Rome and Carthage at Peace 3515070400, 9783515070409

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Robert E. A. Palmer

Rome and Carthage at Peace HISTORIA Einzelschriften 113

Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart

ROBERT E. A. PALMER

ROME ANDCARTHAGE AT PEACE

HISTORIA

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR ALTE GESCHICHTE· REVUE D’HISTOIRE ANCIENNE· JOURNAL OF ANCIENT HISTORY ·RIVISTA DI STORIA ANTICA

EINZELSCHRIFTEN HERAUSGEGEBEN VON HEINZ HEINEN/TRIER ·FRANCOIS PASCHOUD/GENEVE KURT RAAFLAUB/WASHINGTON D.C. ·HILDEGARD TEMPORINI/TÜBINGEN GEROLD WALSER/BASEL

HEFT 113

FRANZ STEINER VERLAG STUTTGART 1997

ROBERT E. A. PALMER

ROME CARTHAGE

AND AT

PEACE

FRANZ STEINER VERLAG STUTTGART

1997

CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Die Deutsche Bibliothek –

[Historia / Einzelschriften]

Historia : Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte. Einzelschriften. – Stuttgart : Steiner Früher Schriftenreihe Reihe Einzelschriften zu: Historia NE:Historia-Einzelschriften H. 113. Palmer, Robert E. A.: RomeandCarthage atpeace. –

1997 Palmer, Robert E. A.:

RomeandCarthage atpeace / Robert E. A.Palmer. –Stuttgart : Steiner, 1997 (Historia : Einzelschriften; H. 113) 0 07040– 515– ISBN 3–

ISO 9706

Jede Verwertung des Werkes außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig undstrafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere fürÜbersetzung, Nachdruck, Mikroverfilmung odervergleichbare Verfahren sowie fürdieSpeicherung inDatenverarbeitungsanlagen. © 1997 byFranz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, Sitz Stuttgart. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier. Druck: Rheinhessische Druckwerkstätte, Alzey. Printed in Germany

TO JERZY LINDERSKI

CONTENTS

I.

11

Introduction

to 264 B.C.

15 31

II. III.

Romano-Carthaginian Relations

IV.

202 B.C.): Romans Have Strange Gods Before Them (264– Janus, Spes, Hercules, Saturn, Venus, andApollo

53

Vicus Africus at Rome

73

VI.

Vicus Sobrius at Rome, andMercurius Sobrius at Rome andin North Africa

80

VII.

Conclusion

V.

Carthaginian Cargoes

Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix Appendix

Appendix Appendix

Appendix

at Rome

1: The Decemviri Sacris Faciundis Punic War

104 during

the Second

2: Forum Holitorium 3: Speculation onthenature of Roman religious ferment in 213/212 B.C.:Prostitution andInfanticide 4: Aeneas, Mercurius, Aletes 5: OnNewCarthage (Cartagena) 6: Jupiter Africus onthe Capitol 7: Mercurius Malevolus 8: Mercuriolus of Apuleius

107

115 120

130

132 140

142 145

Bibliography

147

Indices

150

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Inception of this work lay in the author’s prolonged study of Roman neighborhoods. Thetopic of thepresent chapters 5 and6 wasproclaimed in a lecture honoring T.R.S. Broughton under thesponsorship of theDepartment of Classics in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The third annual Broughton Lecture wasdelivered April 13, 1992 andwastitled „ The Africanization of Roma Insularis“after the title of Professor Broughton’s book The Romanization of Africa Proconsularis (1929). Then he could vividly recall to the author his survey of the N. African landscape he had undertaken some 65 years past. The author is grateful to all members of the faculty who made him welcome to Chapel Hill and most particularly Professor Jerzy Linderski. The work in handwasvirtually completed in the winter 1994/1995, but wasmostly revised in subsequent months during dreadful distress. Professor Kurt Raaflaub took great pains in editing andadvising. Dorothy S. Stewart prepared the text with ever vigilant care.

I. INTRODUCTION Inhislife of P.Terentius Afer, Suetonius approved theargument of Fenestella

that the comic playwright had not been enslaved as a Carthaginian, a

or a Gaetulian in consequence of warbecause the Italians and Africans did not trade until after the destruction of Carthage. Terence, Fenestella said, wasborn anddied between the second andthird wars with Carthage, the city of his birth.1 Save for the statement of Terence’s vital 149 B.C.), roughly speaking,2 Fenestella’s view exhibits dates (202– ignorance andwarrants nocredence at all. If indeed Fenestella hadchosen to make his assertion in the case of another commodity in trade, it might be more difficult to convince us that he egregiously erred. Of slaves from North Africa weare better informed than the benighted Fenestella. But we neednotlimit a refutation to thefact of thepurchase of slaves whenwecan demonstrate the presence of Carthaginians andAfricans in Rome prior to anyof the three Punic wars. The specific subjects of this work are twoRoman neighborhoods (vici) whose names and, in onecase, religion betray theearly presence of Africans at Rome. Both vici are attested only in learned discussions that give no circumstantial testimony. First, we shall sketch Romano-Carthaginian relations prior to the first 242 B.C.). Then we shall touch on the question of slaves Punic war (264– fromAfrica at Rome in the wake of that war.Thirdly, some articles will be extricated fromthePoenulus of Plautus and,toa lesser degree, theagronomy of Cato the Elder. Next, weexamine Roman knowledge of Carthage in the 202 B.C. as it is exhibited in Roman attitudes to, and period from 264– borrowings from, Carthaginian religion, a topic pertinent to understanding oneneighborhood in Rome. Finally, theevidence for theVicus Africus and Vicus Sobrius is rendered sensible to those whowould appreciate the early Numidian

