Download Sean McMeekin. The Russian Origins of the First World War.

Europe: Ancient and Medieval
121 B.C.E. to resolve the political impasse between
Gaius Gracchus and his opponents. The function of the
SCU, according to Golden, was not to grant high magistrates (usually the consuls) additional powers, but
rather “to provide political cover for a magistrate who
went beyond the law in order to deal with a crisis” (p.
148). While its first use was unprecedented, the SCU
became a regular tool of crisis management in the late
Republic, employed nine or ten times in approximately
80 years, including twice in 43 B.C.E. In that year, when
Marc Antony besieged Decimus Brutus at Mutina, a
tumultus was declared, an SCU was issued, and other
emergency military measures were taken. Antony was
defeated, but both consuls died in the fighting, and legions began to defect to Octavian against the interests
of the senate. Another tumultus was declared and another SCU issued (entrusting defense of the republic to
the praetors), but when Octavian marched against
Rome, the senatorial army defected, and Octavian
forced his way into power. Thus, the available crisisresponse mechanisms were incapable of saving the Republic.
Golden concludes that the Republic’s undoing was its
failure to develop institutions and mechanisms to solve
internal political crises without violence, which he suggests is reflective of a Roman attitude toward problem
solving and perhaps even their national character.
When a crisis arose, the Romans typically relied on
high-ranking or extraordinary magistrates with a lot of
power to deal with it. Yet the Roman political system
lacked a single “final arbiter” with unquestioned authority whose decision would be accepted by all sides in
a political impasse. So when two holders of fundamental power within the Roman political system opposed
each other in a dispute, unless one backed down, the
only path to resolution was the use of force. I am not
entirely convinced by this final analysis. The legitimacy
of the final arbiter in any political system rests on its
acceptance by stakeholders in the system. The SCU and
tumultus declaration did not work in 43 B.C.E. because
the bulk of the army refused to recognize the authority
of the senate. The existence of the Roman equivalent
of the Supreme Court would not have changed the outcome if the army refused to abide by its decision and
instead still decided to back Octavian’s power grab.
Despite this objection, I recommend this book. While
the approach at times seems a little old-fashioned, with
its heavy emphasis on legal-constitutional technicalities
and categorization, the analysis nevertheless adds a new
layer to our understanding of the fall of the Republic,
one of the great topics in Roman historiography.
MICHAEL P. FRONDA
McGill University
MYLES LAVAN. Slaves to Rome: Paradigms of Empire in
Roman Culture. (Cambridge Classical Studies.) New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xiii, 288.
$99.00.
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
1329
The core of this book is a series of philological studies
exploring how ancient Roman writers from the first
century B.C.E. to the third century C.E. used the rich social vocabulary of masters and slaves, patrons and clients, and occasionally parents and children, to describe
their empire and its subject populations. The works of
Cicero and Tacitus take center stage, but a variety of
other writers of Latin prose and poetry are also featured. It is a thought-provoking discussion of the hierarchical terminology that was deployed to portray the
power and authority of Rome. Myles Lavan emphasizes
the persistence of the paradigm of slavery even though,
with the transition from a republic to an imperial monarchy, provincials became increasingly integrated
within the Roman ruling elite and alternative, more inclusive models gained currency. Lavan highlights the
multiplicity of imperial models that could be articulated
to different audiences. His analysis of selected texts
demonstrates how the Romans could describe some
subjects as allies of near equal status, while at the same
time casting themselves in the role of powerful patrons,
or the masters of docile or unruly slaves, in relation to
others.
Lavan’s sophisticated, sensitive approach to the nuances of Roman social and political discourse is exemplified by the way he handles the tricky theme of patronclient relationships. He is suitably cautious, eschewing
attempts to codify what he terms “a heterogeneous
cluster of relationships” that formed part of “a continuum of relations of dependence” (p. 185). His interpretations of key passages from the works of Cicero and
Livy show how the figurative language of patrons and
clients could be adapted to present both positive and
negative views of Roman imperial power in contemporary and historical contexts.
The book’s origins in a doctoral thesis help to explain
why, apart from a chapter on imperial letters and edicts
to provincial cities in the Greek-speaking eastern empire, Lavan restricts his analysis almost entirely to Latin
authors. He justifies this in terms of the Italian ruling
elite, whose culture was centered on the city of Rome
itself. Consequently, the perspectives of the Greek
elite, who provided many provincial governors and administrators, and who identified closely with Roman
imperial power, receive little attention. Lavan rightly
argues that their cultural and political identities were
more complex than those of writers who identified
themselves exclusively as Romans, but the result is very
one-sided. Lavan barely mentions Appian of Alexandria, whose regionally organized Roman History chronicled Rome’s conquest of all those nations that were
under their rule by the mid-second century C.E., when
he wrote. He briefly considers the third-century C.E. historian Cassius Dio on the grounds that, although a
Greek, “his status as senator and counsellor of several
emperors locates him at the centre of Roman power”
(p. 9), and because he supposedly broke with Greek historiographical tradition in portraying Roman rule as
enslavement. This looks like special pleading and does
not do justice to Appian, the preface to whose Roman
OCTOBER 2014
1330
Reviews of Books
History contrasts the capacity of Roman power to enslave others with the former ability of the Greeks to
resist enslavement, and whose account is, to a considerable extent, a celebratory catalogue of imperial conquests and enslavements.
