action.130 This no doubt unusual act perhaps
fell to the censors simply because they were in a position to buy the slaves with public
money,131 or perhaps as a duty related to the upkeep of temples. Caecus’ actions would
then involve insuring that the cult did continue by providing for the state to take over from
the traditional caretakers who were no longer able to fulfill their duties. It had no real
religious import.132 We might note only the further detail that the cult was located in the
Forum Boarium, a site in which Caecus had already shown an interest when building his
aqueduct, and so one whose cults may have been of particular concern to him.133 Although
it may be that any cult in similar straits would have been of interest to the state, the
association of Caecus with this particular cult, especially since we do not hear of this type of
censorial activity elsewhere, is suggestive and will be dealt with in the next chapter.134
Finally there is the case of the tibicines and their festival of the Quinquatrus when
they dressed in long robes.135 According to Livy, in 311 the tibicines were upset about
being forbidden by the previous censors to hold their feast in the temple of Jupiter and so
129This would then be another example, like that of improbe factum in the first chapter, of an earlier text
being misunderstood by later readers due to a change in language that they were unaware of.
130There is no notice of a Pinarius between a possible praetor in 349 and the prefect of 213; in contrast
they appear several times in the fifth century as consul and military tribune, indicating that they had once
been influential. Palmer does not mention that the Pinarii’s abstention from eating at the sacrifice indicaties
that they were original presiders at it, since priests often did not eat of the sacrificial food; W. Burkert (Peter
Bing, trans.), Homo Necans, University of California Press, Berkeley (1983), p. 38 with n. 15; this can be
applied to other Roman rituals as well; e.g., below p. 159.
131Suggested by Palmer, Censors of 312, p. 320.
132Palmer’s further suggestions about details of the story in the sources are interesting, but not of
importance here.
133F. Coarelli, Il Foro boario dalle origini alla fine della Repubblica, Lectiones planetariae, Ministero per i
beni culturali e ambientali, Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma, Edizioni Quasar, Rome (1988), p. 111,
on the proximity of the ara and the aqua Appia; also p. 127–139.
134Below, p. 160 n. 110.
135Livy 7.30.5–10; Val. Max. 2.5.4; de viris illustribus 34; Ovid Fast. 6.651–692; Plutarch QR 55.
104
withdrew to Tibur.136 Given the importance of tibicines to state functions, this caused a
major interruption. The senate sends a delegation to retrieve the men by convincing the
Tiburtines to help. They take advantage of a festival to get the tibicines drunk, and then
wheel them back to Rome in carts, where on the following day a festival is given to them and
their ius vescendi restored. The latter half of the tale appears to be an etiology of a
misunderstood ritual, here combined with the actual events of 311. These in turn are hard to
understand. Livy does not himself implicate the censors of 312 directly. Only by recalling
the previous censors does he even intimate that the current censors might be involved. Only
Ovid and the auctor de viris illustribus mention Caecus, the latter typically overstating the
case (epulandi cantandique ius tibicinibus in publico ademit (34)137), and the former in a
version that disagrees substantially with Livy’s. Although some important verses are
missing, Ovid clearly involves an aedile and a limitation on the number of professional
mourners, reminiscent of the Twelve Tables:
adde quod aedilis, pompam qui funeris irent,
artifices solos iusserat esse decem.
Fasti 6.663–664
Add that the aedile ordered that there be only ten players
who might accompany the funeral parade.
It is also a freedman who deceives and inebriates the tibicines in this version, and, after
their return to Rome, Ovid has one man dress and mask the them in order to deceive the
senate and his colleague, lest they learn that the tibicines have arrived at Rome against his
colleague’s orders: contra collegi iussa venire (690). The manuscript tradition of this
principal actor’s name is unfortunately corrupt, although clearly originally Claudius.138
Such a story is clearly very odd, preserving the usual discord between Caecus and
136I agree with Palmer, Censors of 312, p. 309, 310, that Livy’s proximis censoribus cannot refer to those
then in office. Although he otherwise follows Livy’s account, Valerius makes no mention of the party
responsible for preventing the tibicines’ feasting.
137“He took from the flute-players the right to feast and sing in public.”
138The main variant is callidus, with perhaps a few manuscripts giving Claudius; E. H. Alton, D. E. W.
Wormell, E. Courtney, P. Ovidi Nasonis, Bibl. Scr. Gr. et Rom. Teub., Teubner, Leipzig (1988), ad loc.
105
Plautius, but mentioning it in a place where Livy does not even mention the censors, much
less their relationship.139 For this reason, Pighius and subsequent editors have emended the
text to read Plautius.140 On the other hand, it does present several of the traditional
annalistic disparagements of the Claudii: a dispute with the senate and a freedman
underling.141
It may be, as Palmer suggests, that the tibicines were upset about a censorial
decision in 317 and so waited until there were new censors to appeal to.142 Tibur was an
appropriate town to flee to as it was nearby, still independent, and had a tradition of
opposing Rome. In this case, the issue may have been one of citizenship, and this another
example of Caecus’ improving the lot of the non-land-owning urban population. But the
evidence is too scanty to be certain. Once again however there is no evidence for undue
censorial (or Claudian) interference in religious matters.
Rhotacism
Pomponius alone mentions a final activity of Caecus that he relates to the
rhotacizition of intervocalic s, and might best be associated with Caecus’ censorship:
hunc etiam actiones scripsisse traditum est primum de usurpationibus, qui
liber non exstat: idem Appius Claudius, qui videtur ab hoc processisse, R
litteram invenit, ut pro Valesiis Valerii essent et pro Fusiis Furii. (D.
1.2.2.36)
139Diodorus does not even mention the incident, which suggests that it was not part of the annalistic
account of Caecus’ censorship, for which see n. 157.
140Pighius: recte nisi forte per errorem O. “Claudius” scripsit (“Rightly, unless perhaps Ovid wrote
‘Claudius’ by mistake.”). Plautius is also preferred by the Teubner editors from the previous note, as well
as F. Bömer, Die Fasten, Carl Winter, Heidelberg (1957), vol. 1, p. 291, vol. 2, p. 381–382.
141Wiseman, Clio, p. 91, for the “client theme”. Plutarch’s version has several elements in common with
Ovid’s, but omits entirely the details of the final deception, presenting instead an ending much like Livy’s.
He oddly makes a proconsular decemvir responsible for the offending measure:
. Is he confusing Appii Claudii, as suggested above, p. 76, and misunderstanding the same
tradition that the auctor used? Rose, Roman Questions, p. 194; Bömer, Fasti, p. 381.
142Palmer, Censors of 312, p. 314.
106
He also is said to have written first about legal actions, in his de
usurpationibus, which is no longer extant; the same Appius Claudius, who
seems to have proceeded from this, discovered the letter R, so that they were
“Valerii” instead of “Valesii” and “Furii” instead of “Fusii”.
The context indicates a terminus ante quem of 304, and Caecus might well have been
concerned about spelling when engaged in the listing tasks of the censorship. If so, this
passage may be associated with the comment of Martianus Cappella : "Z" idcirco Appius
Claudius detestatur, quod dentes mortui dum exprimitur imitatur (de rhet. 3.261), although
a direct connection is difficult to establish.143 Pomponius’ videtur ab hoc processisse is
however puzzling and suggests that an interest in legal texts led to Caecus’ orthographic
work. This might explain the odd use of invenit, but it is still hard to see how any kind of
legal publication could have made a lasting impact on Roman use of the alphabet, and so
attribution to his censorship is left as an option. The content of Caecus’ writing is itself
disputed. If Pomponius is correct, this would be the first known work on Roman law.
Although it is often claimed that the title suggests a work too advanced for such a
publication, in fact, the exact meaning of the title, and therefore the subject of the work, is
unclear.144
In sum, Caecus’ tenure as censor was remarkable for the number of apparent firsts,
its building successes and policy reforms (even if not all were permanent). If the Claudii
had been nearly invisible for the previous several decades, Caecus had made sure that he
could not be missed.
The First consulship
Following the censorship, Caecus was elected consul in 307. Possibly he had just
resigned the censorship only in 308, or had even held onto it until after his election to the
143“Appius Claudius cursed the letter Z because, when formed, it resembled the teeth of a corpse.” Above,
p. 36.
144D’Ippolito, Giuristi, has come up with an ingenious explanation, but the evidence is too slender to
support its weight. A. Guarino, “Appio Claudio ‘de usurpationibus’”, Labeo 27, 7–11 (1981).
107
consulship.145 Livy reports conflicting accounts and Macrobius says that Caecus held the
censorship for a quinquennium, which, including the dictator year of 309, would seem to
suggest all of 308.146 (The legality of Caecus’ extended censorship was discussed above.)
Livy then claims that Caecus protested the prorogation of Fabius Rullianus to
continue fighting in Samnium where he had been engaged in the previous year as consul.
The auctor de viris illustribus may be the only source to provide a motive for Caecus’
objection. If he is referring to this occasion when he writes: ne Fabius solus ad bellum
mitteretur (34),147 thensolus may mean that Caecus felt the risk too great to send only one
man (or army) to face it. If accurately reported therefore, the objection need not have been
political, although the opposition between Fabius and Caecus has already been discussed
and would have provided the occasion for a political dispute, or annalistic creation.
Livy also reports that Caecus stayed in Rome while Fabius and Volumnius,
Caecus’ colleague in the consulship, did the fighting. His wording is ambiguous: creatus
consul…Romae mansit ut urbanis opes artibus augeret quando belli decus penes alios esset
(9.42.4),148 so it is not clear whether Livy means that Caecus avoided a military command
or that one was not given to him by a hostile senate.149 Neither interpretation makes sense
however, since, as discussed above, a consul would not have stayed in Rome at all when
the military situation was so severe as to require a prorogation, as it was here in the closing
years of the second Samnite war.150 As mentioned above, the record of consular theaters
145RS, 1.524–526, on holding consecutive curule offices in this period.
146Macrobius is possibly reading Livy 9.34.16 where Sempronius claims that Caecus indended to hold
onto the censorship for three and one-half years past the 18 months allowed by the lex Aemilia, a total of
five years.
147“Lest Fabius be sent to war alone…”.
148“Having been made consul…he stayed at Rome so that he might increase his power with urban wiles
since the honor of war belonged to others.”
149The latter is the interpretation of, inter alios, B. O. Foster, trans., Loeb Classical Library.
150Develin, Practice, p. 220; W. V. Harris, War and imperialism in Republican Rome 327–70 B.C.,
Clarendon Press, Oxford (1985), p. 15.
108
of operation is very unreliable and it may simply be that it preserved no mention of any
activity for Caecus and so at some point it was assumed that he had performed no military
service in this year.151 The stay-at-home Claudius is also, as Wiseman has demonstrated, a
staple in the annalistic disparagement of the Claudii, and so of dubious authenticity
anyway.152
Censors were also elected in 307, and it has been suggested that Caecus stayed in
Rome to safeguard his own censorial reforms against them.153 The unlikelihood of his
remaining in the city has just been mentioned, but it should also be noted that the
mechanism by which he might prevent censorial modification of his reforms is unclear. He
was certainly unsuccessful in preventing their reversal in 304, a year in which he very likely
was in Rome, and his possession of the office of consul in 307 should have offered no
powers of which he might have availed himself in combatting hostile censors. Since his
reforms were patently not reversed, at least one of the censors, if not both, must have favored
them.154 The significance, if any, of censors in this year is unclear, since the reasons for
which censors were deemed necessary during this period are unknown. There was, as we
have seen, as yet no fixed period for the lustrum, so it could not have been unquestionably
necessary to elect new censors, nor do we know if it was one or both consuls or the senate
who decided upon elections. Caecus is just as likely to have been in favor of new censors as
against.155
151Above, p. 97, for Develin’s tentative suggestion that Caecus was active against the Sallentini, a theater
that Livy assigns to Volumnius.
152No assistance is provided by the list of conquered enemies provided by the Augustan elogium and the
auctor: Samnites, Sabines and Etruscans. All three were constant foes until the Roman victory of 295 at
Sentinum, and Caecus is said to have engaged all of them in 296 and 295.
153E.g., P. LeJay, Appius Claudius Caecus, RPh 44, 92–141 (1920), p. 107.
154Iunius Brutus, censor 307, was consul in 311, for which, above, p. 95–98, on Caecus’ rejected lectio.
155Fabius’ election to the censorship in 304 follows close upon the election of 307. Given this and
Fabius’ reversal of Caecus’ reform, it may be that the election was held for this purpose. In that case, it
may be that the consul, P. Sempronius Sophus, did have significant influence in both deciding on and
109
Flavius
Caecus holds no other office of which we are certain until 298,156 but in the interim
he remains important. As mentioned above, Livy includes the details of Caecus’ lectio and
census reforms in his discussion of the curule aedile of 304, Cn. Flavius (9.46). Flavius’
election is a direct result, according to Livy, of Caecus’ tribal reforms, which allowed the
son of a freedman to be elected to such an office. Diodorus agrees with this and is even
more explicit, claiming that the people wanted to give a direct rebuff to the aristocracy after
its rejection of Caecus’ lectio in 310:
(20.39)
The people, responding to this, since they were sympathetic to Appius and
wished to confirm their power over the nobles, elected as curule aedile the
son of a freedman, Gnaius Flavius, who was the first of the Romans whose
father had been a slave to achieve this office.157
running the election, as Caecus may have in 307. The reasons for Sempronius himself being elected censor
only three years later are unclear.
156J. Seidel’s suggestion, Fasti aedilicii von der Einrichtung der plebejischen Ädilität bis sum Tode
Caesars, Dissertation, University of Breslau, Breslau (1908), p. 12, that Caecus was curule aedile for the
second time in 305 has little to recommend it. Caecus must have been praetor by 297, but no mention is
made of it. Given the military situation in 306, a prorogation-type praetorship typical of this period (for
which, above, p. 82) might be expected here.
157Diodorus’ only other reference to a Roman censor comes at 31.25.1, where, at the death of L. Aemelius
Paullus, his censorship in 164 is noted. Diodorus’ account of Caecus’ censorship seems to be based
ultimately on a source similar to that used by Livy, though somewhat misunderstood (Drummond, Dictator
years, p. 361). Mentioned are the major building projects, the failed lectio, the tribal reform, the election of
Flavius and the blindness, while the account of the ara maxima cult is omitted. Diodorus presents
embellishments of three parts of the account: the effects of Caecus’ censorial reforms are extended; Flavius’
election is made a deliberate rebuff by the people, instead of simply the natural result of Caecus’ reform; and
Caecus’ blindness occurs immediately after the censorship. Despite this supposed infliction, Diodorus,
relying on his chronographic source, makes Caecus’ consul in 307 (45.1), but his narrative skips over the
events of Caecus’ consulship, in which, if Livy is any guide, Caecus probably had a small role anyway.
Diodorus’ mistake would have been impossible if he had before him a continuous narrative of Caecus’
career, or if he had himself excerpted the relevant sections from a mixed narrative. Any continuous narrative
account of Caecus’ censorship and its consequences (that is, Flavius’ election) was divided by Livy or one
of his sources in order to recount its events under the appropriate years. Note also the use of the same
societal divisions that Pliny uses in his account of Flavius (NH 33.17); above, p. 15–16.
110
This passage is often taken to mean that Flavius was elected in 308, the year after Caecus’
reforms of 310 (309 is one of the dictator years, which are omitted by Diodorus158), but
Diodorus does not in fact say so explicitly, and Flavius is best not moved from 304 on the
basis of this account. The last decade of the fourth century is nevertheless a chronologically
confused period. 309 and 301 are dictator years, and, according to Livy, Piso left out the
consular colleges of 307 and 306 (9.44.3–4). Furthermore the year of Flavius’ officeholding is puzzling, because a date of 304 for Flavius as curule aedile would break the
supposed pattern of alternation of the office between patricians and plebeians. The pattern
is however of dubious authenticity. In 296, the plebeian Ogulnii hold the office and the
pattern of even-year plebeians and odd-year patricians continues in subsequent years. Prior
to this, we know the years of only two other colleges: in 366 patricians hold the first
college, and in 331 patricians again hold the office. Both agree with Flavius’ aedileship in
that, once the dictator years are eliminated, it is patricians that hold office in even years.