1 Suet. Ter. 1. (The dates are 202 and146 B.C.) This citation of Fenestella is fr. 6 in A. Mazzarino, Grammaticae Romanae Fragmenta Aetatis Caesareae, vol. 1 (Turin 33. The lack of reliability in the work of Fenestella was noted by 1955) 32– Asconius (in Gell. 15.28, i.e., fr. 7 of Fenestella andfr. 2 of Asconius inMazzarino; Asc. [31, 85 Clark] disagrees with Fenestella) andby Pliny NH9.123. See Harris 2

(1979), 99 n.2; for contrast see G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani 4.2.1 (Florence 1953) 38, n.83. The life span of Terence wasmuch shorter than these years suggest. Hedied in 159 andwas25 or 35 years old; see Schanz-Hosius (1927) 103.

I. Introduction

12

ties that Romans hadwith Carthaginians andAfricans. In this regard, the topographical situation of Vicus Sobrius as well as some of its history will

be proposed.

Allusion has been made to the spareness of the attestations of the two neighborhoods in Rome where it can be demonstrated that Africans had once lived. The evidence is so spare that it must be compelled to saymore than it plainly says. For theperiod that concerns this study, namely downto theoutbreak of thewarin 218, noRoman or Greek wrote a full history of Rome. Hadsuch a history beenwritten, it would doubtless never havehelda treatment of the subject in handor, for that matter, incidentally supplied much information. Theancient historian wasnotinterested inthekinds of material treated here

andnow.

Indeed wemaysafely assume that since the Romans began to fashion their history during the second war with Carthage and in the interval between it and the third war, Roman historians would not have been predisposed to pursue anaspect of Romano-Carthaginian relations beyond the warfare. Warfare supplied the stuff of history. Although the texts and summaries of Romano-Carthaginian commercial treaties are made known to us,3 they are but a fleshless skeleton that authenticates the possibility of trade relations, tobe sure trade relations that were carried onfor nearly 250 years (508 to 264 B.C.). Trade wasnotwarandtherefore notintegrated into ancient historiography. Thehistories of Rome that webarely possess aretheworks of menwho lived after the destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C. For the most part their readers were expected to know Carthaginians for their bad qualities, not least Punica fides, which is to say their lack of good faith, trustworthiness, andgenerally civilized behavior. Perhaps theRomans perpetuated this evil quality because of their owntreatment of Carthage in 238 and148 B.C. But that is not our subject. Noris our subject the causes of the wars between Rome andCarthage, least of all to find aneconomic motive in either party. Besides the normal commercial activities we might expect the two peoples to have engaged in, other avenues of cultural exchanges musthave been open if notalways travelled. If it canbe shown that theCarthaginians lived freely in Rome before thesecond war, asI believe it can, then wemay assume that a familiarity hadgrown upbetween theminRome itself andfor that matter elsewhere, too. Romans inRomehadtolerated Etruscans among themtime outof mind. When the Romans wanted a professional barber, they imported one from

3

26.7. Polybius 3.21.9–

I. Introduction

13

Sicily in 300 B.C.4 When the Romans wanted a surgeon, they imported one from the Peloponnesus andset himupat public expense in 219 B.C.5 The barbers andthephysicians didnotmigrate to Rome under terms of a treaty. They were not craftsmen brought for a single job.6 Although they lived in Rome, they have surely left nothing on Roman soil for archaeologists to find today. WearenottoldhowtheRomans came toknowthePunican joint usedto make olive-grinding wheels7 orthePunic floors found in townandcountry houses appointed also with citrus woodandivory.8 Onewayor another the Romans came to know foreign crafts whether on foreign soil or at first

in Italy by non-Italian workers. Thefirst contemporary testimony of Roman awareness of Carthaginians is found in a play of Plautus puton after the second Punic war. It bears no sign of hostility or ill-will, unless humor at Carthaginians’ expense be illwill. Indeed, the Carthaginian is represented as a religious man and a sympathetic father and uncle. From the play we can glean something of Roman perceptions of Carthaginians andthe trade they practiced. These perceptions can hardly be thought as acquired in the few years that had elapsed since the endof thewar.They reflect whatRomans hadseen of the Carthaginians over the course of time, peacetime. That Romans had knowledge of the Carthaginians’ public life is ascertained from theRomans’religious attitudes. Victories at seainthefirst Punic warledthem to build temples vowed to gods against whomthey had also struggled: Storms andJanus, thelatter of whomis a somewhat prominent deity later in N.Africa. Defeats onlandin thesecond Punic warledthem to alter in anextraordinary waytheir cult of Saturn, to import andinstall in a new temple at Rome Venus of Mt. Eryx in Sicily, to honor specially Hercules andlater Apollo. All of these gods represent important deities of theCarthaginians. The Carthaginians in victory didnotinduce theRomans toalter theattitudes of belief. Fora longtime Romans hadbeenworshipping gods of enemy powers whomthey thought could be inveigled to come over