The dust jacket features a striking sculptural image
from the sanctuary of the imperial cult at Aphrodisias
in Asia Minor, representing the emperor Claudius as a
heroic conqueror with a bound, female captive kneeling
at his feet. Lavan is aware that such public depictions
were central to the highly visual culture of the ancient
world, but he chooses not to engage with scholars such
as Sheila Dillon or Iain Ferris on the subject. His focus
seems even narrower when compared to recent, multifaceted investigations of imperial cultures, such as David Cannadine’s Ornamentalism: How the British Saw
Their Empire (2001).
The numerous Latin and Greek quotations in the
main text are translated, but those in footnotes are not.
The copy editing and proofreading are of a very high
standard, which sadly is no longer a given for the major
university presses. There is an index of passages discussed, which does not cover citations in footnotes; and
the general index is very selective, focusing on Latin
terminology.
Because of the series in which this book is published
and the detailed philological analysis, Lavan’s study will
appeal primarily to classicists and ancient historians.
Nevertheless, all scholars of imperial cultures could
profit from his excellent analysis of how Latin writers
articulated Roman imperialism.
PHILIP DE SOUZA
University College Dublin
RAFFAELLA CRIBIORE. Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in the Fourth Century. (Townsend
Lectures/Cornell Studies in Classical Philology.)
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013. Pp. x, 260.
$49.95.
Libanius taught rhetoric in Antioch during a period
when the leadership of his society shifted between pagans and Christians, and, ultimately, settled on the side
of the Christians. Thanks to recent monographs and
translations, among them Raffaella Cribiore’s The
School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (2007), Libanius’s work—including 64 orations and 1,544 letters—is becoming more accessible. The survival of so
many texts by a pagan author is an invaluable resource
for a period otherwise dominated by Christian writers.
But Libanius’s insights have never been fully appreciated: Edward Gibbon dismissed him as a “recluse student,” immersed in epic poems and detached from the
world around him (p. 3), while others have viewed him
as untrustworthy because he would attack someone in
an oration and then flatter him in personal correspondence. Likewise, Libanius might defend paganism and
then socialize with Christians. Cribiore’s book aims to
explain these perceived shortcomings, not just to protect the sophist’s integrity, but also to understand his
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
social circle of religious moderates, whose mere existence is mostly obscured by the writings of the Church
Fathers and a few exceptionally zealous pagans, such as
the emperor, Julian.
Cribiore approaches each text carefully, “as a literary
artifact and as a social response”(p. 4), because the
“real interest . . . lies in trying to ascertain what meaning the speech had for Libanius and his audience” (p.
5). The first half of the book examines the literary and
social context for Libanius’s rhetoric in this manner.
Among many other insights, Cribiore uncovers the connections between Libanius’s Autobiography and contemporary pagan and Christian biographies, including
Libanius’s personal link to the Latin translator of the
Life of Antony. By bringing together the biographies of
Libanius and Antony—who normally would be seen as
having little or nothing in common—Cribiore shows
“how permeable the boundary between pagan and
Christian could be” (p. 55). Throughout the book, Cribiore combines pagan and Christian sources in innovative ways, challenging the long-standing (but flawed)
notion that pagans and Christians were clearly defined
groups that regarded each other with hostility.
The second chapter demonstrates that the invective
and courtesy in Libanius’s letters and orations stemmed
from these genres rather than from his supposed twofaced opportunism. When Libanius played on his listeners’ emotions by accusing his enemies of sexual improprieties, they were accustomed to public speeches
and theater, and took these accusations with a grain of
salt. Likewise, the courtesy shown in Libanius’s letters
was due to a genre that required correspondents to
“camouflage” their anger “with a fiction of friendship”
(p. 130).
The second half of the book focuses on Libanius as
a moderate pagan in a period known for its religious
divisions. Cribiore tallies up Libanius’s references to
the gods, providing a chart divided by categories (significant, literary, and formulaic references) and period.
Interesting anecdotes emerge from the letters: when Libanius could not accompany the emperor Julian mountain climbing to honor Zeus, his Christian friend
Olympius went instead. In some cases, Cribiore’s interpretations need more explanation and/or more evidence: she interprets frequent literary references to
the gods as resulting from Libanius’s need to establish
his scholarly credentials, while fewer references to the
gods during Julian’s pagan revival means that Libanius
no longer needed to emphasize his religious allegiance.
Although it is possible to observe these patterns, it is
perhaps impossible to explain them convincingly. Overall, however, it is clear that Libanius avoided extremes
of religious devotion: “Although he was a pagan, he was
not a zealous one; he supported his Christian students
and over the years developed intimate relationships
with Christian relatives and friends” (p. 160).
The final chapter covers several topics, including
friendships among pagans and Christians. Olympius accepted unmarried women into his household, an arrangement Cribiore identifies as a “spiritual marriage”
OCTOBER 2014