Although Livy says that the office was immediately made to alternate between the orders
(6.42.12–14, 7.1.2, 5–6), it may be that he was wrong, the alternation starting later
(perhaps confirmed by the tradition of a plebeian curule aedile in 364 reported—and
disbelieved—by Cicero at pro Planc. 24.58159) or that the alternation was not a hard and
fast rule until later.160 Such a late-forming pattern in this office would be consistent with
the evidence already discussed for the five-year lustrum. Since the alternation ended
sometime early in the first century,161 claims of knowledge of it in Livy’s time are of
158Diodorus does not include the dictator years in his accounts of the activities of each year, but he
sometimes seems to have incuded them in calculations; A. Drummond, “The Dictator years”, Hist 27(4),
550-572 (1978), p. 359-363.
159MRR 1.116; Develin, Patterns, p. 21.
160Oakley, Livy, p. 51–52, for list of possible aediles. Forsythe, Piso, p. 348–349, discusses the problem,
but ignores the two early even-yeared patrician office-holders; Seidel, Aediles, p. 3, discusses the alternation
briefly; Beloch, Römische Geschichte, p. 347–349, concludes that plebeians did not hold the office until
after 331.
161MRR 2.21, lists a mixed college for 91.
111
questionable value without evidence of a more complete list of early office-holders than we
have.162
Flavius’ connection to Caecus is inconsistently represented in the sources. Piso
mentions none, although we probably do not have the entirety of his account (apud Gellius
7.9),163 and neither does Macer, also quoted briefly by Livy (9.46.3). Cicero too mentions
nothing, although he is discussing only specific points about Flavius (ad Att. 6.1.8, 18, de
oratore 1.41.185f, pro Murena 11.25).164 Livy (9.46.10–11) and Diodorus (20.36)
mention only that Flavius obtained office as a result of Caecus’ reforms, from which one
might conclude that Caecus and Flavius supported and were supported by the same people.
It is only with the imperial sources that a direct connection is made between the two men.
Pliny (NH 33.17) and Pomponius (D. 1.2.2.6-8) make Flavius the scriba of Caecus and
give Caecus credit for Flavius’ activities: the publication of both a calendar indicating days
when cases could be brought, and legal formulae (actiones) for bringing such cases, both
previously the province of the pontiffs. This close late connection to Caecus is perhaps only
an elaboration of the basic data found in the earlier sources, which say only that Flavius was
a scriba.165
This understanding of the sources of Flavius’ profession may be another example
of a misunderstood textual record. With the exception of Diodorus, Flavius is described in
162Forsythe, Piso, p. 378, seems to believe that Piso had an extensive list of curule aediles which would
have been available to Livy, but there is little evidence that this is true for the mid-Republic. Do the reports
of separate plebeian and and patricians colleges for the aediles of 299 (MRR 1.173–174) reflect an effort to
fix this problem?
163Above, p. 14 with n. 33.
164And, as mentioned above, p. 76, Atticus may be confusing his Appii Claudii when he dates Flavius to
the time before the Twelve Tables; Cornell, “Clio’s Cosmetics”, v. Wiseman’s view, Clio, p. 115 n. 17,
that Cicero had no date for Flavius until he read Valerius Antias. Since in his letter to Atticus, Cicero is
trying to show that his dating of Flavius is correct, it is precisely the correct date for Flavius that he and
Atticus are arguing about. Atticus seems to be arguing that the description of Flavius’ act would suggest
that the date given by Cicero is much too late. Cicero responds by showing why Atticus’ date must be too
early.
165Since Flavius is either hero or villain, depending on one’s politics, I do not see that one can attribute
such a connection to either a pro- or anti-Claudian historian, contra Wiseman, Clio, p. 88.
112
all the sources as scriba.166 Pliny and Pomponius place him in the employ of Caecus while
Piso, with Livy apparently following him,167 makes Flavius a public official, actually in
service at the time of his own election. According to Macer, Flavius had long ceased to
pursue this profession, as he had held several offices by this time.168 Pliny similarly has
Flavius hold both the plebeian tribunate and the aedileship at the same time, despite the
existence of a lex Genucia from 342 which forbid the holding of two offices concurrently
(Livy 7.42.2). Both are perhaps confusing him with the Flavius who was tribune of the
plebs in 327.169 Flavius’ publication of information associated with the pontifical college
suggests that he had some connection to them,170 and the title of scriba lends support to
this. Rather than “public official”, as the earlier accounts state, or “personal scribe”, as the
later ones do, the title might be better understood in the same sense that Livy gives it in his
third decade:…scriba pontificis, quos nunc minores pontifices appellant (22.57.3).171 This
interpretation is strengthened by Macrobius’ explicit connection of the public calendar,
which was published by Flavius, to these minores pontifices:
Priscis ergo temporibus, antequam fasti a Cn. Flavio scriba invitis patribus in
omnium notitiam proderentur, pontifici minori haec provincia delegabatur ut
novae lunae primum observaret aspectum visamque regi sacrificulo nuntiaret.
(Sat. 1.15.9)
166Cicero does not use the term in his reference to Flavius at de orat. 1.41, though he does elsewhere.
167Indicated in Livy by quibusdam annalibus (9.46.2).
168Macer’s account contains other likely inaccuracies, including the holding of an office which does not
seem to have existed yet, typical of the few fragments we have from him. Most recently, S. Walt, Der
Historiker C. Licinius Macer, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde, vol. 103, Teubner, Stuttgart (1997), especially
p. 277–280, and Forsythe, Piso, p. 343–349, on Macer and the tradition around Flavius.
169Called A. Flavius by Valerius Maximus, 8.1.7, and tentatively suggested by Bauman, Lex Valeria, p.
46, to have been An. Flavius, Flavius’ father, since the praenomen is unusual enough to have been
corrupted, especially if abbreviated. However freedmen who obtained elected office are unknown; Treggiari,
Freedmen, p. 62.
170Bauman, Lawyers, p. 28–31, for the view that it was in his capacity as aedile that he obtained access to
this information.
171“…the ‘scriba’ of the pontifex, one of those whom we now call ‘pontifices minor’…”. Pais, Ricerche,
p. 221 with n. 2. Bauman’s argument, Lawyers, p. 27 with n. 59, that “no source gives Flavius that office”
begs the question. Also Treggiari, Freedmen, p. 153, on the importance of governmental scribae.
113
In earlier times therefore, before the fasti were made public to all by Cn.
Flavius the scribe acting against the will of the senate, this task was assigned
to a ‘pontifex minor’, that he watch for the appearance of the new moon and
report it to the rex sacrificulus.
A position with the pontifical college would explain some of the problems concerning
Flavius’ access to the material he publishes (and thereby eliminate the need for Caecus to
provide it) and make this another case, like the examples of improbe factum and potitii that
we have already seen, of later readers misinterpreting a word or term that had by their time
lost its originally intended meaning.172
What then of the connection to Caecus? Livy connects Flavius to Caecus via the
latter’s tribal reforms; Diodorus does the same. In the absence of any attested direct link
before Pliny, these likely reflect not contemporary data, but the tradition surrounding
Flavius, which appears to follow from several sources. First it is likely that Caecus’
censorial reforms did result in Flavius’ election, and that this kind of man was the intended
beneficiary. Flavius is the first son of a freedman to hold curule office. Given the nature of
Caecus’ tribal reform, and the fact that after its reversal in 304, such an election did not
occur again, as far as we know, until either 249, 139, or even 99,173 the likelihood exists that
he was elected with the help of men in a similar position, who had only recently gained the
power to do so (Livy’s forensis factio (9.46.10)). Flavius would then, as Livy and Diodorus
claim, have been elected by beneficiaries of Caecus’ reform.
Second Flavius’ work seems to have had the same goals as some of Caecus’ acts.
In particular, Flavius is said been responsible for two publications. The first was the
calendar, listing the days on which it was possible to bring legal action.174 Previously, as
172See however Cicero, de leg 3.46, 48, on the influence of scribae on the legal process. Bauman’s view,
above, n. 170, that Flavius obtained the information once elected aedile is also interesting.
173Treggiari, Freedmen, p. 57–58.
174Although the list of dies fasti eventually gave its name to the list of consuls, the consular fasti, as a
result of their joint publication, there is nothing in the sources to suggest that Flavius published the latter.
Contra, e.g., L. Loreto, “La Censura di Appio Claudio, l’edilità di Cn, Flavio e la razionalizzazione delle
strutture interne dello stato romano”, AeR 36, 181–203 (1991), p. 199, who also maintains that Flavius’
114
the passage of Macrobius quoted above states, the calendar was not fixed, but could be
manipulated by the pontiffs. Agnes Michels has argued strongly that Flavius first explicitly
gave days the labels N, for nefasti, meaning unsuitable for assemblies and other public
business, F, for fasti, indicating days that were suitable for both assemblies and legal
business before the praetor and NP, for nefasti publici, which, with the exception of fixed
feriae, were uncertain before their announcement by the rex at the beginning of the
month.175 Michels suggests that Flavius may also have begun the nundinal labeling
system176 in order to facilitate the calculation both of nundinae that fell on N and of the
trinum nundinum.
While a fixed calendar offered benefits to many, it especially aided citizens living at a
distance from Rome, who could not easily get the new information on the monthly calendar,
as well as those engaged in commerce, who now had a fixed calendar that they and those
who did business with them could use to more effectively conduct that business. If Flavius
did also create a system to allow easy calculation of nundinae, this too would have aided
those with commercial interests.177As Michels notes, since N originally served agricultural
purposes, that they could be fixed at all suggests that agriculture had been overtaken in
importance, surely by commerce.178
Flavius’ other publication was of formulae for bringing legal actions.179 While we
do not have a clear picture of contemporary practice, it is likely that many of these formulae
publication standardized political history. Above, p. 18–22, for the importance attached to this period by
modern historiography.
175Michels, Calendar, p. 106–118. C, for comitiales, days, suitable for assemblies only, did not yet exist.
176Though without the use of the letters A–H as labels.
177Michels, Calendar, p. 86–87.
178Michels, Calendar, p. 116.
179The actiones described in most of the sources seem to be identical to the ius flavianum mentioned by
Livy and Valerius Maximus; F. Schulz, A History of Roman legal science, Oxford University Press,
Oxford and New York (1953), p. 9–10, 35.
115
were known to attentive citizens, especially those who frequented the courts and those
patricians who had access to pontifical lore (perhaps through family connections) and a
tradition of bringing such actions, but the entirety of them were surely not common
knowledge. In particular, new citizens and those who operated at a distance from the city,
and so were unable to make observations, would have been at a notable disadvantage.180
Since the information seems technically to have been a part of pontifical domain, its
publication would have weakened the hold of the college on the legal process by removing
the possibility of its withholding the proper procedures or even manipulating them to the
advantage of one party. The pontiffs were also made less necessary as a repository of
knowledge.
In both cases, Flavius seems to have acted upon the change in Rome’s status from a
local agriculture-based city to a powerful wide-reaching state with significant commercial
interests. He acted to the advantage of those not traditionally a part of the state’s
functioning, at the same time as he increased the efficiency of the legal process, both
necessities as Rome continued to expand to became the center of a wide-spread state and to
add new citizens. These non-patricians had only recently gained near political equality, and
the influx of new citizens both in the new tribes and the old urban ones guaranteed that their
numbers were large, so that Flavius’ actions had a significant impact. The acceptance of his
reforms—we hear of no attempt to overturn them—is evidence of their utility.181 In their
appeal to commercial interests and those living at a distance from the city, Flavius’
publications match the goals of Caecus’ censorial acts.
180Wallace-Hadrill, Patronage in Roman society, p. 76.
181In fact the lex Hortensia strengthened them by making market days F, but not C, that is, freeing people
from assemblies in order to allow them to conduct more business, and vice versa, freeing comitia from the
distractions of the market. One thinks again of the upper classes, who would have had both influence at the
assemblies and interests in commerce, as the major beneficiaries of this reform. Loreto, Censura, overly
downplays the political nature of Flavius’ publication of the calendar—as well as Caecus’ own reforms—
and emphasizes its role in systematization and modernization of the Roman government.
116
As a final insult to the pontiffs, Flavius is said to have dedicated a temple, the
aedicula concordiae, in fulfillment of a vow to reconcile the orders. The pontiff had to be
forced consensu populi (Livy 9.46.6) to recite the formulae. While this appears
suspiciously reminiscent of Flavius’ publication of other formulae, the actiones, against
pontifical wishes, it is also precisely the kind of datum we would expect to find preserved in
official records for three reasons: (1) it was a “first”, namely, a dedication by a nonimperium-holder; (2) it affected the pontifical college, which we are explicitly told kept
written records; and (3) it resulted in legislation (Livy 9.46.7).182 Pliny also cites the
dedicatory inscription,183 which is both a textual source for the building and a reminder that
Flavius’ presence would have been long felt in the city, which may explain why he figures
so large in the accounts of this period.
The Lex Ogulnia
Flavius’ successful diminution of pontifical power, by both his dual publication and
dedication of the aedicula Concordiae, shifted influence to the newly emerging elite which
now contained plebeians, and especially leveled the playing field for non-participants in the
daily political life at Rome, or at least for those new to it. It links him to Caecus through the
latter’s opposition to the lex Ogulnia of 300, which should also be interpreted as an attempt
(it failed) to limit pontifical influence. Before the passage of this law, the pontifical college
was limited to patricians, and the lex Ogulnia, which opened it up to plebeians by adding
four new plebeian members, would therefore appear to be a move acceptable to Caecus’
already demonstrated tendencies. Such an interpretation appears to have been made by at
182Oakley, Livy, p. 61. A. Ziolkowski, Temples of mid-republican Rome and their historical and
topographical context, Saggi di storia antica 4, “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, Rome (1988), p. 220–234,
wrongly views this law, as reported by Livy, as a setback for the plebs. On the contrary, it puts their
ability to authorize dedications on par with the senate’s.
183Much has been made of this inscription, which dates the dedication not by consular year, but by years
from the building of the Capitoline temple, that is, effectively, anno liberae rei publicae, but I do not
myself clearly understand the significance of this alternative dating scheme.
117
least part of the annalistic tradition. Livy represents the patricians as responding to this act
in the same way that they had responded to the opening of the consulship to plebeians,
saying that they made complaints about religious scruples, but did not make any effort to
oppose it (10.6.9–11). Despite this he then proceeds to report a great debate in the senate
involving Caecus and P. Decius Mus, giving only the latter’s speech. A reported veto
exercised after the tribes were called to vote may corroborate the second version and indicate
that some real opposition to the bill did exist; in any case Livy claims that the bill passed the
next day. Among the new pontiffs were Decius, who gave the speech in favor of the bill, and
P. Sempronius Sophus, almost surely the same man who opposed Caecus’ extended
censorship184 and himself censor in that year.
Caecus’ opposition to this bill has remained for most modern scholarship
inseparable from the anti-plebeian color Livy gives to it in Decius’ speech. I have already
mentioned above how it has caused a rift in modern views of Caecus, with the exception of
Garzetti, who argued to the acceptance of some that Caecus was merely acting according to
personal motives, devoid of any real political significance.185 I find this view unacceptable in
that it strips real political significance from the actions of arguably the leading political
figure of this period. Caecus may have acted partly out of personal feelings, but to suggest
that he would oppose a bill that was consistent with his own agenda simply because its
proponents were men he disliked is excessive. Federico D’Ippolito has provided a much
more satisfactory explanation of Caecus’ opposition.186
The crux of D’Ippolito’s interpretation had already been noted by Livy:
[Ogulnii] eam actionem susceperunt qua non infimam plebem accenderent
sed ipsa capita plebis, consulares triumphalesque plebeios, quorum
honoribus nihil praeter sacerdotia, quae nondum promiscua erant, deesset.