worked

4 5

6 7 8

Varro RR 2.11.10 andin Pliny NH7.211. Cassius Hemina in Pliny NH29.12. As were the Greeks whodecorated the temple early fifth century (Pliny NH35.154).

of Ceres, Liber and Libera in the

Cato Agr.18.9. Cato fr. 185 ORF4Malcovati from Fest. 282 L., whosays the floors were laid with Numidian marble (i.e., the marble of Chemtou). This speech wasdelivered shortly Pavimenta before Cato set outto destroy Carthage with words. See M. Gaggiotti, „ 221; idem, , Africa Romana 5 (1987) 215– Poenica marmore Numidico constrata“ , ibid. 4 „ L’importazione delmarmo numidico a Roma inepoca tardo-repubblicana“ 213. (1986) 201–

14

I. Introduction

to their side. What is peculiar to the second waris the Romans’choices of gods to honor andthemanner in which they sought to showthehonor they

didthem. Nor do only Carthaginian gods honored in wartime fill the roster of Punic divinities who became Roman or found a surrogate at Rome. In examination of the evidence for the Vicus Sobrius, the significance of Mercurius Sobrius whose sacrifice waslibation of milk andof Milk-giver’s Column will be discussed in light of African religion. Much of the African evidence comes from the era of Roman rule in Africa. Much of the African testimony on local religion has long been acknowledged as testimony to an older and still living Punic or PunicoAfrican tradition. But even for the Punic era wecan discern something of the importance the Carthaginians attached to their Mercurius/Hermes, howsoever they called him. After all, any Mercury functioned in the trade of goods. The Carthaginians, andbefore them the Phoenicians, were traders sans pareil. Trade between Romans andCarthaginians can be taken as a given, thanks to ourknowledge of thetreaties between the twopeoples.

II. ROMANO-CARTHAGINIAN RELATIONS TO 264 B.C. Thetreaties between Carthaginians andRomans for which wehave text or summary from Polybius must perforce provide the starting point for any study of cultural relations between Romans and Carthaginians. We have now a thorough study of these treaties and their scholarship by Barbara Scardigli.1 Although downto andincluding thetreaty madein prospect of a joint warwith Pyrrhus (279/8), thegeneral purpose of thetreaties is thought to have been basically of commercial import, scholars have looked to their testimony mostly for matters concerning Carthaginian imperial instincts andtheextent of Roman alliances especially withcertain Latin communities. Further, it is also generally held that the language of the treaties is of a diplomatic cast appropriate to Semites andGreeks (and so, notto Romans) andthat the burden of the text is so perfunctory as to suggest that to the particulars of the first treaty (ca. 508) and the second treaty (ca. 348) neither party gave much thought. For the Carthaginians a treaty meant expression of need for tidiness as if every possible state ought to be subjected to their trade restrictions. Andfor the Romans the treaty meant acquiescence in the Carthaginians’ peculiar mode of commercial empire, an acquiescence on which the Romans would not act by engaging in such overseas trade as wasenvisioned orinterdicted. Further, it is stated that the treaty texts represent diplomatic instruments ofpolitics andempire asmuch as commercial. When the texts andsummaries of the first twotreaties are read, they exhibit no other goal than establishment of trade relations in which it is provided that men of both parties will engage. It need not concern uswhatrestrictions wereimposed because norestriction onRomans trading in Carthage and Carthaginians trading in Rome was set. If the treaties are valued as mere formalities or, worse, dead letters, we are entitled to ask why the Romans preserved Latin translations of them in Rome down to Polybius’time to be read by all andsundry. 1

27. B. Scardigli, I trattati romano-cartaginesi. Relazioni interstatali Polyb. 3.21.8– nel mondo antico. Fonti e Studi 5 (Pisa 1991). Hereafter the author will notrefer to this work in all cases, but only where specifics are wanted. It is clearly formatted with ample analytical table of contents, indices, anda vast series of bibliographies. 92, Scardigli does not take into account the several chapters by Huss (1985) 86– 206, on the treaties down to 306 B.C. Also see Ameling 168, 204– 155, 167– 149– 154 on the sixth century treaty. (1993) 141–

16

II. Romano-Carthaginian Relations to 264 B.C.

A curiosity in the study of the treaties remains the modern lack of curiosity –in both senses –of where andby whom the treaty copies were preserved in Rome. To this subject wenowturn. After Polybius has discussed three treaties, those of ca. 508, ca. 348, and279/8, he gives a summary of the treaty oaths. Then he tells us where they were kept in his day so that he can denounce the Greek historian Philinos, whose writings favored the Carthaginians in their first war with 241 B.C.), for having supplied the text of yet another treaty. Rome (264– Polybius argued from its absence among his treaties (PI, II, III) that the wasa forgery.2 Nowadays wecan, if wewill, accommodate Philinos treaty” “ the “Philinos treaty.” At year 348 Livy reports that a treaty was struck with Carthaginian envoys whohad come seeking friendship andalliance.3 The treaty is the first of its kind recorded by Livy. But it should probably be deemed LII (and identical with PII) because at year 306 the same Livy reports that for the third time the treaty with the Carthaginians was renewed and gifts were given to their envoys come to Rome for therenewal.4 If as Livy writes here for 306 andsimilarly in Periocha 13, theact wasbuta renewal, theRoman magistrates whosupervised implementation neednothave kept a copy of it with PI, PII (=LII?) or for that matter with PIII (=LIV). Though in the periocha Livy is representing thetreaty struck in theeraof thePyrrhic war as a fourth renewal, it is clear from Polybius’ account that it renewed the prior engagement(s) andprovided for the first time military co-operation between thetwoparties in theevent Pyrrhus crossed from Italy to Sicily. The so-called Philinos treaty could have been Livy’s renewal (for the third time) of 306 andgone unrecorded in one place in Rome. Whereas Livy’s renewal (for thefourth time) wasmore than a mere renewal andhad to be recorded andkept with copies of the treaties PI, PII.5 Polybius makes 2 3 4

26. Polyb. 3.25.6– Livy 7.27.2. 168 hypothesizes a treaty between Rome and Livy 9.43.26. Huss (1985) 167– Carthage in 343, a few years after that of 348 (L. 7.38.2), because the “ third” 206 renewal in 306 (L. 9.43.26) Livy reckoned from 348. Likewise, Huss pp. 204– third” renewal of 306 thetreaty known fromPhilinos (below, n. 5) asdo makes the“ others. Huss, locc. citt. (above, n. 1), has little to say about the commercial aspect of the treaties; also see Huss, p. 486. For Lancel (1995) 362 the treaty of 306 is the

5

Livy Per. 13: cum Carthaginiensibus quarto foedus renovatum est; cf. Per. 14: Carthaginiensium classis auxilio Tarentinis venit, quofacto ab hisfoedus violatum est. Philinos’treaty will beLivy’s third renewal in 306 B.C. (9.43.26), or it will not. The Philinos treaty will have to be re-examined in light of the inscriptions from Entella in which one undisputable Roman, Tiberius Claudius Antias, and some

“ Philinos”treaty.

Campanians figure (Lucius Paccius, Lucius Caesius, Gnaeus Oppius, Minatos

II. Romano-Carthaginian Relations to 264 B.C.

17

no claim to have fully read and understood the oldest treaty because its language so differed from the Latin current at the time.6 But he saw the treaties andtells us where η κ ῶ νἔτ μ ρ μ έν ου ιν η ῦ ω νἐ ντ ῶ νσυνθ νχα ρὰ κ λ τ ώ ό τ ασ νΔ ιπ α ία τ ὸ ν μ ρα ω ν ν τα ό γ μ ο ιείῳ .7 ῷ τ ῶ ν ἀ νἐ ιο ετώ λ ν τ π α Κ Unforgivable translations of this passage and identifications of this building occur. Muchdepends ontamieion which of course thehistorian (as others) used elsewhere to render the state treasury of Rome, theaerarium,8 as well as the quaestor’s tent of a Roman camp.9 Aerarium andquaestorium were in thecharge of quaestors or tamiai. But a tamieion could be a treasury or any other kind of storehouse (under lock and key). The tamieion in question, next to the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, was in charge of the 10which, aediles (agoranomoi). This wasnotthe“treasury of theQuaestors” even if the Greek said it, lay below the capitol at the temple of Saturn. Noauthor tells us about this tamieion of the aediles. Some have identified it with the Atrium Publicum in Capitolio.11 So, Jordan who speaks of Archivhaus für Staatsurkunden12 whence the aediles’archives entered the picture13 without examination. Nowatria meant several things besides the main room of a primitive house: auction rooms, cobblers’ hall (atrium sutorium). In theAtrium Libertatis records were indeed kept. But it was still butFreedom’s Hall.