(10.6.4–5)
184Above, p. 91.
185A. Garzetti, “Appio Claudio Cieco nella storia politica del suo tempo”, Ath 25, 175–244 (1947).
186Giuristi e sapienti.
118
The Ogulnii took this action, by which they excited not the meanest part of
the plebs but its chiefs, plebeians who had been consuls and triumphators,
who were barred from only the offices of the priesthoods, which until this
time had been held only by patricians.
The bill was intended for the benefit of the plebean nobiles, the only plebeians with any real
aspirations of co-optation to a priesthood.187 This same group was not the recipient of
benefits from Caecus’ or Flavius’ acts, which instead, as we have noted, were aimed at
plebeians who were not actors in the Roman political arena, although they may have been
the social and economic equals of those who were. Livy’s accounts appear to reflect this
distinction accurately. As we know from Pliny’s comments,188 Livy repeats the language of
his source for his account of Flavius, and speaks relatively accurately of Flavius in
opposition to the nobiles. In contrast the legislation of the Ogulnii is inappropriately painted
in the typical colors of the patrician-plebeian struggle, reflecting the annalistic tradition’s
inability to understand the real complexity of the political situation.
According to D’Ippolito, the Ogulnian legislation was a response to the weakening
of pontifical influence by Flavius’ acts. Instead of a college with increasingly less authority
and political relevance, a college for which the (plebeian) majority of leading Roman
politicians were ineligible, the lex Ogulnia created a college that could function as another
arena for political competition, that was an office to be sought after. D’Ippolito also argues
that the new pontiffs and their supporters enhanced the practical importance of the office in
direct response to Flavius’ efforts.189 For D’Ippolito it was only with Sextus Aelius Paetus
187Priests were not at this time elected, but chosen by the colleges; RS 2.24.
188 Pliny NH 33.17 reads: “anulos abiectos” in antiquissimis reperiatur annalibus…; etenim adiectum hoc
quoque “sed et phaleras positas” propterque nomen equitum adiectum est, anulosque depositos a nobilitate in
annales relatum est…, which should be compared with Livy’s (9.46.12): plerique nobilium anulos aureos et
phaleras deponerent, which suggests that his use of nobilis, at least, is faithful to his source; above, p. 15–
16.
189In particular he suggests that a more oracular pontificate was created; Giuristi, p. 88-92.
119
a century later that the pontifical authority over actiones was effectively ended. Flavius’
attempts must have been made less effectual by the Ogulnian pontificate.190
In this interpretation, which is partly inspired by the various mentions of Caecus’
orthographic reforms, his actions in 300 form a consistent whole with his censorial reforms
and especially with the actions of Flavius. This consistency with Flavius provides the final
motivation for associating the two men, and suggests that the legal tradition represented by
Pomponius may have recognized this, or even been correct in its claim that Caecus was the
actual author of Flavius’ publication.191
The 290s
In 298 Caecus was interrex, a selection that indicates at least recognition of his
continued importance in the senate. Livy records nothing unusual about his tenure, and so
the remark of Cicero that there was a controversy:
M’. Curium, quod is tribunus plebis interrege Appio Caeco diserto homine
comitia contra leges habente, cum de plebe consulem non accipiebat, patres
ante auctores fieri coegerit; (Brutus 14.55)
…Manius Curius, because when Appius Caecus, a superior speaker, was
illegally holding the comitia and did not take a consul from the plebs, he,
tribune of the plebs, compelled the patres to authorize the outcome before
the vote.
should perhaps not be attributed to this year, since Livy might be expected to have
mentioned this in his narrative. Livy also reports that Caecus was the first interrex of the two
in that interregnum, and this man was not allowed to hold the comitia (Asconius in
Milonianam 37.26–28). In Cicero’s comment, contra leges undoubtedly refers to comitia
habente, but it is not clear what the illegality was. Although the main verb accipiebat
190Since in 304 no plebeians at all were able to enter the pontifical college, Flavius’ reforms in that year
provided benefits for all plebeians including the nobiles, although we might suspect that those engaged in
commercial—and not political—pursuits would be more interested in a predictable calendar and also less
knowledgeable about legal formulae. If this was an effort by Flavius to attract the support of plebeian
nobiles, then the lex Ogulnia may be understood as a direct response by the Ogulnii.
191If so, that motivation appears not to have been noted by Pomponius.
120
appears in the indicative, the cum-clause appears to be closely associated with the comment
on illegality, and this suggests that it was this element that violated the law, and not simply
the holding of comitia.192 In this case the event should probably be attributed to one of
Caecus’ other two undated interregna. Staveley has even suggested that this is another case
of confused Appii Claudii, and that this event should be assigned to 352.193
The same incident is likely meant by the auctor de viris illustribus (34.3):
ne consulatus com plebeiis communicaretur, [Appius] acerrime restitit
Appius fiercely resisted sharing the consulate with plebeians.
In both cases the conclusion is usually drawn that Caecus opposed the election of any
plebeian candidate. Given the meager description provided by both sources—if they do
refer to the same event—it is difficult to say anything with confidence, but it is entirely
possible that Caecus opposed the election not of any plebeian, but of one in particular. This
would fit at least the language of Cicero, although admittedly not his likely intent (the intent
of the original source remains unreachable), and allow Caecus’ act to have had nothing to
do with denying plebeians a place in the consulship, itself an absurdity after over half a
century of plebeian participation in the office.
This same tendency to misinterpretation in favor of an all-patrician consulate also
lies behind the accounts of Caecus’ election to his second consulship in 296. According to
Livy, Fabius Rullianus was winning the election despite being consul and presiding
magistrate, when Caecus, himself already a candidate, attempted to get elected as Fabius’
colleague: non sui magis honoris causa quam ut patricii reciperarent duo consularia loca
192A. E. Douglas, M. Tulli Ciceronis Brutus, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1966), p. 45, makes no mention
of the inability of the first interrex to hold comitia; M. Kellogg, M. Tulli Ciceronis Brutus de claris
oratoribus, Ginn and Company, Boston and London (1889), p. 27–28, places the crime in both holding
comitia and not accepting the plebeian.
193Interregnum, p. 201. G. V. Sumner, The Orators in Cicero’s Brutus: Prosopography and chronology,
suppl. vol. 11, University of Toronto Press, Toronto (1973), p. 28–29, attributes the event to 291.
121
(10.15.8).194 Fabius nobly refused the patrician pleas to join Caecus (the outcast Caecus
seems to have disappeared for the moment), claiming not that he was opposed to an allpatrician college but—quite the contrary—that he himself was ineligible as presiding
magistrate.
The entire account is very odd. As just mentioned, a patrician college was nearly
impossible at this late date, and Caecus’ election with his colleague from 307, L. Volumnius,
indicates that he never intended to run with Fabius.195 The military success of their earlier
consulship in 307 may also have been part of the motivation for their re-election in this year
of renewed fighting with the Samnites. The passage however suggests that some record, or
at least that some tradition of the voting was preserved, whether officially or not, and that
Fabius was being returned early on. This was perhaps indicative of a desire to take
advantage of Fabius’ military skills at a time of serious military threats; in fact Fabius was
prorogued and continued to fight in Samnium. Whether or not Fabius made any plea to the
centuries not to elect him, or even refused the office when offered it, Caecus was eventually
elected, and the presence of both men as vote-getters for the patrician consulship perhaps
led to accusations of Claudian treachery.196
Fabius’ popularity in this year of military necessity is not surprising. He is reelected consul in the following year, 295, again to continue fighting as the military situation
becomes critical. Caecus was also probably not the ablest of generals and this contributed
to the situation at the comitia in 297. Although Wiseman disparages the annalistic tradition
of the militarily incompetent Claudii, it is worth noting that Caecus gains no triumphs,
194“Not for the sake of greater honor for himself, but so that the patricians might hold both consulships.”
195Above, p. 72, on iterating with the same man.
196Cornell, Beginnings, p. 396, suggests that Caecus really did want to be elected with Fabius, on the
grounds that the popular will should be limited by no previous law, even that guaranteeing the plebs a place
in the consular college. Even though Livy’s account mentions nothing about Caecus’ opposition here, L.
Loreto, Un’Epoca di buon senso: Decisione, consenso e stato a Roma tra il 326 e il 264 a.C., Adolf M.
Hakkert, Amsterdam (1993), p. 48, suggests that Caecus opposed prorogation on principal, making him a
constitutional conservative, an odd position for the reformer of the tribes.
122
despite frequent battles in these years, and in fact vows a temple to Bellona on the condition
that his army is successful in a battle that is going poorly against the Sabelli (Livy
10.19.21). While the existence of such a vow might easily have led to the literary creation
of a battle in which the tide was turned by the commander’s appeal to the gods, if G.
Dumézil is correct, Bellona herself was seen as the divinity of aid in military difficulties,197
and a vow to her may mean real distress.198 A lack of military ability, evident perhaps early
in his career, may also have forced Caecus to seek other means to gather clients. Instead of,
for example, using traditional military practices like distributing booty to create obligate
men to himself, Caecus would have turned to domestic acts, like those of his
censorship.199
It is difficult to treat seriously the extended account of Caecus’ problems with his
colleague Volumnius (Livy 10.18.5–19.13). Their two shared consulships, separated by 10
years, are a strong indicator of good relations, and belie the squabbling recounted by
Livy.200 The story of a disputed written request for help may have been an embellishment to
explain the presence of both consuls in the same theater, although the military situation
alone was adequate reason. The same cause may lie behind the reported quarrel between
197Dumézil, Archaic Roman religion with an appendix on the religion of the Etruscans, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago and London (1970), p. 390–392 and 335, argues that several female -ona divinites
are concerned with helping in times of distress. R. E. A. Palmer, The Archaic community of the Romans,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1970), p. 105 with n. 4, argues that Bellona is an apotheosed
toponym, a view for which there is no evidence. The land on which the temple was built in fact belonged to
the gens Claudia; Wiseman, Clio, p. 59. Leuman-Hafmann-Szantyr, Lateinische Grammatik, p. 223,
assumes an original *Bello.
198Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 254, argues that, although later dedicatory vows were thank-offerings, earlier
ones, including Caecus’ to Bellona, were not. Fabius Gurges’ vow to Venus Obsequens in the late 290s
may be of the same kind; Serv. Aen. 1.720; Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 167–171.
199Livy used similar reasoning to explain Caecus’ supposed residency in Rome during his consulship in
307 (9.42.4). I argued above, p. 107, that this was a mistaken later interpretation of the record, but, perhaps
under the influence of the dominant late-Republican military methods for obtaining political support, Livy
may be reflecting an accurate perception of Caecus’ political methods.
200Contra Càssola, Gruppi, p. 62; above, p. 72.
123
Fabius and Decius Mus in 295, when they were consuls together for the third time.201
Caecus’ letter-writing crops up again in Livy’s account of the next campaigning season
(10.25.13), and may indicate that Caecus was a frequent, or perhaps unusually effective,
correspondent; his reputation for eloquence may in part derive from this. His successful
acquisition of offices certainly indicates that he wielded considerable political power, and
this may have imbued his letters to the senate with particular influence. In any case, the
reported continued conflict between Caecus and Fabius is difficult to judge. There is nothing
in Livy’s account of this later period to suggest that those conflicts are more than
elaboration, unless one is inclined to think that Caecus’ letters to the senate were preserved
somewhere in official accounts.
With the loss of Livy in 292, we have no narrative mentions of the remainder of
Caecus’ career. His elogium includes a dictatorship which should be dated between 291 and
285, when the fragmentary record of the fasti capitolini begins again after a gap.202 The
cause for the dictatorship is unknown and could have been a relatively peaceful activity, like
comitiorum habendorum or clavi fingendi, and so would have required no strong physical
exertion or military skill. Caecus’ two undated interregna have already been noted. As was
possibly the case with the dictatorship, these certainly required no strenuous activity and can
reasonably be dated late in Caecus’ career. Depending therefore on the significance of
Caecus’ cognomen (for which see immediately below), he might have been interrex as late
as 279.
The Oratio contra pacem cum Pyrrho
Caecus’ final appearance in the sources comes in 279, 33 years after his
censorship. The accounts all describe him as old and blind, deserving of his cognomen.
201Livy in fact reports that not all accounts he had read recorded a quarrel (10.24.1–26.7).
202Degrassi, Inscr. Ital., vol. 13.1, p. 38–40, for years 308–263; also MRR 1.187.
124
They may be right—he may have been as old as 30 in 312 and so 63 in 279203—but it is
also possible, and perhaps more likely, that his cognomen was given to him earlier, like
many others, a derogatory nickname that called attention to a prominent physical
characteristic. He may have simply been near-sighted or squint-eyed, or there may have
been an unrecorded incident that resulted in this name. Like the dictatorship and interregna,
Caecus’ performance of this speech required no special physical exertion, or even, as the
sources emphasize, regular participation in the senate. With the loss therefore of all
narratives for nearly the previous two decades, it is difficult to say how active Caecus had
continued to be.204 These three final offices and speech indicate a respected career in the
senate, but not that he continued to make the impression that he had when censor. The lack
of mention of him in any source suggests just the opposite. Diodorus too is unlikely to have
been able to have been so confused about Caecus’ blindness had he continued to play a
dominant role in Roman politics.205 The speech against peace with Pyrrhus itself suggests a
continued interest in maintaining Roman power in the southern parts of Italy, as we have
seen, an area of interest to him already in his censorship, but whether it was given by an
active elder statesman or as the last gasp of a once great man is impossible to determine.
Conclusion
The foregoing analysis of Caecus’ career has shown that nearly all of the data
presented in the various accounts can be fit into a consistent portrayal of the man. In fact
there appears to be little reason to reject many of these data, so long as the various levels of
certainty are noted.
203Develin, Patterns, p. 62.
204Ferenczy, Patrician state, assumes that Caecus remained extraordinarily influential.
205Above, n. 157, on Diodorus’ claim (20.36) that Caecus withdrew from public life after his censorship.
125
I have avoided elaborate reconstructions, and so have, on the one hand, limited the
possible sources of error, but, on the other, been left with a somewhat unsatisfying overall
picture.206 The evidence for this period is too fragmentary to allow a very complete
reconstruction without making conjectures based on insufficient grounds. However, for my
purposes here, the limited analysis which I have done has been sufficient. In particular, the
analysis has revealed that several men can confidently be considered allies and opponents of
Caecus. The sources make it clear that Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus is consistently in
opposition to Caecus and his reforms. To him may be added P. Sempronius Sophus and
the Ogulnii. Cn. Flavius appears as Caecus’ sole certain ally. Both appear to favor
commercial interests in the city and Roman state at large, over the politically active class of
plebeian and patrician nobiles.207
In the next chapter, a factionalist model is applied to this account of Caecus’ career,
and some predictions of the model are examined.
206Two more elaborate reconstructions demonstate the range of results: Ferenczy’s, Patricio-Plebeian state,
shows little restraint, while Staveley’s, Appius Claudius Caecus, is reasonable and productive.
207 B. Bilinski, “Appio Claudio Cieco e l’aspetto sociale della sua sentenza ‘fabrum esse suae quemque
fortunae’”, in Letterature comparate, problemi e metodo: Studi in onore di Ettore Paratore, p. 283–291,
Pàtron, Bologna (1981), has adduced the existence of that sententia of Caecus, but this seems to me too
tentative. Likewise Cicero’s reference to a Pythagorean sententia of Caecus’ ( Tusc. Disp. 4.4) has been
claimed as evidence for a pro-Greek and therefore pro-south-Italy bent. This may also be correct, but much
too uncertain for my purposes. The existence among those opposed to Caecus of a man with a Greek
cognomen (P. Sempronius Sophus) argues against any hasty conclusion.