1123; 32, no. 914; 35, no. 999; and Corvius Mamertinus); see SEG 30, nos. 1117– 241 B.C.) andVII (20th cent. 40, no. 785. W.T. Loomis, “Entella Tablets VI (254– 160, wasmade available to me by the author , HSCP 96 (1994 [1996] 127– A.D.?)” before its publication. 6 Polyb. 3.22.3. He turned to experts whoread it only with difficulty. 7 Polyb. 3.26.1. 8 Polyb. 6.13.1. 9 Polyb. 6.31.5, which the Greek-English Lexicon cites wrongly for aerarium. 10 Paton in theLCL translation, followed bymany inEnglish (e.g., L. Richardson, Jr., ANewTopographical Dictionary ofAncient Rome [Baltimore 1992] 42, s.v. Atrium Publicum). Huss (1985) 86, 205 correctly understands Polybius’expression. 11 Livy 24.10.9 (214 B.C.): tacta de caelo atrium publicum in Capitolio, etc. 12 Jordan-Huelsen (1878) vol. 2, 52. 13 E.g. Scardigli (1991) 134: “presso il tempio di Giove Capitolino nell’archivio degli . H.H. Scullard in F.W. Walbank, A.E. Astin, M.W. Frederiksen, and R.M. edili” Ogilvie, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nded., vol. 7.2. (Cambridge 1989) 537) correctly speaks of the in his general discussion of all these treaties (517– The Rise of 534). But in this volume, subtitled “ “ treasury of the aediles”(533– , the reader finds very little on the aediles andtheir functions; Rome to 220 B.C.” they might just as well never have existed.

18

II. Romano-Carthaginian Relations to 264 B.C.

Mommsen identified the aediles’tamieion with another building onthe Capitol, the aedes tensarum. Tensae were the floats for religious parades.14 Preservation of treaties incised onbronze tablets in a kindof ancient garage seems, to say the least, odd. Andone might ask whether the “ garage”next to (para) the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was a fit use of sacred land. In partial exculpation of Philinos’ignorance, Polybius says that even in his day the eldest Romans andCarthaginians including statesmen didnot know of the treaties. Much too much has been made of this statement.15 After all since 264, long before Polybius’ éminences grises were born, these treaties hadlost force. In addition, Romans then might have hadno interest either in a history of treaties or of any other aspect of RomanoCarthaginian relations before 264. So, let us return to the aediles andtheir tamieion. First of all, quaestors do not enter the discussion. Secondly, archives should not be smuggled into the discussion via the Atrium Publicum whose sole appearance inhistory permits usto sayonly that it wassusceptible to a lightning strike. Thirdly, we ought to ask other questions of the evidence. Other treaties were posted on the Capitol but weknow not where.16 In the case of the treaty with Antiochus III, it was struck on the Capitol and preserved there, too.17 In 343 B.C. the Carthaginians sent envoys to congratulate the Romans, andthey brought a wreath of gold weighing 25 pounds which they gave to Jupiter Optimus Maximus onthe Capitol.18 But surely the aediles had no hand in treaty making or receiving courtesy embassies. Roman aediles were annual magistrates, twopairs each year, onecalled curule aediles andthe other plebeian aediles. The latter enjoyed historical priority but were only at last formally recognized in 367 B.C. when the curule aedileship wasinstituted.19 Ample testimony bears onboth plebeian and curule aediles holding court in matters of the Roman markets or on Roman commerce.20 Indeed we hear of their jurisdiction with validating historical detail as early as theyear 296. Usually such information hasbeen transmitted because they converted the fine-monies (pecunia multaticia) either to public works, temple building or precious gifts to one of two

14 Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht vol. 2.1, 3rd ed. (Leipzig 1887) p. 500 n. 1. 15 Polyb. 3.26.2; see Walbank (1957) on 3.22.9–10. 93); Jos. AJ 14.144; Suet. Vesp. 8.5. 16 Cic. Phil. 5.12 (cf. 2.92– 17 Livy 37.55.3, App. Syr. 203. 18 Livy 7.38.2. 19 Livy 6.42.12–14 (where the original title duumviri aediles is solely attested), 7.1.6. 373). 20 The oldest author is Plautus (Rudens 372–

II. Romano-Carthaginian Relations to 264 B.C.

19

deities.21 Obviously, aediles whocould levy fines hadneed of a treasurehouse if no instantaneous conversion wasto be made. Theplebeian aediles presumably hadtheir headquarters atthetemple of Ceres, Liber andLibera on the Aventine Hill where also they hadkept an archive, we are told, of senate decrees apart from those kept by state magistrates.22 Later, some fine-monies collected bythem were converted to gifts for that temple.23 Intheir turn, curule aediles might convert their fine-monies into offerings toJupiter Optimus Maximus ontheCapitol hill.24 Butplebeian aediles, too, might honor the Capitoline god.25 In onefamous instance, occurring in 207 B.C., the curule aediles issued anedict to all married women in Rome and within a radius of tenmiles to choose 25 of their number tobring to themon the Capitol a cash offering (stips) from their dowries for bestowal on a goddess. The cash was converted to a golden bowl.26 From these bits of information wegather that curule aediles atleast, andperhaps both pairs of aediles, had their headquarters on the Capitol. Further, we infer that a proper storehouse for precious goods, cash or as yet undonated offerings, might have been needed. Perhaps, the aediles hada proper treasury on the Capitol beside the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Such a building would have been more suitable for keeping fine-monies, free-will offerings and sundry other precious goods than an “Archivhaus”or a hangar for floats. Since at least two magistrates every year had to keep in such a depository monies from several sources, doubtless accounts andinventories could have been preserved in the treasury of the aediles (though a prudent man would have kept them to himself). In later times the two pairs of aediles kept clerks (scribae or scribae librarii) and runners (viatores). Already in202 B.C. theclerks andrunners of the(curule) aediles implicated one curule aedile, L. Licinius Lucullus, in their embezzlement of cash ex aerario.27 The “treasury”was presumably in the care of the aedile’s subordinates. Besides thenormal civic supervision of markets in charge of bothpairs of aediles, other matters, somequite complicated, fell toaedilician responsibility.

21 22 23 24 25

34. 25, 30, 33– See below, at nn. 22– Livy 3.55.13. Livy 10.23.13, 27.6.19, 27.36.9, 33.25.3. Livy 10.23.11–12, 29.38.8, 35.41.9–10. 6 (this case involving oneplebeian andtwocurule aediles is Livy 30.39.8, 38.35.4– ambiguous). Other cases of aedilician fine-monies and other funds converted to godly gifts are attested at ILLRP 39 (de stipe Aesculapi), 45 (moltaticod), 51 (vicesima parti Apolones).

26 Livy 27.37.8–10; for another conversion of a stips see n. 25. The bowl wasdestined to Juno of the Aventine. 27 Livy 30.39.7.

20

II. Romano-Carthaginian Relations to 264 B.C.

But let us return to trade in the markets. Weights and measures fell within thepurviews of theaediles whokeptthestandards, apparently onthe Capitol.28 Such standards of weights (and scales) andmeasures would have been necessities for policing the markets. Carthaginians came to market in Rome, or so it would seem from their earlier treaties down to 279/8. It stands to reason that they didnot come to Rome to discuss high politics with senators, to ogle parade-floats orto chat with historians. They came to trade. They expected a public supervisor of theRoman markets. According totreaty, incertain circumstances within the Carthaginian markets, trade had to take place in the presence of a crier (keryx = L. praeco) or clerk (grammateus = L. scriba).29 The aediles of the Roman people kept the three treaties (PI, II, III) at their tamieion for no other reason than that as supervisors of the Roman market they andthey alone oversaw execution of these treaties in thecity of Rome. No one, especially a graybeard, gave a Catonian fig for these treaties when Polybius wrote. The treaties hadbecome dead letters indeed in 264 B.C. Idling aediles andtheir clerks hadnomindfor bronzes incised in old Latin onobsolete market conditions. These texts, doubtless affixed to some wall, remained oddities until some moment whena manwanted to make an argument on historical grounds. Polybius’elder statesmen were probably disinclined to argue onthegrounds of deadletters. Thetreasury of theaediles wasjust whatPolybius said: a treasury of the aediles. Whether the Romans called it the atrium publicum or an atrium publicum at the moment when struck by lightning is not for us to know. Surely the building for parade andentertainment equipment, if it existed in thesecond century, seems anunlikely place forkeeping commercial treaties, standard weights andmeasures, fine-monies, andother valuables. The treasury of the aediles cannot have been older than the curule aedileship first filled in 366. Accordingly, at least the oldest treaty with Carthage (PI) would have hadto be moved thither after its construction. Theearliest attested trial byaediles (unspecified) thatwecancredit occurred in 344 B.C.30 This would have occurred four years after the second treaty (PII) was struck. The earliest specific notice of fine-monies available to a curule aedile falls ca. 304 when the notorious Cn. Flavius Anni f. fined usurers and converted thefines to a bronze shrine for Concord.31 This incident occurred perhaps twoyears after what Livy calls thethird renewal of the treaty with 8631, 8629, 8632 (Capitol), 8630– 28 No evidence is older than A.D. 47: ILS 8627– 8633 (aediles). 9. 29 Polyb. 3.22.8– 30 Livy 7.28.9: usurers were tried. 20; cf. Livy 9.46. 31 Pliny NH33.17–

II. Romano-Carthaginian Relations to 264 B.C.

21

the Carthaginians.32 Weknow that the same Flavius wasbelieved to have been the first to compile the legis actiones (ius civile) and to make public the civil calendar (fasti) that would have conduced to ease in setting dates forjudicial hearings.33 In296 bothpairs of aediles convicted, fined anddedicated. Theplebeian aediles fined pecuarii and dedicated to Ceres. The curule aediles again fined usurers. Their bona were seized andmade public property. Then the aediles dedicated to Capitoline Jupiter and elsewhere as well as paved a road.34 Seizure of the usurers’ bona reminds us that at this moment finemonies (pecunia multaticia or [aes] moltaticum) could not, of course, been levied in coin by the aediles. The first instance of a money fine that is attested in the aediles’jurisdiction occurred ca. 246.35