CHAPTER 3
FACTIONALISM AND PUBLIC DISPLAY
“Studies of Roman political history which employ the approved
techniques of prosopography and analysis of factiones have furthered our
knowledge of the workings of aristocracy but have also tended to rob
the colour from our picture of Roman public life. A striking feature of
that life which is not illuminated by such techniques is a highly
developed sense of pageantry, even showmanship, amply documented
and expressed over a wide range of solemn occasions in ceremonial and
magisterial regalia.”
A. J. Marshall1
Factional structure
The structure of the political relationships surrounding Caecus is well described by
the model from chapter one, and so the application of a factional model to the midrepublican Roman setting described in the previous chapter is relatively straightforward. The
leading figures in that model come from the elite class. Both Caecus and Fabius come from
ancient patrician families, both even gentes maiores, traditionally the most influential of
Roman society. Fabius’ family had had more success during the late fifth and fourth
centuries than Caecus’,2 but the influence of Roman traditionalism as well as the
prominence of Caecus’ early ancestors should not be underestimated.
The vertical nature of factions requires members from all classes be present, and
both Caecus and Fabius drew prominent allies from the upper classes of rising plebeians.
Both the Ogulnii and Flavius were newcomers to Roman magistracies, but they came from
different segments of the plebeian population. Flavius was the son of a freedman, while the
1 “Symbols and showmanship in Roman public: The Fasces”, Phoenix 38(2), 120-141 (1984), p. 120.
2 Above, p. 83 with n. 47, on Caecus’ family’s poor showing.
126
127
Ogulnii appear to be of Etruscan descent with no slave origins. Flavius’ career seems to
have ended with his success in achieving aedileship, perhaps as a result of Fabius’ reversal
of Caecus’ reforms, but the Ogulnii had continued success in office-holding, culminating in
Quintus’ election to the consulate in 269.3 The actions of Flavius and the Ogulnii, as
described already in chapter two, were consistent with the respective aims of their patrician
allies, and, in short, both men appear to have aimed at different segments of the same
economic class—the wealthy plebs—composed of different social classes. The differences
in the personal histories of these men mirror the distinction between the segments of the
population to which Caecus and Fabius appealed. Caecus’ reforms were aimed at wealthy
plebeians, many of whom had enslaved ancestors, or were even themselves freedmen, and
desired more political power. Fabius on the other hand protected the influence of wealthy
plebeians who had traditionally sought access to the Roman political system.4 The former
were more numerous, but the latter may be expected to have participated more fully in
Roman politics, and to have voted more.5
Moving down the class ladder, Caecus’ tribal reforms would surely have appealed
to the mass of Roman citizens living in the city. Even if aimed only at freedmen, and not
the populace as a whole, a significant number of citizens would have been favorably
affected at the lowest levels, even only if as a matter of prestige since they rarely voted.6
The effects of Caecus’ censorial building program on the lower classes are also unclear.
3 For the careers of both men, MRR 2.596.
4 This distinction between two elements of the same wealthy economic class is strikingly similar to the
distinction formally made in the Gracchan period between the equites and senatorial ordines; above, p. 13–
16. Interestingly Fabius promotes the equites, which later become the non-political class. Is this related to
the confusion with Gracchan models represented by Pliny’s comments about Flavius (NH 33.17: Flavius
vovit aedem Concordiae, si populo reconciliasset ordines (“Flavius voved a temple to Concord if he should
reconcile the orders.”))?
5 Above, chapter two, passim, for discussion of individual effects of the political acts of Caecus et al.
6 The degree of voter participation is largely a matter of speculation. See the discussion of Develin, above,
p. 102 n. 26. However low it may typically have been, there is always room for anomalous events, one of
which may have occurred, for example, in Flavius’ election in 304.
128
Surely they provided work for many,7 but whether the easier access to Rome given by the
road made any difference at elections is complicated by the issue of voter participation.
More likely, the road was useful for more common tasks and this more general utility
benefited Caecus’ standing. We hear of no such measures by Fabius that would have
appealed directly to the lower classes. Surely he had—as did his upper-class allies—many
clients among the lower classes who would have supported him, and so perhaps needed no
special appeals. It may well be too that Caecus was lacking in clients as a result of his
family’s poor performance in recent generations and so was obliged to acquire a collection
for himself.8 The claim of Valerius Maximus that Caecus had plurimas clientelas (8.13.5)9
may reflect more Caecus’ success in acquisition than an unusually large number of
clients.10 Fabius’ many successes on campaign also allowed him to gain followers through
military means, while Caecus, apparently lacking the military successes that were
traditionally used by leaders like Fabius to tie men to themselves, was perhaps forced to use
other, domestic approaches to obtain clients.11
Caecus’ appeal appears to have been different for different classes, in agreement
with the anthropological model. Brumfiel’s definition of factionalism requires that factional
distinctions in appeal not be “substantially different social programs”,12 but it is not clear
whether this is the case here. The reforms of both Caecus and Flavius can be seen as
traditional expansions of access to political power, which occurred in the Republic since the
early fifth century, and in this respect perhaps simply a matter of “routine politics”. The
7 Brunt, Free Labor; above, p. 87 with n. 63.
8 This is MacBain’s main thrust, Appius Claudius Caecus.
9 “…very many clients…”.
10 Although a large and powerful client base was part of the tradition surrounding the Claudii: Wiseman,
Clio, p. 81; also the comments of Suetonius mentioned above, p. 87 n. 64.
11 Above, p. 122, on Caecus’ means of obtaining clients.
12 Above, p. 63.
129
plebeian movement, for example, had been acquiring new powers and occasionally even new
offices (e.g., the tribunate and aedilate), at the same time as plebeians acquired access to
existing offices like the consulate. More broadly Roman citizenship was routinely extended
to more people and over a larger geographical area as Rome expanded militarily. Even the
frequent act of manumission of slaves resulted in new citizens. As the state grew, so did
pressure for access to political rights at every level. Caecus and Flavius were simply part of
a Roman tradition, even if some of their acts were unprecedented. The pontifical reform of
the Ogulnii fits this same pattern.
Since the sources report that the first objectionable act to result from Caecus’ tribal
reform occurred in 304, after seven years had passed, it may be that the reform was not
recognized as “substantial” before that year, in which unusual circumstances perhaps
prevailed.13 Likewise the acceptance of Flavius’ calendrical reform suggests at least that
some of his goals were widely shared and therefore no more than “routine politics”.
Although Brunt and Meier’s emphasis on the routine in pre-Gracchan Rome appears wellsuited to a factional model, the previous chapter’s discussion of Caecus’ career suggests
that his acts may have been more than that, and both his and Brumfiel’s models may need
some modification in order to better fit the mid-Republic.
Factionally driven innovation
The behavior of these men is also consistent with that expected from a factional
model. In particular the frequent appearance of innovation in each of their careers is
noteworthy. Caecus’ censorship, the first major office of his career, was renowned
precisely for its innovative character. Censorial building projects had been introduced it
seems only in the previous censorship (that of C. Maenius in 318), and a censorial road and
aqueduct were both firsts; in fact the latter was Rome’s first large-scale aqueduct of any
13 Above, n. 6.
130
kind. Caecus’ lectio senatus is the first recorded and, if preceded by the lex Ovinia, was
perhaps expected (at least by some) to be somewhat untraditional. His tribal reform seems
to have relied on powers implicit in the office, though novelly applied, and with a novel
purpose: to move freedmen’s descendants out of the urban tribes where they had been
conventionally assigned.14 More broadly, his use of these domestic tactics to obtain clients
and further his career may have been the greatest innovation.
The very magistracy of Flavius was an innovation as he was the first son of a
freedmen to hold a curule office. His major political acts were to release information
previously kept secret and to eliminate traditional powers, both at the expense of the
pontifical college. His temple vow and dedication were the first by a man in his political
position, and his use of fines to fund that construction was also unprecedented.15 In short
we hardly hear of anything about Flavius that is not innovative.
Likewise the Ogulnii were innovators. Their lex Ogulnia expanded access to the
pontificate, and later (in 292) Quintus as legate was to introduce a new deity to Rome in the
form of the snake brought from Epidaurus. He and Gnaeus had continued Flavius’ practice
of using fines to pay for aedilician construction projects. Even Fabius, who reversed
Caecus’ tribal reform, was involved in an innovation of his own. In that same censorship
of 304, he instituted a very public parade of equites on the Ides of July. This new
celebration of wealthy Romans is consistent with his and his allies’ other acts elevating
politically prominent Romans.16 Fabius seems to have done much less than Caecus and
this perhaps suggests again that Caecus was in a weaker position to begin with and so
needed to take more pro-active steps both to win support for himself and his goals, and to
14 Treggiari, Freedmen, p. 38–42.
15 On Flavius ability to dedicate a temple, Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 231f.; on aedilician foundations in
general, p. 258–261; for sources on Flavius’ office-holding, MRR 1.168. I do not see any significance to
Flavius’ using fines from usurers (Pliny NH 33.17); Càssola, Gruppi, p. 171, believed that the Ogulnii
used such a source in order to please the plebs, burdened by the usurers.
16 The equites of this period were still members of the senate.
131
stay ahead of his rival who was better able to succeed in a more traditional political struggle.
It is important to note too that Fabius’ reversal of Caecus’ tribal reform also fulfills the
factional model’s prediction of the nature of factional quarrels, namely, that substantive
political differences are not at issue, but only minor variations on accepted practice. In this
case, it is not the fact of expanded access to Roman political power itself that is disputed, but
the nature of that expansion, in particular, with whom power is being shared. As mentioned
above,17 the constant reforms and reversals in this same area during the following centuries
show that this remained a sensitive issue for the Romans.
Predictions: Public display
If the structure and behavior of the men discussed in chapter two fits a factional
model, then the same model ought to supply some predictions about the society in which
they lived. Keeping in mind the nature of predictions for historical systems as discussed in
the introduction, we should look for other data from mid-republican Rome that can be
accounted for by the factional model. One area to look at is suggested by the parallel of the
low-land Maya drawn at the end of chapter one.18 In that society, upon the introduction of a
new class of aspirants to political office, both monumental construction and gladiatorial
events became utilized as part of the overall factional competition. Such a situation is very
similar to that of the late-fourth-century Rome in which plebeians had recently obtained
guaranteed access to the consulate in 342, and had still to reach full parity with patricians in
other areas of political importance. We might therefore follow the lead of that parallel and
look to building projects and other forms of public display as arenas for competition in
Rome at that time.
17 Above, p. 100 with n. 122.
18 Above, p. 66–67.
132
Roman naming practices and the individual
Building projects during the Republic were well suited to the needs of a competitive
politics. Of most obvious value was the fact that monuments both literally and figuratively
bore the name of the man or men responsible for their erection. Literally because the names
of those men were typically given in inscriptions on the building. The tabula triumphalis is
one particularly boastful inscription in which the man’s deeds were added to his name and
both placed in a prominent position on the building, but more modest examples also existed.
For example in the third century the consul M. Fulvius placed an inscription with his name
at the aedes of the Magna Mater where he had dedicated statues taken during his capture of
Volsinii in 264 (Festus 228L).19
Even religious buildings which would be called by the name of the divinity to whom
they were dedicated (e.g., the temple of Mars) would have borne inscriptions with the
builder’s or dedicator’s name. So habitual was this practice that later Augustus, Tiberius
and Hadrian are all noted for the practice of restoring buildings without putting their own
names on them; the first in his autobiographical Res Gestae:
…refeci sine ulla inscriptione nominis mei (RG 20.1)
…I rebuilt them without putting my name in any inscription
Tiberius when restoring the Theater of Pompey in Tacitus:
at Pompei theatrum igne fortuito haustum Caesar extructurum pollicitus est
eo quod nemo e familia restaurando sufficeret, manente tamen nomine
Pompei. (Ann. 3.72)
But the theater of Pompey, destroyed by fire, Caesar offered to rebuild
because no one in the family had sufficient funds for its restoration, and he
left the name of Pompey on it anyway.
and Hadrian in an historical account of his life:
…[ea] omnia propriis auctorum nominibus consecravit. (SHA Had. 1.19.10)
19 M. Torelli, Roma medio-repubblicana, p. 103–104.
133
…all these things he consecrated in the names of the original builders.
Projects also figuratively bore the name of their builder because they were known by
the man’s name. We have already seen this in Caecus’ two censorial projects, the via and
aqua Appia, but the practice survived the Republic and many imperial projects, e.g., the
Thermae Severianae of the third century AD, displayed the emperor’s name. This custom is
likely very old, although the oldest example, the Curia Hostilia, may have been so called
only in later times, and likewise the honorific columna Minucia of 439. The first sure
examples are therefore to be found in the late fourth century: the columna Maenia of 338
and the works of Caecus. Reasonably permanent constructions would therefore literally be
labeled with the name of the men responsible for their existence. Other forms of display
without permanent architectural elements that could bear an inscription with a name would
recall the founder at least for his lifetime, while he could himself benefit from the notoriety,
and perhaps well into the future, depending on the actions of his descendants and perhaps
even historians.20
The practice of borrowing gentile names is certainly attested earlier. With the
exception of the tribus Crustumeria, the first 17 rural tribes, the newest of which likely date
to the very earliest years of the fifth century, are all named for Roman gentes, some extinct
by the end of the regal period.21 Likewise the practice of naming laws according to the gens
of their proposer seems equally archaic. For example, the lex Terentilia of 462 preserves the
name of the only Terentilius known to us and therefore is likely not a creation of a later
author under the influence of that gens.22 One could also cite the importance of individual
names in early inscriptions, such as Publius Valerius on the lapis Satricanus.
20 Who, as in the case of the Fabii, might be the same person.
21 Taylor, VDRR, p. 3–7; Cornell, Beginnings, p. 174.
22 Livy 3.9; Rotondi, LPPR, p. 198–199; MRR 2.624. One could also cite the lex Icilia of 492 (LPPR, p.
193–194) and the last known Icilius of 409 (MRR 2.573–574), or the lex Menenia Sestia of 452 (LPPR,
p. 200–201) and the last Menenius in 357 (MRR 2.590–591).
134
This naming habit is typical of the Roman emphasis on the individual and family.23
It has been suggested that evidence for the rise of the individual and family as the basic
social unit in archaic Latium may become visible archaeologically in the sixth century when
evidence for burial goods disappears.24 Of course even the Roman onomastic system
stresses the membership of individuals in an extended family structure.25 Andrew WallaceHadrill sees this tendency toward self-promotion and family promotion of its members as
an important distinguishing mark of the Republic which disappeared in the Empire when
public promotion of leading figures was taken from the families by the emperor and
senate.26
Roman concern for the individual and the preservation of his name emphasizes the
very public nature of Roman politics. Throughout the Republic and into the Empire,
various official business of all kinds, including trials, elections and levies took place in the
open, indeed were designed for an open-air audience. The forum itself likely had its origins
as an area for not only political activity but also public games and markets.27 Control of
image was always important and the people as a whole played an important role.28 We
23 In contrast, one might look to classical Athens where very few buildings are known to have been named
for individuals, e.g., the Stoa Peisianacteria, named for the brother-in-law of Cimon, which was usually
referred to by a more descriptive name, the Stoa Poikile: Diog. Laer. 7.1.5; Isidore Orig. 7.6.8; Plut. Kim.,
4.5–6; Suida s.v.
and
; discussed by R. E. Wycherley, Agora, vol. 3, ASCSA, New
Jersey (1953), p. 45; nor were laws referred to by the names of their creators, unless the archaic laws of a
revered lawgiver like Solon are meant. Cf. P. Millett, “Patronage and its avoidance in classical Athens”, in
Patronage in ancient society, ed. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, p. 15–47, Routledge, London and New York
(1989).