Although it is but a surmise, foundation of a building for an aedilician treasury ca. 304 seems appropriate to Cn.Flavius’career andcivil interests. Surely by that day a treasury was needed. Flavius was capable of acquiring copies of the treaties then extant, namely those of ca. 508, 348 and 306, perhaps all of which were already in thecare of the (curule) aediles. Polybius’treasury of the aediles, if there were posted also treaties and the like, would have been comparable to the agoranomion of theAthenians.36 Greek influence onFlavius canbedemonstrated byhischoice of Concordia as a newgoddess for civil religion.37 Indeed, we should not overlook the realities of ancient deposits of money which were temples, normally closed and secured and surely guarded by the temple-warder (aedituus). Of thetreasury’s endweknownothing. If it still stood, it wasdoubtless destroyed when the Capitol burned during Sulla’s second march on Rome. In the event, its purpose wasperhaps fulfilled by Catulus’Tabularium that still stands today. Polybius andall other Greeks rendered L. aedilis agoranomos ‘market superintendent’, a magistracy known to them far andwide butattested first anddefined atAthens. Other Greek titles could have been usedtorender the Roman according tofunction38: temple superintendants (hieron episkeuastai),

32 Livy 9.43.26. 33 L. Piso fr. 27 P. in Gell. 7.9; Cic. Att. 6.8, De or. 1.186; Livy 9.46; Pliny NH33.17– 20. 34 Livy 9.23.11–13. 35 For moltaticum, above, n. 25. The plebeian aediles, dated uncertainly to 246, fined the infamously arrogant Claudia aeris gravis viginti quinque milia (Ateius Capito 4). fr. 6 Strzelecki in Gell. 10.6.2– 918a; SIG3 no. 313 (320/19 B.C.). See below at n. 38. 36 Plato Leg. 11.917e– 37 See A.D. Momigliano, “Camillus andConcord”CQ 36 (1942) 111–120 = Secondo 104. contributo alla storia degli studi classici (Rome 1960) 89– 51. See 38 Remarks here are limited only to the testimony of Aristotle’s Ath. Pol. 50– above, at n. 36.

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city superintendants (astynomoi), superintendants of weights andmeasures

(metronomoi), grain-guardians (sitophylakes), caretakers of trade (emporiou epimeletai). Besides having these functions in charge, the pairs of aediles also hadcharge of most of thesacred games inRome, care andmaintenance of streets androads, local delivery of piped water.39 But to Greek andto other non-Roman visitors to theCity, aediles musthave seemed tohave had the supervision of themarket as their principal function. Needless to say, we have no evidence that Carthaginian traders ever swarmed at the Roman markets nor Romans at the Carthaginian.40 But some evidence permits usto surmise thecontents of cargoes Carthaginians peddled in their carrying trade. An article in trade conducted by Carthaginians that will not have ever left a trace ontheground wastheslave. Asweshall see, Carthaginians were proverbial slavers. Indeed the second Roman-Carthaginian treaty provides for Carthaginian raids ontheLatian coast that could result inenslavement.41 In Rome the slave-trade wasoverseen by the curule aediles.42 Since their perpetual edict touched onthis peculiar market, their judicial business must have been as brisk as the trade itself.43 Otherwise the trade was silent.44 But weare notbereft of all traces of Carthaginians in Rome.45

55, 68– 72; Cic. Leg. 31, 50– 39 See, for example, Tab. Heracl. (FIRA I2, no. 13) 11.20– 2 59 (onthe latter-day expenditures ontheir games); Varro RR 1.2.1– 3.7, Off. 2.57– (temple in charge of an aedile who supervised its aeditumus). For the aedilician 522. functions at Rome see Mommsen (above, n. 14) 470– 176; Huss 169, 175– 40 For Carthaginian commerce in general see Gsell (1924) 109– 409; for Etruscan language remains (1985) 485– 488; Lancel (1995) passim, esp. 401– at Carthage, H. Rix, Etruskische Texte, vol. 2 (Tübingen 1991) 335. See below, ch. 96. Forevidence that Carthaginians hada market of their ownat Rome, 3 at nn.95– App. 2. 113. 6; see Scardigli (1991) 108– 41 Polyb. 3.24.5– 42 Howoldthis supervision wascannot be said. In Gell. 4.2 students of the lawas far back as Cicero’s contemporary Trebatius andtheAugustan Antistius Labeo andthe renowned jurist (Cn. Arulenus) Caelius Sabinus (cos. 64) are cited on the edictum aedilium curulium that concerned slave sales; Sabinus wrote on the edict. For remains of the edict see FIRA I2, no. 66; Dig. 21.1; Gell. 4.2. 43 Atsome point intime thesellers of slaves were required todeclare at sale theorigin, age, function andcraft of the slave (Dig. 5.15.4.5: nationes aetates officia artificia; cf. 21.1.31.21). The curule aedile will have hadto enforce that regulation. 44 Also silent in regard to the slave’s personal name. The oldest attested name of a Roman’s Punic slave is Greek (Philippus; see below, ch. 3 at n. 75) as is that of the servile dedicant on Sardinia ca. 150 B.C. (ILLRP 41, Cleon who wrote in Latin, Greek andPunic). See Gsell (1924) 112 n. 7. 45 The Carthaginians were traders andnotartisans byanystandard Greeks, Italians or even Gauls would have kept. They carried from one port of call to another. Either perishable goods or raw materials will not have survived with any Carthaginian stamp. Accordingly, we must attend what the ancient authors tell us. Also see 276. Lancel (1995) 275–