24 C. J. Smith, “A Review of archaeological studies on Iron-Age and archaic Latium”, JRA 7, 285-302
(1994), p. 298.
25 B. Salway, “What’s in a name: A survey of Roman onomastic practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700”,
JRS 84, 125-145 (1994).
26 A. Wallace-Hadrill, “Roman arches and Greek honours: The Language of power at Rome”, PCPhS 36,
143-181 (1990).
27 N. Purcell, “Rediscovering the Roman forum”, JRA 2, 156-166 (1989), p. 158–159.
28 Marshall, Fasces; D. Favro, The Urban image of Augustan Rome, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge (1996); T. P. Wiseman, “Afterword: The Theatre of civic life”, Roman public buildings, ed. I.
M. Barton, University of Exeter, Exeter (1989).
135
catch glimpses of the effect of the assembled crowd in Livy’s descriptions of early
Republican events, like the encounter between Appius Claudius the Decemvir and Verginia
(3.43–49), but Fergus Millar has recently stressed the importance of the people in politics at
various levels and in numerous activities, especially voting.29 The importance of voters to
elections is evident throughout the sources, and the tendency to minimize their influence and
ability to elect the candidate of their choosing has been frequent, as has the control of the
ruling class over the entire process overemphasized.30 In this context the importance of
visual displays of all kinds in influencing popular opinion is clear. Just as the political
decisions discussed in chapter two affected Roman citizens to the benefit or detriment of
their backers in the eyes of those citizens, so the more tangible, or at least visible, actions of
those same men were also important. Factional analysis suggests that if display is politically
relevant, it will become an arena for competition.
Building in the Republic
The End of the Republic and the Augustan age
The importance of building projects to a successful political career was, as has long
been recognized, evident at the end of the Republic. As part of Augustus’ massive reorganization of Roman political habits and processes, he put an end to the private funding of
public buildings, reserving it for the imperial family. The last such private act was the
construction of the theater of Balbus, and Balbus put on a grand show at the theater’s
29 F. Millar, “Political power in mid-republican Rome: Curia or comitium? (Kurt A. Raaflaub, Social
Struggles in archaic Rome:, K.-J. Hölkeskamp, Die Entstehung der Nobilität)”, JRS 79, 138-150 (1989);
“The Political character of the classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.”, JRS 74, 1-19 (1984).
30 The traditional view has been most forcefully upheld by Develin, Practice; also Taylor, RVA, p. 104 and
113; giving more influence to the people are R. Rilinger, Der Einfluss des Wahlleiters bei den römischen
Konsulwahlen von 366 bis 50 v. Chr., Beck, München (1976); Millar, Political power; Political character;
J. Patterson, “Politics in the late Republic”, in Roman political life 90 B.C.–A.D 69, ed. T. P. Wiseman,
p. 21–43, University of Exeter, Exeter (1985), esp. p. 27–28; Brunt, Factions in Fall of the Roman
Republic, p. 454–455.
136
dedication in 13, although the building itself was already impressive. Augustus responded
directly to this with his own construction and finally removed the prerogative of building
such monuments from others, shifting it to himself.31 Since the tradition that triumphing
generals would engage in a building project had become fixed by this time, Augustus
accomplished this partly by allowing triumphs only to members of his family, as well as
reducing their overall number: he himself had declined to celebrate triumphs in the
preceding years, as had his close ally Agrippa. The association between building and
triumph was thereby broken completely. This loss in capability for self-promotion helped to
shift emphasis from powerful and popular individuals, who had been so deadly to the
Republic in its last century and were still political threats to Augustus, and placed it on the
princeps and the senate, which now took over the duty of awarding honorific displays as
part of their normal duties.32
Individual ambition was thus subjected to the control of both the senate, the
collection of potentially ambitious politicians, as well as the princeps. This decrease in
individual prerogative is consistent with many of Augustus’ other measures which shifted
real power to himself, including the elimination of patronage relationships between the
army, which he now tied to himself, and its generals. Personal ambition was not eliminated
but placed under tighter control. As Syme noted, “[p]olitics can be controlled but not
abolished, ambition curbed but not crushed”, as Augustus perhaps discovered in 22 when
he ceased to monopolize the consulship and returned normal rotation in it to the senate.33
31 Favro, Urban image, p. 121–122, for details of both Balbus’ theater and Augustus’ response.
32 Wallace-Hadrill, Arches.
33 R. Syme, Roman Revolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1952), p. 405; also Saller, Personal
patronage, p. 119–120; on the conspiracy, Syme, p. 333–345, esp. p. 337 on the restoration of the
consulship to the senate.
137
Later the costume, but not the event, of the triumph was also returned. Patronage continued
to be important during the Empire in a slightly modified form, as mentioned above.34
On 27 March 19, Balbus also had the dubious distinction of celebrating the last
triumph not by a member of the imperial family. Balbus was a member of a small group of
men who had achieved and retained political and military strength at the end of the Republic
as allies of Augustus. Often referred to as the viri triumphales because of their military
successes, these men were too strong to be alienated and were thus tolerated by Augustus as
long as necessary. As vestiges of the destructively competitive world of the late Republic,
they were of course incompatible with Augustus’ new model of Roman political life, and he
sometimes took great pains to co-opt them and their legacies into this model.35 The request
of Aemilius to the senate for permission to restore the basilica Aemilia in A.D. 22 shows
both how important those men had been and how much had changed since their time, since
a leading Roman was forced to ask for permission in order to even restore a building:
isdem diebus Lepidus ab senatu petivit ut basilicam Pauli, Aemilia
monimenta, propria pecunia firmaret ornaretque. (Tac. Ann. 3.72)
In the same peroid, Lepidus sought permission from the senate to restore
and decorate the Basilica of Paulus, a monument of the Aemilian family.
Sulla to Caesar
Augustus’ adaptation of monumental display to his own ends removed it from the
competitive arena of the late Republic, where its place had been perhaps definitively
established in the decade of the 80s by Sulla, most notably in the rebuilding of the temple
of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline, which he never finished. The enforced
break in competition created by the establishment of his dictatorship in the late 80s came
34 Discussed above, p. 56, especially the work of Saller, Personal patronage.
35 M. B. Flory, “Sic exempla parantur: Livia’s shrine to Concordia and the Porticus Liviae”, Hist 33(3),
309-330 (1984).
138
relatively quickly to an end as various forms of aristocratic rivalry were back in force by the
end of the 70s, including monumental construction.36
With Sulla’s death building projects reflected alliances among the leading men, and
especially notable is the activity of Caesar with respect to his rivals in the 50s. As the
Basilica Aemilia neared completion, he began his own directly opposite it in the Forum.
Caesar also demolished the new Curia built by Sulla’s son in order to erect a temple to
Felicitas. Finally he had Catulus’ name removed from the new temple of Jupiter Optimus
Maximus, the one started by Sulla, and tried to prosecute Catulus for embezzlement.37 The
intensity of the period was such that even the building of private houses became competitive
and those of the leading men grew vastly in lavishness.38 Paul Zanker has even suggested
that people with no stake in the political competition were wrapped up in it.39 In the
struggles following the death of Caesar, allies of both Octavian and Antony engaged in
competitive building projects with the outcome as just discussed for the Augustan period.40
The Second century
Much of modern scholarship traces the pattern of competitive building projects back
into the second century.41 In this they are perhaps influenced by ancient models of the
36 E. Gruen, The Last generation of the Roman Republic, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles (1974), who remarkalby does not mention building projects at all, except in the context of Caesar’s
carreer, p. 76; Crawford’s review points out his narrow use of sources, especially the absence of discussion
on coin types: JRS 66, 214-217 (1976).
37 Suet. Caes. 15; Dio 37.44, 43.14. Favro, Urban image, p. 95, argues that individual Republican
buildings, especially those of the 40s and 30s, were independent of each other, which is odd, given her
argumentation in the rest of the book, especially about Caesar’s activity.
38 Pliny NH 36.4–5 on the lavishness of first-century houses.
39 Zanker, Images, p. 15.
40 On the transition from Republican to Augustan forms of display, W. Eck, “Senatorial self-representation:
Developments in the Augustan period”, in Caesar Augustus: Seven aspects, ed. Fergus Millar and Erich
Segal, 129-167, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York (1984); also Wallace-Hadrill, Arches.
41 E.g., D. E. Strong, “The Administration of public building in Rome during the late Republic”, BICS
15, 97-109 (1968); J. E. Stambaugh, “The Functions of Roman temples”, ANRW 2(16.1), 554-608
139
decline of the Roman state in which Roman success in defeating Carthage and the other
Eastern powers resulted in the rise of luxuria and the importation of much wealth and
influence. For example, from Sallust:
nam ante Carthaginem deletam populus et senatus Romanus placide
modesteque inter se rem publicam tractabant, neque gloriae neque
dominationis certamen inter civis erat: metus hostilis in bonis artibus
civitatem retinebat. sed ubi illa formido mentibus decessit, scilicet ea, quae
res secundae amant, lascivia atque superbia incessere. (BJ 41.2)
For before the destruction of Carthage, the Roman people and senate calmly
and moderately conducted the affairs of state among themselves, and there
was competition for neither glory nor domination: fear of the enemy kept the
state well taken care of. But when that worry left people’s minds, those
things that love prosperous circumstances, lasciviousness and haughtiness,
entered.
The survival of much of the text of Polybius, who dates to the period of the second century
before the decline signaled by the disturbances involving the Gracchi and who wrote
extensively about Roman customs, provides another impetus from the sources.42
This tendency is also similar to that observed by Harris for theories of the role
played by economic motives in Roman foreign policy, namely, that motives accepted for the
last century of the Republic are extended backward with great reluctance: in the case of
economic motives, not even to the second century, and for competitive building, usually not
beyond it.43 The focus of much scholarship on various elements of the triumph is also an
important factor in the emphasis on the second century when Roman military success led to
frequent triumphs; it was, as Marshall points out, “the most familiar and most lavish
(1978); A. Ziolkowski, “Mummius’ temple of Hercules Victor and the round temple on the Tiber”,
Phoenix 42(4), 309-333 (1988).
42 E.g., F. Millar, Political character. Polybius probably survived to to see the tumult caused by Ti.
Gracchus, but at least his early books were written well before this and remained unaffected.
43 Harris, War and greed, p. 1372.
140
exhibition of Roman pageantry”, as well as the most egregious form of Roman glorification
of the individual.44
One might note that various elements of the foregoing discussion further confirm
the utility of a factional approach to the mid-Republic, and especially to the use of display in
it. In particular, the obvious continual innovation follows the prediction of the factional
model: more and more innovation results in the continued evolution of acceptable practice
and the stretching of acceptable limits. In this case, more magistrates became involved,
outside the context of the traditional triumph, with new architectural types and in new places
like the Campus Martius. By the end of the Republic, the Roman political system was no
longer functional, in part the result of successive innovations that it could not accommodate,
and Syme’s famous Roman revolution resulted in a new system of government and, not
incidentally, new uses of display.
Beyond theoretical tendencies in modern scholarship, however, there were real
changes in the second century that affected building practices. Roman successes in the East
resulted in the flow of a large amount of wealth in the form of both objects of art and coins
and precious metals.45 Greek influence can be seen in the introduction of new styles and
imagery, especially in the villas of the Roman elite and in new architectural forms, like the
portico and the Greek temple of Venus Erycina built by L. Porcius Licinius in 181.46
Triumphs on the whole were also expanded to include new elements and be celebrated by
more people: games became a standard part of the triumph and praetors were more
commonly awarded this honor, which none had had before 200. Associated with this,
44 Marshall, Fasces, p. 123; also Harris, War and imperialism, p. 25–26.
45 Harris, War and greed, p. 1374–1376, for some of the practical effects of this wealth on the Roman state.
L. Pietilä-Castrén, Magnificentia publica: The Victory monuments of the Roman generals in the era of the
Punic Wars, Commentationes humanarum litterarum, vol. 84, Societas scientiarum fennica, Ekenäs
Tryckeri Ab, Tammisaari/Ekenäs (1987), p. 17, stresses the importance of art objects to building and
triumphal styles.
46 On villas, Zanker, Images; on changes in the triumph during the second century, Pietilä-Castrén,
Magnificentia publica, p. 107–111, 163.
141
manubial building projects became standard for triumphing generals. In Roman coinage, the
ability of the monetalis to choose the decorative imagery on his coins increased dramatically
in the late second century, and various family traditions and, from this time forward,
personal references began to be represented on Roman coinage.47
Early and middle Republic
Despite the frequent emphasis on the second century, several scholars do give the
existence of monumental competition an earlier pedigree. Pietilä-Castrén in particular
provides a more appropriate context for constructions by generals, which she considers as a
group extending in time from the first to the last Punic war.48 Starting from an interest in
the Roman victors in Greece during the mid-second century, she expanded her study in both
directions, considering the generals’ magnificentia publica to be free from nearly all state
control and thus of greater interest for its disposal. Despite her interest in the various forms
of display beyond physical buildings (e.g., games), she does limit her discussion to them,
although including more than temples.
Others project the tradition ever further back. Furthest perhaps is Zevi who sees a
contrast between regal uses of architecture, in particular the temples of Diana and Jupiter
Optimus Maximus, and those of the earliest Republic, reflected in Mercury and Ceres,
Liber and Libera.49 Zevi importantly does not attribute the ideological motivation to
individuals, but rather groups: the kings and the patriciate. Their messages too are aimed as
much at the world outside the citizen body as within. Harris, who saw a sharpening in the
intensity of competition—ultimately represented by building—in the second century, finds
in the fourth century the origins for increased Roman belligerence, which derived in part
47 M. Crawford, Roman republican coinage, p. 725f, on private types.
48 Pietilä-Castrén, Magnificentia publica.
49 F. Zevi, “I Santuari di Roma agli inizi della repubblica” in Etruria e Lazio arcaico, Atti dell’incontro di
studio 10–11 Nov 1986, Quaderni del centro di studio per l’arceologia etrusco-italica, CNR, ed. Mauro
Cristofani, p. 121–135, CNR, Rome (1987), p. 121-135 (1987).
142
from the desire to obtain the social and political benefits of military successes, namely, the
triumph and ability to build.50
Tonio Hölscher likewise sees the introduction of plebeians into the aristocracy as
the impetus for the adoption and creation of various forms of display, including honorific
statues and columns, and historical and grave painting.51 Like Zevi, Hölscher tends to stress
the importance of group action: these displays helped in the promotion of new aristocratic
ideals by the group of the aristocracy as a whole, and not primarily as competitive
statements. In contrast to others, Hölscher avoids temples as too overtly religious, and
therefore potentially complicating for his thesis. Although not without difficulties,52
Hölscher does show that our period was one of extreme novelty in the use of display for
political ends. Hölkeskamp puts stress on the competition between members of the new
aristocracy, emphasizing its role in defining membership in that elite.53
Context
The best features of the preceding analyses arise from their consideration of the
evidence of the use of monumental display within a contemporary political context. In most
of these cases, this has meant a concentration on the individuals involved. Following in the
tradition of religious studies like Walter Burkert’s Homo Necans, Wiseman, in his recent
book on Remus, has rightly stressed the importance of contemporary politics for
50 Harris, War and imperialism, p. 28.
51 T. Hölscher, “Die Anfänge römischer Repräsentationskunst”, Mitt. DAIR 85(2), 315-357 (1978);
“Römische Nobiles und hellenistische Herrscher”, in Akten des XIII internationalen Kongresses für
klassische Archäologie, Berlin 1988, Deutches Archäologisches Institut, p. 315-357, von Zabern, Mainz
am Rhein (1990). The one example of grave painting features a Q. Fabius, likely Rullianus himself, and
dates to the first half of the third century: F. Coarelli, Roma medio-Repubblicana, p. 200–208.
52 His treatment of grave painting relies heavily on the one preserved example.
53 Conquest, p. 30f. I am confused by Hölkeskamp’s praise of Develin, Practice, which would seem to
minimize the competition that Hölkeskamp posits.
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understanding myth and other ancient explanations of ritual.54 Closer to the subject at hand
is Coarelli’s treatment of the vast material pertaining to the Roman fora.55 Marshall rightly
stresses that any ritual with significance to a society must be understood in contemporary
terms, grounded or no in a correct understanding of that ritual’s origins.56 Understanding
the origins of a ritual like the triumph is therefore not equivalent to understanding its place
in second-century Roman society. The focus of factionalism on contemporary political
details as explanation for behavior places it firmly in this line of thought.
A factional analysis, as mentioned above,57 is also intimately tied to the details of
contemporary politics and is founded on competition between individuals. Given the
foregoing, the issue becomes how well the actions of the men described in chapter two fit
the predictions of the factional model regarding projects of public display.
The Public works of Caecus and the others
To begin again with Caecus, the building projects of his censorship in 312 have
already been described both as innovations and as acts with significance in the Roman
patronage system. Indeed MacBain has interpreted the road primarily in this latter
function.58 Caecus’ other major act that clearly affected public display was his
reorganization of the cult of the ara maxima, for which no clearly discernible political
motive is evident, although the cult’s connection with the Forum Boarium and commercial
activity in general suggests that, like the aqueduct, it may have benefited those with
54 E.g., the new introduction and p. xxiii of the English edition.
55 Coarelli, Foro boario; Il Foro romano, Lectiones planetariae, Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali,
Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma, Edizioni Quasar, Rome (1983).
56 Marshall, Fasces, p. 126.
57 Above, p. 63–64.
58 MacBain, Appius Claudius Caecus.
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commercial interests among the wealthy plebs.59 Crawford has also suggested that Caecus’
road occasioned the first minting of Roman coins.60
The year 304 saw both Flavius and Fabius involved in noteworthy activity. Leaving
aside the overtly political moves already discussed in chapter two, Fabius performed one act
with obvious implications for public display, the creation of the transvectio equitum, the
parade of equites, one of only two occasions, Valerius Maximus tells us (22.9), when the
young equites could display their physical prowess to the public at large.61 Since this act
glorified the politically active men whose power Caecus sought to diminish, its political
effect was clearly a response to Caecus, as was Fabius’ reversal of his tribal reform. Even
its purely physical component was also aimed at Caecus: Fabius’ parade began at the
temple of Mars, located—although Livy does not say so explicitly in his account of 304—
on the via Appia, Caecus’ own project, and it followed the road until it entered the city at the
Porta Capena. In this manner, Fabius literally overshadowed Caecus’ achievement with his
own, and did so at the location nearest to Rome of one of Caecus’ most prominent building
projects.62 Although Fabius’ parade had connections to the temple and especially its patron
deity, there is no reason to think that he could not have acted differently and honored the
cavalry in some other way.63
Flavius’ construction project of that year, the aedicula Concordiae, was involved, as
seen above, with his diminution of pontifical influence and was placed at a very visible
location at the heart of the Forum Romanum. There it was sure to be seen by the general
59 Above, p. 103.
60 M. H. Crawford, Coinage and money under the Roman Republic: Italy and the Mediterranean economy,
The Library of Numismatics, Methuan & Co., Ltd., London (1985), p. 28–29.
61 Other sources for the transvectio: Livy 9.46.10; de vir. illus. 32.3 (which gets the starting point wrong);
Dion. Hal. AR 6.13.4.
62 Although there is no evidence either way, Caecus may have laid out the via to run past the temple of
Mars, in which case, Fabius was again simply responding to his initiative.
63 Below, p. 148, on the location of temples.
145
public passing to conduct business or to watch and participate in the workings of
government to which Flavius had also opened access for an important segment of the plebs.
The aedicula therefore served as a constant reminder to those who benefited from Flavius’
reforms, at the very place where they took advantage of them.64
Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius make up the final members of the group of men
considered in chapter two. After serving together as plebeian tribunes in 300, they were
colleagues again in the office of curule aedile four years later.65 In that year they adopted
the practice, which seems to have gained fast acceptance, of using fines from the exercise of
their office to complete a building project. Specifically, from the revenues from the sale of
goods seized from usurers, they dedicated various pieces of sacred equipment on the
Capitoline, as well as a statue of the suckling twins, Romulus and Remus, at the ficus
Ruminalis near the comitium in the Forum, and paved a footpath near the city:66
eodem anno Cn. et Q. Ogulnii aediles curules aliquot feneratoribus diem
dixerunt; quorum bonis multatis ex eo quod in publicum redactum est aenea
in Capitolio limina et trium mensarum argentea uasa in cella Iouis Iouemque
in culmine cum quadrigis et ad ficum Ruminalem simulacra infantium
conditorum urbis sub uberibus lupae posuerunt semitamque saxo quadrato a
Capena porta ad Martis strauerunt.
(Livy 10.23.12)
In the same year, Cn. and Q. Ogulnius, curule aediles, brought some usurers
to court; from the part of the confiscated property which was given to public
use, they placed bronze threshholds on the Capitol and silver vessels for
three tables in the temple of Jupiter, and Jupiter in a four-horse-chariot on
the roof, and at the Ruminal Figtree statues of the infant founders of the city
under the teats of the she-wolf; and they paved with stone a pathway from
the Capena gate to the temple of Mars.
The footpath covered exactly the distance along the via Appia (which is again not named)
that Fabius’ transvectio equitum went along that road and surely served to enhance that
64 Below, p. 146 with n. 76, for the connection between Flavius’ monument and earlier ones.
65 Mentioned above, p. 110–111.
66 There has been some dispute over the exact location of the statue ad ficum Ruminalem, since there were
two Ruminal fig trees, one at the Lupercal and the other near the Comitium. Coarelli’s arguments, Foro
Romano, vol. 2, p. 29–38, are persuasive; also in LTUR s.v. ficus Naevia, ficus ruminalis, p. 248–249;
contra T. P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman myth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1995), p. 74–76.
146
celebration, as well as other uses of the temple of Mars.67 This act therefore appears to
promote the Ogulnii’s factional interests at the expense of Caecus’ achievement, but more
by supporting Fabius than by confronting Caecus directly.68
In contrast the Ogulnian statue group69 seems to have been a more direct response
to Flavius’ aedicula. Placed within a few meters of it,70 the twins seem to have been
intended to make a similar claim of concordia ordinum, stressing the co-operation, or at
least co-habitation, of the patricians and plebs, enhanced recently by the Ogulnian legislation
of four years earlier, by recalling the peaceful period of co-existence of the twin
founders.71 . As discussed above, Flavius and the Ogulnii had clearly different ideas about
which members of the plebeians needed to be promoted to parity with the patricians and in
what arenas. This statue group therefore ought to be considered a challenge to Flavius’
aedicula and not a supporting monument.72 The location of the group near the ficus may
also have been pro-pontifical, since the pontifices seem to have been in charge of the tree’s
care (Pliny NH 15.77: cura sacerdotium). The Ogulnii’s adoption of Flavius’ funding
methods also provides another demonstration of how innovation created by factional
competition can lead to changes in political behavior.
The public projects of all five men seems to be as closely related as their political
acts were. Acts of public display both supporting allies and confronting opponents appear
evident. Competition in public display predicted by the factional model works well here.
67 Noted by Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 298.
68 Caecus’ tenure of the consulship during this year would likely have increased the visibility of this act.
69 The Latin may be read to say that only statues of the twins were erected, and not the twins with the wolf.
70 Coarelli, Foro Romano, vol. 2, p. 87.
71 Coarelli, Foro Romano, vol. 2, p. 90; Wiseman, Remus, p. 107.
72 Coarelli does not consider the oppositional aspects of their careers and so sees the building projects as
complementary; Foro Romano, vol. 2, p. 90. He also places the monuments in a broader historical context
which is also dependent on their location, vol. 2, p. 87f.
147
Location
If this prediction of the factional model seems borne out by the data, it also adds
further explanatory power to the model. It is clear from the foregoing that location played an
important part in creating the factional message of the display in question, whether the site
was chosen to support a factional ally, or to compete with an opponent, as, for example, the
Ogulnii did when they placed their monument near Flavius’ at a site already rich in context.
If such an emphasis on location, specially chosen to be competitive, is generalizable, it
would represent a more powerful model for explaining the placement of Roman Republican
temples.
Various reasons have been offered to explain the placement of temples in and
around the city, for example, the foreign or bellicose nature of the divinity, or the presence
of previously existing cults. None has been entirely satisfactory and recently Ziolkowski
has attempted to find many of the generalizations leading to them invalid.73 In their place,
he has offered, for at least monuments related to cults new to the city, the much more
mundane consideration of space: in an increasingly crowded city that was full of sacred
sites, potential locations for temples or other buildings for old cults, these temples were
located where there was room for them.74 But if practical concerns are to dominate over
religious ones, why not take a step further? Anyone vowing a temple, and anyone
otherwise planning a new monument, would surely be aware of potential sites in and
around the city, the cultic associations of various sacred sites, and the location of his allies’
and opponents’ own displays. Even the brief example of Caecus and the others shows the
importance of considering all forms of display, without limitation to a particular building
73 Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 265.
74 On the abundance of sacred sites in and around Rome: Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 271–273; Coarelli, Foro
Boario, p. 324, with reference to the cults of Fortuna; D. P. Harmon, “The Public festivals of Rome”,
ANRW 2(16.2), 1440–1468 (1978), p. 1453–1454, on the natural sanctity of place leading to shrines and
other sacred buildings; on new cults, Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 283.
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type or purpose, or occasion for a vow. With all these in mind, he could make an
appropriate vow in order to locate the building where, and dedicate it to whoever best suited
him, within the various—surely existent—practical limits, likely broad in the midRepublic.75 This is not to deny real religious sentiment or inspiration, but only to
acknowledge that it must have been at least tempered by practical considerations.76 Enough
freedom was present to give the builder ample opportunity to make the statement he wanted
to make. In this respect, the process was similar to the senate’s acknowledgment of
prodigies: ample numbers of prodigia were reported to the senate each year, but it chose to
suscipere only a select group, and these no doubt due not exclusively to religious
scruples.77 In the case of the Republican temples, the more important question from an
historical standpoint is “Why is the temple of that person in that location and to that
divinity?”, not “Why is the temple of that divinity in that location?”.
If the other issues like divinity were secondary, factional analysis suggests that the
primary issue was visibility, in order to create an impression sufficient to benefit faction
members and influence others.78 More specifically, it was the voters who would have
formed the largest target group, a large number of whom resided in and around the city or
75 J. Patterson, “The City of Rome: From Republic to Empire”, JRS 83, 186-215 (1993), p. 196–197,
compliments Ziolkowski for two of his reconstructions that provide for competition as a motivating force.
One however, the temples of the Largo Argentina, consists of four temples widely spaced in time and built
by men with no relevant interactions that we know of, so that direct connections are hard to see, apart, of
course, from all four being dedications to water-divinities. This appears to be more a case of trying to
associate with famous—and dead—predecessors, as Ziolkowski recognized: “Les Temples A et C du Largo
Argentina: Quelques considérations”, MEFRA 98, 623-641 (1986), p. 633. The other example, Mummius’
temple to Hercules, is a good one, and to it can be added his treatment both of a pair of temples dedicated by
feuding nobles and placed right next to one another, Temples, p. 218–219, and of the Temple of Victory, p.
172–179, but in none of these cases does Ziolkowski elevate the competition evident in his reconstructions
to a guiding principle of temple location; Mummius, p. 328–329.
76 Harris, War and greed, p. 1373, for a similar treatment of the religious element of Roman declarations of
war.
77 Cf. A. Watson, Religion and statecraft among the Romans, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
and London (1982), p. 24–31.
78 Stambaugh, Temples, p. 562, suggests that Augustus, his subordinates and successors chose sites for
“visual impact and propaganda effect”.
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would have visited it frequently, at least at election time, so that it would have been possible
for them to see the monuments with some frequency. According to this scheme, monuments
would ideally have been located in the most frequented areas, followed by those visible from
the first areas, and finally in locations visible to access routes to the city. Within Rome this
would mean—oversimplifying the city’s complex geography—first in and around the fora,
port area and circuses, then along major access roads to the city, and finally in the area
where voters congregated at election time, in the Campus Martius (which is not necessarily
where they could be found at other times). Also, where possible, monuments would be
located on hills overlooking these areas in order to be visible also from a distance.
This is in fact the situation that we find.79 Various buildings can be found in and
around the Fora Romanum and Boarium, as well as the Circi Maximus and Flaminius and
the Campus Martius. Of the main roads leading into the city, the via Salaria, coming from
Sabine country, becomes the Alta Semita as it traverses the Quirinal, where it is dotted with
temples.80 Traffic from the north entering the city gate at the foot of the Capitoline, the way
to be taken by the via Flaminia, leads into the Forum, where many of the city’s most
important temples were located.81 Arriving from the coast, the via Ostiensis ran squeezed
between the Tiber and the very steep northern face of the Aventine, on which could be
found several buildings (e.g., the temple of Diana) looking down upon it. The Aventine
itself of course had early significance as a cult site with the regal temple of Diana, and so
the branch of the Ostiensis, the vicus armilustri, which led up the hill, although perhaps not
79 Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 284, provides a valuable map of his locations for all mid-Republican temples,
although it is lacking the major roads inside the city walls.
80 G. Radke, Quirinalis collis, RE 24, 1297–1298, for a plan giving the positions of some temples along
the Alta Semita.
81 The Flaminian became the major location for Augustus’ building program, partly because of the view it
afforded to the Campus Martius which he also lavished with new projects; e.g., D. Favro, “Reading the
Augustan city” in Narrative and event in ancient art, ed. Peter J. Holliday, p. 230–257, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge (1993).
150
wide enough for wheeled traffic until the comparatively late date of 238 (Festus 276L),
would have seen many people on foot, heading to the older cults or entering the city separate
from the perhaps more hectic main branch.
Bringing traffic from the south, the via Appia was the site of several temples dating
to the mid-Republic, and entered the city to run through the valley occupied by the Circus
Maximus and its many associated temples and cult sites. Finally the viae Tusculana,
Labicana and Praenestina brought traffic from central Italy both north and east of the city
and entered it at the porta Esquilina, where they became the clivus Suburanus, on which
were no monuments. However the road here enters the city along a valley and this region
appears to have been densely populated from very early on. Ziolkowski’s space constraint
may therefore safely be used to explain this exception. Leaving aside the two major hills at
the city’s center, the importance of roads becomes clear, as the hills of the city that were
without roads were also without monuments. The importance attached to roads by
Wiseman, expressed above,82 who argued for the political importance of road-building
may thus appear confirmed in a different context. The one minor exception to this rule
appears to be the temple of Juno Lucina on the Cispian, likely a private cult made public in
the early fourth century and so not quite in the same category as the other temples, but
nevertheless found on a hill by a relatively major road, and possibly overlooking the clivus
Suburanus.83
The delay in moving to the Campus Martius, which did not see its first temple until
sometime in the second half of the second century,84 can also be accounted for in this
model, since constant exposure to citizens in and around the busy areas of the city was
preferable to the more occasional exposure in the campus, even if it did occur during
82 Above, p. 86.
83 L. Richardson, Jr., A New topographical dictionary of ancient Rome, Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore and London (1992), p. 214–215.
84 Ziolkowsi, Temples, p. 291–292.
151
elections. Since temples continued to be built in the city even after the campus began to be
used for this same function, the benefits of building there must have outweighed the loss of
visibility.85 Pietilä-Castrén has effectively demonstrated how large a fraction of midrepublican temples vowed by generals were located generally along the route of the via
triumphalis.86 There they would have well served as reminders of the military successes of
those men. Such an explanation fits well with notions of personal promotion and appeal to
voters, but it loses some of its strength with the observation that much of the route in
question ran through places that were usually quite busy anyway, so that any monument
visible along that route would have been visible to the normal crowds in the city. As with the
Campus Martius, frequent exposure was preferable to occasional, and with at most two
triumphs a year, and likely not by the same man year after year, the benefits of such limited
appeal are lessened.
Timing
If factionalism offers a better model by which to explain various display-related
behavior, it does not explain why this behavior appears at this particular time in Roman
history, but the parallel of the low-land Maya offers some help. Combining this example
with the Roman situation discussed here, we might infer that an influx of a number of new
participants into the political process from which they had previously been excluded results
in the exploitation of new arenas for competition, especially those relating to public
85 Which again is not to deny that there were any scruples, religious or otherwise, about placing temples in
the campus (Ziolkowsi, Temples, p. 292). However since any such scruples did not long survive the
increase in building projects in the mid-Republic, they can not have been so strong as to require special
circumstances to be overcome.
86 Pietilä-Castrén, Magnificentia publica, p. 155, considers 18 of 30 monuments to be on the via
triumphalis. Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 292–295, also observes that several temples are built along the path
taken by triumphal processions in order to obtain a good audience for the builder and his family, but again
does not generalize the principle. His one major generalization, p. 309, applies to temples within the old
four urban regions, but requires an appeal to putative original oppida, has too many exceptions, and does
not cover the many other temples in the city. It also contrasts with his claim that generals were “practically
unrestrained” in their ability to locate temples.
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display.87 More broadly, new entrants into an electoral factional system need to establish
themselves with new or previously underutilized methods, e.g., in each of these societies,
both traditional and newly emerging forms of display. If such a modification to the model is
justified, we may then consider the Roman case in more detail in order to determine the
particular details of the mid-republican system.
Hölscher’s observations, like those of Harris and Hölkeskamp, appear on the mark
insofar as they make the influx of plebeians into the political contest the motivating force for
the various forms of display that appear or rise to new prominence. Without eliminating the
possibility that factional concerns were involved in earlier Republican displays,88 we can
recognize the new dimension added to Roman politics by constitutional reforms, particularly
those of 367 and 342. Indeed the first noteworthy step in this direction, recognized by
Hölscher himself, was the massive reconstruction project of C. Maenius, a plebeian, in
338.89 But Hölscher understands this activity according to a model in which the emerging
new ruling class attempts to solidify its role in Roman society by means of various
ideologically oriented displays. This may in part be true—every ruling group is likely to
strive to legitimize its rule through the various means at its disposal—but the new
aristocracy faced no organized opposition from any other group in Roman society until the
Italians sought parity in the first century, or perhaps when the post-Gracchan ordo equester
challenged senatorial prerogatives.90 After the admission of wealthy plebeians to equality
with patricians, no other groups existed in the mid-Republic which were pressuring for
their own admission. Indeed the difficulties faced in 287 by the last of the reform
87 The additional feature of gladiatorial games, which first appear in Roman funerary games in 264 (Val.
Max. 2.4.7), is a further point of agreement with the Maya example.
88 Zevi, Santuari, attributes at least ideological motivations to the Republic’s earliest temples.
89 The vast extent of Maenius’ work is known only archaeologically (Coarelli, Foro Romano, vol. 2, p.
39–53), and the sources make no mention of it.
90 H. Hill, The Roman middle class in the republican period, Basil Blackwell, Oxford (1952), p. 10.
153
legislation demonstrates how poor plebeians had become separate from wealthy politically
active plebeians.91 The Roman state at the end of the fourth century is better understood by
the nobilis–non-nobilis or ordines-populus model than by the old patrician-plebeian one,
and the success of the new class in keeping outsiders from entering demonstrates its
strength.92 Appeals on the basis of plebeian solidarity may have persisted, but they were
surely less and less effective, and, in order to retain any significance the word plebs itself
had to change in meaning, becoming the practical equivalent of “non-ruling-class”.93 The
ruling class was now freed to compete with itself instead of outsiders.94
If the desire of the new aristocracy to justify and legitimize itself is not sufficient to
explain the rise in display, what was it within the ruling class that accounts for it then? The
broad statement formulated above suggests that the new entrants, the plebeians, should be
primarily responsible. The most obvious answer then seems to be that the new plebeian
nobiles were under intense pressure due to their large numbers. Relative to the patricians,
who were limited to a small number of families,95 there were potentially a very large
number of plebeians competing for the one consular position open to them, as well as the
other positions. This pressure has often been seen also as part of the motivation for the
increasing number of available magistracies. Like the patricians, these plebeian hopefuls
needed to impress the voters. This impetus may also have encouraged Maenius’ and
Caecus’ innovative use of the censorship for building projects. Like the aedileship, to be
used for the same purposes only a few years later, that office could be expanded to become
more useful for factional ends. Rome’s increasing military success in the years of the late-
91 Cornell, Beginnings, p. 377–380.
92 Gelzer, Roman nobility; Brunt, Nobilitas, on the relative exclusiveness of the ruling class.
93 Hellgouarc’h, Vocabulaire, p. 430–439, 506–512.
94 K.-J. Hölkeskamp, Conquest, p. 24.
95 Fewer all the time, as the flagging Pinarii show.
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fourth and early-third centuries no doubt provided for more disposable wealth to be
channeled into projects of all kinds than had hitherto been the case, but the dominance of
plebeians, like Maenius and the Ogulnii, in the early stages of the rise in public displays
suggests that this alone is an inadequate explanation.96
Although plebeians may have taken the first steps, the patricians would also have
been drawn into the competition as well. First because they had to maintain at least parity
with the plebeians lest they lose their reserved consulship and other few remaining
privileges to their plebeian colleagues whose successes up to 287 may have seemed hard to
stop. The pressure of factionalism was also surely a factor in patrician displays. As we have
seen with Caecus and the others, patricians and plebeians were allies and opponents, and
competition was engaged in by all. Plebeian building led to patrician responses. In addition
building projects were long a patrician custom, and one not be given up lightly. In an era
which allowed and encouraged building, how could patricians not live up to the example of
their ancestors?
Other examples
If a factional model is valid for mid-republican Rome, it should be more broadly
applicable than to the limited case described above, and we should be able to apply it
elsewhere. Since we have shown that patricians did engage in competition with plebeians,
who will have offered the original impetus, an example of patrician-only competition is a
good place to start.
Q. Fabius Maximus and L. Papirius Cursor
Patrician participation in factionally competitive displays seems to have begun soon
after the lex Genucia of 342, by which plebeians obtain guaranteed access to the
96 The presence of relatively few plebeians in the fasti early on suggests that they were quite successful in
overshadowing their rivals. The co-operation of patrician allies in this should not be overlooked.
155
consulship. In 325, the dictator L. Papirius Cursor and his magister equitum, Fabius
Maximus Rullianus, had a notable falling out, and although the story as found in, e.g., Livy,
has been questioned by a few, its basic reliability is secure.97 As Livy tells it (8.29–37),
Cursor, on his way to campaign with Fabius against the Samnites, was forced to return to
Rome to retake the auspices. He left Fabius with explicit orders not to engage in battle.
Nevertheless Fabius did so and was successful. Despite the success, Cursor was displeased
and attempted to execute Fabius, who was defended by the army. During the ensuing night,
Fabius slipped away to Rome where he assembled the senate in the morning. Cursor then
arrived, various speeches were made and finally the dictator reluctantly conceded. Cursor
then returned to battle, ordering Fabius to remain at Rome, and was victorious, earning a
triumph over the Samnites.
Cursor’s campaign resulted in several monumental displays. Livy reports under the
consulship of Cursor’s son in 293 (who also defeated Samnites) that spoils from the
Samnites defeated in that year decorated a temple, the Roman Forum and a number of allied
and colonial temples and other public places (10.46.7–9). The temple, that of Quirinus on
the Quirinal, was in fact also dedicated in that year by the younger Papirius, but had been
vowed during the campaign of 325 by his father, who had died before its completion. Given
the circumstances of 325, the factional model would predict that the siting of this temple had
something to do with Cursor’s antagonism to Fabius. Such a prediction appears not to be
unfounded, as the Quirinal had long been the site of a Fabian family cult. Livy reports its
attendance by a Q. Fabius Dorsuo during the Gallic siege of the Capitol (5.46.1–4).98 The
temple was also dedicated on 17 February, two days after the Lupercalia, a festival with
strong Fabian associations, as we shall see below.
97 For example, Càssola takes the stance that the animosity was real, but the incident invented. The incident
was mentioned above during the discussion of elogia in the Forum Augusti, p. 81. In addition to Livy,
Valerius Maximus recounts the story: 2.7.8 and 3.2.9.
98 There is little reason to reject the existence of the cult, regardless of one’s view of Dorsuo’s reported
actions; ancient references in MRR 1.96.
156
We should expect a response of some kind by Fabius to Cursor’s challenge on the
site of his ancient family cult, all the more so since Fabius had an immensely successful
career following his youthful encounter with Cursor in 325.99 In a charge, fittingly against
the Samnite camp, during the great battle in 295 at Sentinum, Fabius vowed a temple to
Jupiter Victor, which he subsequently built on the Quirinal, likely sometime after 293 since
Livy preserves no account of it and it would have taken at least a few years to build.100 Its
exact location is unknown, so we cannot say how close it might have been to Cursor’s
temple, or that temple to the also unknown Fabian cult site. If Cursor’s temple had been
dedicated by his son only in 293, the connection between it and Fabius’ temple, vowed only
two years earlier and built as soon as the following year, would have been strong. That it
may have been the first temple built ex manubiis101 may strengthen the conclusion that it
was the first temple built by a patrician largely for competitive ends.
Fabius and the Lupercalia
The examples of Fabius and Cursor and all the men surrounding Caecus are
relatively secure cases of factional competition at work in projects of public display; the
sources indicate that these men were political opponents or allies, and their projects fit the
descriptions of a factional model. Since no source connects the projects with the men’s
political relationships, we can be confident that false accounts have not been created for this
purpose. The rich collection of building vows and dedications as well as other forms of
display, lasting and ephemeral, which occurred during the mid-Republic provides a vast
amount of information to analyze for evidence of factionalism at work. I would like to
99 His first known magistracy was curule aedile in 331. Frier, LAPM, p. 225–229, makes him the brother
of C. Fabius (Ambustus) Pictor, whose birth he places in 350–335. If our Fabius is older he may have
been born 355–340 and so have been at the oldest 30 in 325.
100This has been mildly disputed, but the arguments assembled and presented by Ziolkowski, Temples, p.
91–94, are convincing.
101Ziolkowski, Temples, p. 240–241.
157
present a final example, which is part of a much larger scheme, partly represented by the
examples already given, and for which space does not permit all the supporting details to be
given. It is an example which has recently been at the center of a complex and clever
analysis by T. P. Wiseman and revolves around the ritual of the Lupercalia.
According to Livy, in 294 L. Postumius Megellus dedicated a temple to Victory—
universally believed to be the one on the Palatine—which he had vowed as aedile in 297 or
earlier:102
prius tamen quam exiret militibus edicto Soram iussis conuenire ipse aedem
Uictoriae, quam aedilis curulis ex multaticia pecunia faciendam curauerat,
dedicauit. (10.33.9)
Having ordered the soldiers by proclamation to meet at Soram, he himself,
before leaving, dedicated the temple of Victory which he had begun when
curule aedile, using money from fines.
The choice of divinity appears to be the result of Postumius’ victory as consul in 305 over,
unsurprisingly, the Samnites, a victory that Livy says earned him a triumph (9.44.14,
though there were disagreements among his sources and the fasti triumphales list none).
Both the occasion and the size of the building (an aedes) lead Ziolkowski to postulate that
the temple was actually vowed by Postumius as consul ex manubiis and located by him as
aedile, which led Livy or his source to assume a vow ex multaticiis.103 This may be right,
but is perhaps unnecessary. In 241 or 240 the Publicii built the aedes of Flora, as
Ziolkowski notes,104 and both the curule and plebeian aediles in 296 seem to have had a
large sum of money available to spend. Alternatively Postumius may have added money
from fines to his manubial funds. The project seems to have been large enough to have
102Seidel, Aediles, p. 12–13, and Broughton following him, MRR 1.165, place his aedileship in 307 in
order to have it precede his first consulship in 305, an unnecessary precaution since the cursus was not so
fixed at this time. Fabius himself was aedile in 299 (MRR 1.173–174) after his third consulship; above, p.
110–111, on the difficulty with the assignment of curule aedileships in this period. Ziolkowski, Temples,
p. 174, mistakenly includes the dictator year 301 as a possibility.
103Temples, p. 176.
104Temples, p. 31–33.
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required such expenditures, since Postumius did not limit his building to the temple itself,
which looked south from the Palatine over the Forum Boarium and the Lupercal right
below it, but also extensively worked the terracing walls and possibly the clivus Victoriae
leading up the hill to the site. Postumius seemed to be making an impressive statement
about his role in the wars against the Samnites, for the temple surely brought to mind his
more recent success as propraetor in the battles of 295. His subsequent success in the year
of the temple’s dedication could only have intensified the connection. Although Livy’s
narrative of Postumius’ final consulship in 291 is lacking, Dionysius’ is partially preserved
(AR 17.4–18.5), and in it Fabius and his son Gurges, the pro-consul whom he was serving
as legate for the second consecutive year, are threatened with force by Postumius, seeking to
take over operations against Cominium. Postumius actually triumphed over the Samnites,
but was fined for using his men to do work on his estate (also in Livy per. 11). The status
of Gurges’ own campaign is not attested, though we might suspect that Postumius had
reason to force him to leave the campaign, and Livy’s periocha states that his consulship of
the previous year was a military failure until his father was assigned to him. If Fabius’
antagonism toward Postumius extended back to his first consulship in 305 when Postumius
was successful in the same region that Fabius had been, then we would expect to find a
response by Fabius to Postumius’ construction.
The cult of both the Lupercal and Victory were believed to have been founded by
Evander (Dion. Hal. RA 1.32). This, coupled with its location below the temple, makes the
Lupercal a sensible site for Fabius to choose for his response to Postumius. Working from
somewhat different premises, Wiseman has suggested something like that.105 The cult of
the Lupercalia is known—from later sources of course—to have been intimately connected
with the story of Romulus and Remus and to have featured two groups of young men who
ran around during the celebration. These groups were named after two patrician gentes: the
105“The God of the Lupercal”, JRS 85, 1–22 (1995), p. 12–13; Remus, p. 126–128, 140.
159
Quinctii and the Fabii. Wiseman suggests that Fabius not only instituted the transvectio
equitum in 304, but that the parade was part of a broader re-organization of the cavalry,
including the creation of a new elite,106 and that Fabius also modified the cult of the
Lupercalia, in order to promote the same group. As mentioned above, Valerius Maximus
writes that it was on only those two occasions that the young equites could show themselves
off to the populace (22.9). Wiseman also connects two other events to the new cult: the
epidemics of 292 and 276, when flagellation was introduced to the cult. Thus the cult was
under active modification throughout the early third century.
Wiseman’s connections between the Lupercalia and these various events seem
valid, but can be more completely understood by a factional model.107 Given the
uncertainties in the chronology of Postumius’ Victoria project, it is unclear which man took
the first step, but Postumius’ Victoria and Fabius’ putative re-organization of the Lupercalia
should be seen as competitive actions. Both concerned the Arcadian cults attributed to
Evander, and were located close together. Fabius’ action follows the pattern observed
earlier in his political acts insofar as he seems to be picking up on the actions of his
opponents.108 The ritual surrounding the Fabian and Quinctian groups in the Lupercalia
makes it clear that the former were a later addition: like the Pinarii at the cult of the ara
maxima, the Quinctii at the Lupercalia were not allowed to eat of the sacrifice, here, as
there, a sure sign that they were the original priests. Although the Quinctii Flaminini appear
in some numbers in the late third–early second century, the gens seems to be missing from
the fasti for the late fourth–early third century, with a gap between the military tribune
106Hill, Middle-class, p. 22–23, on the change to a true, light-armed cavalry at the end of the fourth
century.
107In one paragraph, Lupercal, p. 13, Wiseman relates this activity of Fabius to that of his “enemy”
Caecus in aiding the urban plebs.
108The date of the transvectio was 15 July, the same as the victory at Lake Regillus by the dictator
Postumius, and Dionysius associates the parade with the celebration for that victory (AR 6.13.4). While the
choice of that celebration for the parade may have been natural given its already existing equestrian
associatons, it also offered the advantage to Fabius of usurping a Postumian success.
160
Lucius in 326 (RE 11) and the duumvir Kaeso Flamininus of 217, bridged only by the
consul Kaeso Claudus in 271 (RE 36).109 As censor in 304, Fabius may have acted in the
same way that Caecus had in 312 when he was censor with the failing family of the Pinarii
and cult of the ara maxima—also founded by Evander (Dion. Hal. AR 1.40), except that
Fabius made a much more obviously self-aggrandizing rescue of the cult.110
If true, this action of Fabius also increases the significance of the Ogulnian
dedication of the twins’ statue near the ficus Ruminalis, the original of which was thought to
have been located outside the cave of the Lupercal.111 In subsequent decades the cult
remained a matter of some interest to the men who had been involved with it earlier. Quintus
Ogulnius was the chief legate sent to Epidauros to bring the cult of Aesculapius to Rome
during the plague that Wiseman associates with the Lupercalia, and Gurges, the son of
Fabius who had so much trouble with Postumius, was consul both in that year and again in
276 when flagellation was introduced into the ritual after a pestilence affecting pregnant
women and animals.112 The plague that sent Quintus to Epidaurus resulted in a temple to
Aesculapius on Tiber Island after the snake he brought back (se in Ogulni tabernaculo
conspiravit (de viri. illus. 22.2)113) sought the site out. According to Varro, this same
temple had in it a painting featuring Wiseman’s putative new elite Fabian cavalry, the
109MRR 2.610–611.
110Caecus’ work on the ara maxima may therefore indeed have had political significance. In factional terms
it may be related to later Fabian claims to be descended from Hercules. D’Ippolito considers it intentional
on Caecus’ part, Giuristi, p. 28–29. Did the two gentes of the Lupercalia suggest or strengthen the later
interpretation of the potitii as a gens?
111Above, n. 66, for references.
112On pestilence: Oros. 4.2.2; Aug. CD 3.17; on the Lupercalia and sterilitatem mulierum somewhere in
Livy’s second decade: Livy fr. 63 Weissenborn. Gurges and Ogulnius were also both legates to Egypt in
273 (Val. Max. 4.3.9).
113“It coiled itself in the tent of Ogulnius.”
161
Ferentarii.114 More speculatively, in 269 Quintus was consul, perhaps during the minting of
a silver issue, probably the first minted in the city of Rome itself, featuring the suckling
twins and she-wolf, a belated response to Caecus’ own first issue.115
This is by no means a complete treatment of the Lupercalia and its associated
monuments and men involved in them, but it does show how the cult and its re-organization
by Fabius may be understood in factional terms. The men involved in building these
monuments and restructuring the displays associated were surely operating within the same
general ideological framework, as Hölscher and Wiseman argue, but also with factional
interests, without a treatment of which they remain only partly understood.116
Other displays
The last example demonstrates how easily one observation leads to another and an
investigation into the politics of the mid-Republic may be quickly drawn far afield from its
original site. The work of the previous chapter was intended in part to justify the analysis
of this one and excessive wandering would vitiate that method. Without a firm grounding
in the sources and a consistent method, speculation concerning connections between
politically active men may fall into in the worst excesses of the prosopographical school.
Nevertheless we can briefly note several areas related to the discussion of the previous
chapter that have not been included in foregoing factional analysis, but appear to offer
opportunities for application of the model. Most notable is perhaps Caecus’ temple of
Bellona, vowed in 296 during his own campaigning against the Samnites and soon to
114LL 7.57; Wiseman prefers celeres in his text, but his references (e.g., Remus, p. 208 n. 119) include
this passage of Varro. It seems odd that, if it were in use in the late fourth century, the sources would
unanimously make celeres an archaic term.
115Pliny (NH 1.35–36) attributes Rome’s first silver coinage to the consuls of 269. Cornell, Beginnings,
p. 396; but compare the more cautious comments of Crawford, Coinage and money, p. 31–32.
116Wiseman, for example, refers vaguely to “Rullianus’ enemies”, Lupercal, p. 14, but with no men
named.
162
became one of the more important temples in the city: the senate often met there when they
needed to assemble outside the pomerium, and, during the war with Pyrrhus, an enemy
soldier was captured and made to buy a plot of land in front of the temple into which a spear
could be thrown according to the fetial rite of declaration of war.117 Given Caecus’ support
for the war with Pyrrhus, he may have had a connection to this and perhaps the whole ritual
reflected an alternative to the cult of Mars. The dedication date of the temple of Mars on the
via Appia was on 1 June, only two days earlier than that of Bellona’s. Was this measure,
which guaranteed the survival of a ritual otherwise doomed to obsolescence in a world of
foreign wars, meant to elevate the poorer spear-bearing infantry over the wealthy cavalry
promoted by Fabius’ parade from the temple of Mars?
Several Quinctii are also involved in the display-related events. Fabius added a new
element to the originally Quinctian cult of the Lupercalia. The Temple of Mars that was the
starting point of Fabius’ parade was dedicated in 387 by a T. Quinctius. Another T.
Quinctius, perhaps the consul of 354, led the revolting Roman army in 342, whose demands
included a reduction in pay for the equites, who did not support their cause (Livy
7.41.8).118 Was there a connection between the Quinctii and the infantry that Fabius viewed
as antagonistic to his support of the equites?
In 296 the wife of Volumnius, Caecus’ consular colleague for the second time, had a
falling out with the women involved in the cult of Pudicitia Patricia and so founded her own
of Pudicitia Plebeia. The original cult was located in the Forum Boarium and the new one
somewhere on the vicus Longus, which ran in the valley between the Quirinal and the Velia
and up onto the Quirinal, both areas we have already seen in association with the men
surrounding Fabius. Finally Fabius’ kinsman, perhaps even brother, Fabius Pictor, did a
painting in the temple of Salus dedicated in 302 by Iunius Brutus, the consul of that year
117Serv. Aen. 9.52. Harris, War and imperialism, p. 267–269, on the fetial rite.
118Hill, Middle class, p. 20.
163
(Val. Max. 8.14.6) and of 311, who Livy reports rejected the lectio senatus of Caecus.119
Given Fabius Rullianus’ connection with various public displays, we might suspect a
connection between his brother’s painting and his own career, and Pliny says that the
painting was done in 304 (NH 35.19), a very significant year for Rullianus, but the temple’s
later dedicatation and Valerius’ statement, apparently to the contrary (cum in aede Salutis,
quam C. Iunius Bubulcus dedicauerat, parietes pinxisset (8.14.6)120), may indicate that he
was mistaken. The frequent appearance of Fabius in all the discussions of display from this
period in the mid-Republic may suggest new questions on the nature of the historian
Pictor’s contribution to the later annalistic tradition, at least in terms of the events it reports,
if not their proper context.
Conclusion
Display and the state
The period of the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the third was an
important one for the development of the Roman state, both internally and externally. As
Rome rose to dominate the Italian peninsula, at home various forms of display increased in
frequency. In particular, there was an increase in monumental architecture, both that
undertaken under the auspices of the state by magistrates like the censor and aedile, as well
as more individually oriented efforts, including a few honorific statues and columns, and
various temple dedications. Various entertainments were also encouraged. In 318 C.
Maenius set up viewing areas around the Forum for the populace to better enjoy the games
there, and gladiatorial competitions were first featured in funeral ceremonies starting in
264. Painting too appeared in various venues: in the temple of Salus, dedicated in 302, the
119For 311, p. 97; for the family relationship between Rullianus and Pictor, above, n. 99. Is it
coincidental that the one extant grave painting features a Q. Fabius, perhaps Rullianus? Above, p. 142.
120“…after he had painted the walls in the temple of Salus which C. Iunius Bubulcus had dedicated…”
164
signed work of Fabius Pictor decorated the walls. There also survives a grave painting
featuring another member of the same gens and dating to the same time, or perhaps a few
decades later. In other funerary contexts, elaborate and highly visible aristocratic family
tombs, like that of the Cornelii Scipiones, can also be dated to the third century.
The wealth flowing into Rome from its military successes of course made these
various displays economically possible, but the question of what other connections existed
between the rise of display and the new developments in the Roman state is at the core of
this dissertation. Much of the information we possess about both the state or Rome and the
occurrence of displays is based on surviving ancient sources. Before attempting to
understand the former, it seemed necessary to consider the latter.
Models
The literary sources for the mid-Republic date primarily to the first century and later.
Since the means by which those sources obtained their information about earlier times is by
no means clear, much modern scholarship has focused on that issue. As with any complex
process, various models—not always acknowledged or elucidated—have proven crucial to
understanding the process of transmission. The Introduction therefore was occupied
primarily with laying a foundation for using and evaluating models, with special focus on
their use by ancient and modern historians. It seemed reasonable to expect that some
information was transmitted from the fourth and third centuries to later times, but modern
scholarship has been unable to create a satisfactory and widely acceptable model for that
process. The major competing approach to the sources does not concern itself much with
the details of transmission, and in keeping with this, in chapter one, instead of offering
another model of that process, I attempted to show that at least three texts, belonging to
different genres, had in fact survived from the mid-Republic to the first century, and in that
light focus my efforts on the information reported by the sources and not how they
ultimately obtained it.
165
Chapter two then is an attempt to examine the information given by the sources for
Appius Claudius Caecus, who appears to have been one of the major figures of the late
fourth–early third centuries, a period for which many moderns, adherents of various
historiographical models, believe that the sources begin to be relatively trustworthy. The
information on Caecus is supplied by a number of authors and, by using a model suggested
by Momigliano, in which the information in ancient accounts is divided into two parts,
structural data and interpretation, I conservatively attempted to cull out the interpretation to
arrive at what might be reasonably considered the data of Caecus’ career as they are
preserved. The result of that approach was a consistent picture of Caecus and a consistent
group of a few men whom the sources connected to him as either political allies or
opponents. In order to understand how such alignments might function in Roman society, I
turned to a recently developed anthropological model of the behavior of political groups,
referred to as “factions”.
Factionalism
A factional model posits that any complex society will be divided into competing
groups, led by members of the upper class, that seek success within the existing political
system. The overall features of Roman society and the details of the activities of the men
surrounding Caecus seem to fit this model well, as was discussed in the final chapter. The
emphasis on competition suggests a way to understand the use of display in the period, and
in fact the acts of Caecus and the other men associated with public display were well
incorporated in the factional model. Although the sources lying behind them were not
subject to the same scrutiny as those surrounding Caecus, two other examples of
competitive building, both involving the main patrician from among Caecus’ opponents, Q.
Fabius Maximus Rullianus, were briefly considered. The apparent success of the model and
a parallel situation from a New World society, suggest that factional competition can be
used to explain many of the details of temple building and other forms of display which
166
have previously either been considered in isolation, or outside of a competitive environment.
The importance of the questions which began the inquiry about the rise of various forms of
display during the mid-Republic is therefore confirmed by this model. In short, factionalism
appears to offer a new way to examine some of the behavior seen in the mid-Republic.
There are several major benefits to the application of a factional model to this period
of Roman history. First its basis is firmly set in existing thinking about ancient Rome,
relying as it does on several widely agreed-upon features of that society, although they are
often reserved for descriptions of later in the Republic. In particular, the importance of the
individual, acting within a competitive system that relies heavily on patronage ties has long
been accepted as valid. More traditional studies of Roman “factions” have not been
universally accepted, but even those, like Brunt, who reject that approach recognize the
importance of more short-lived and loosely organized groups.
Factionalism also acknowledges the importance of direct personal competition,
although it admittedly shifts it to a central position. Such competition has long been
recognized as important the later years of the Republic, when it had become destructive, and
even applied to earlier Rome, primarily the second century. This new model suggests
instead its presence at the earliest period of the Roman state, even under the kings. Although
I make no attempt to look for evidence of such early existence here, we can at least
acknowledge that the bases of such individual competition, aspects of Roman society that
elevate the individual, appear to be detectable in at least the sixth century.
Factionalism also avoids potential excesses in other models of group behavior. In
part it achieves this through non-specificity, that is, the model is so broadly constructed that
it can accommodate large variety in the details of societal organization. This feature of the
model also allows it to continue to describe a society as it evolves and its structures change.
Indeed such evolution is predicted by the model; it requires both that factional loyalties
should not be permanent, and that, over time, the means of competition should change, a
167
requirement that fits the situation of the mid-Republic well, since it is precisely a change in
political behavior that originally drew our interest to this period.
Factionalism appears to be a powerful model, applicable to the Republic over a wide
range of time. Although I discussed the application of factionalism to the late Republic only
very briefly, it does successfully predict the evolution of the Roman state as competition
forces changes in practice and as new kinds of behavior become acceptable, with the
ultimate circumstance that republican government is unable to adapt to the continual change,
and it is replaced. As predicted in the model, there is little demand for revolution from
participants in the system, and most work for its continuance, as may be seen in the late
Republic, despite its obvious inadequacy.
Finally factionalism appears to be consistent with several trends in scholarship,
unsurprisingly since, like them, it is of recent creation. Specifically factionalism focuses on
all classes of society, including the lowest, a segment that has recently become of greater
interest in various disciplines, particularly in recent historical studies of the Republic.
Likewise the association I have made here between factionalism and display falls within the
broader area of topographical studies, especially those connecting topography to ideology.
The attention that I have drawn to competition in the mid-Republic has also been receiving
more attention in the past decade, though factionalism has led me to take a more detailed
approach to the problem, ascribing particular acts to specific rivalries between groups and
individuals.
Novelty
In addition to introducing this anthropological model of complex societies which
has previously been applied only to New-World, Indian or African societies, to the Roman
Republic, I have also been able to suggest a refinement to the model. Associating the
Roman Republic of the late fourth century with the classical low-land Maya, I have
suggested that the influx of new participants into political competition in electoral systems
168
results in the utilization of new or at least under-used forms of display for factional ends.
The model may also require some refinement in order to fit the mid-Republic better, because
the behavior of the Roman elite described in chapter two may represent more substantively
different social programs that those assumed in the model.
The factional model is largely silent on details of alliances which tend to be at the
heart of other models of Roman political groups, but it does suggest that long-term alliances
are unlikely to be the rule, a contrast with the strongest incarnations of traditional
prosopographical factiones. At the same time, its concentration on these groups suggests
that the ancient Roman focus on the individual is not to be pushed too far and that alliances
should be expected even where they are not spoken of in the sources. As I discussed above
in the Introduction, Roman political vocabulary was not always the most accurate
representation of reality, and like all aspects of political language, it was used to create
impressions, not necessarily to most accurately reflect the real world. The powerful
individual men of the end of the Republic, to whom political allies were still vital, should be
recognized as anomalous and the sign of the end of healthy competitive factionalism, not
indicative of traditional behavior.
In the end, the conclusions of the final chapter, that the choice of divinity and
location for mid-republican temples and other forms of public display should be seen to
reflect first and foremost the needs of competitive factionalism, might be considered an
extension to an earlier time of accepted conclusions about the nature of later Republican
behavior, with the addition of factions as the guiding feature. It was in fact the application of
the factional model that made such an extension necessary and placed the emphasis on
competition among allied political actors. Following this model, the evolution of the Roman
Republic may appear to have been more gradual than is usually considered, and the
continuity between the earliest periods and the latest greater.
169
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