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Although notilliterate, Carthaginians were notliterary. Their voices are

as silent as their trade. Nowritten sources spend ink in their praise. In a longish passage onwhoinvented what, Pliny writes that thePoeni invented trade (mercaturae).46 In his contrast between the Roman state andothers, Polybius writes that Carthaginians would have stopped at nothing to turn a profit.47 In his famous discussion of the faults of maritime cities, Cicero

writes of Carthage (and Corinth) that its citizens left the skill of farming and warring out of an eagerness to sail the world over to trade.48 Such shallow and banal prejudices, all written long after the heyday of the Carthaginians, cannot diminish what remains implicit and explicit in the treaties to which the Romans andCarthaginians agreed. In the office of the aediles Romans reposed the local observance of the terms of trade. At the lowest level, aediles had to know the rules of what the Romans, at least by 338 B.C., called commercium, ‘trade-rights’49 whereby citizen and noncitizen didbusiness in themarketplace. Since a highly probable case canbe made for aedilician preservation of the treaties, we may go further and assume that trade between Romans andCarthaginians in Rome wasnormal if notfrequent, wasconducted according to treaty, andwasoverseen by the Roman magistrates whoto ourknowledge normally oversaw the market. The treaties as such cannot be considered the full schedule of early Punic-Roman relations. InLivy theCarthaginians first appear ina curiously bland notice for the year 431 B.C.: Carthaginienses, tanti hostes futuri, turn primum per seditiones Siculorum ad partis alterius auxilium in Siciliam exercitum traiecere.50 Whether Siculi wereSiceliote Greeks ortheindigenous natives andwhoconstituted thepars altera from the Carthaginian point of viewremain opento question. More tothepoint is theprobability of Roman envoys in Sicily at this time. In 432, theprior year, plague andhunger and sickness drove the Romans to vowa temple toApollo andto send missions to Etruria and the Ager Pomptinus and to Sicily to acquire grain. The sickness persisted into thenext year.51 Again in412/11 theRomans suffered

46 NH7.199. 47 Polyb. 6.56.2. 48 Cic. Rep.2.7. Ofcourse, Cicero virtually convicts theCarthaginians andCorinthians themselves of thedestruction of their cities. Rome hadbeentheinnocent bystander, a nation of farmers and warriors. It is worth bearing in mind that Carthaginians farmed andknew farming very well; in fact between the second andlast wars with Rome they prospered thanks to farming as well as trade; Lancel (1995) 269–288, 412. 404– 49 Livy 8.14.10. 50 Livy 4.29.8 on which see Ogilvie’s (1965) none too clear comment that mostly

. Annalistik” concerns “ 4, 26.5, 29.7; cf. 4.20.9. On this and other 51 Livy 4.25.3– (1988) 171, 175, 178.

dearths see P. Garnsey

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sickness, plague, dearth and hunger. Their envoys were rebuffed by the “ Samnites”holding Capua and Cumae and consequently succeeded in buying grain from the Etruscans of the coast andof theTiber river zone as well as gained the help of the tyranni Siculorum.52 Romans beat a path in the sea to Sicily to buygrain from Sicilians. In the first andsecond treaty between the Romans andCarthaginians (i.e., PI andPII, of the early Roman republic andof 348), Romans could trade freely according to theearlier pact or trade as if a citizen according to the later within the Carthaginian “eparchy”in Sicily. If the Romans in 432 andin 412 must be thought to have dealt only with Greek Sicilians at the eastern end of the island, the notice of Carthaginian intervention in 431 seems most inappropriate and the terms of treaty PI quite inoperative. Roman knowledge of Carthaginian intervention in Sicily in 431 seems to have been based ontheRoman embassy’s presence in territory under loose Carthaginian control for thepurpose of grain acquisition according to trade rights guaranteed by treaty. In the later incident of 412/11 wedo not have any corollary testimony about Carthaginians. Yet the Romans could have sought grain where their treaty with Carthage allowed. We have no knowledge of Roman relations with Siciliote communities at this moment or for manyyears to come. The year before the Carthaginians came to Rome to make a mercantile pact in 348, Greek pirate fleets preyed on the Latium coast andblockaded the mouth of the Tiber. Livy does not know which Greeks evaded the Roman countermeasures, but suspected the “tyrants”of Sicily.53 Not five years after making thetreaty of 348 with theRomans, Carthaginian envoys came again, this time to congratulate them andto present a weighty gold wreath to Capitoline Jupiter.54 Obviously, the Carthaginians already knew the religious protocols of Rome in 343. The African power hadprobably recognized the threat of Greek pirates in 349. Remedy against them the Romans made in colonizing coastal Antium (and very probably Ostia) in 338, Tarracina in 329, and the island of Pontia(e) in 312.55 In 311/10 the

52 Livy 4.52. Ogilvie (1965) on52.6 rejects the tyrants (of Greek states) butseems to accept the purchase of Sicilian grain; Garnsey (1988), 171, casts doubt, but not on the year of dearth. That anyone cansaythat notyrant ruled in Sicily in this moment seems imprudent. TheSicel kings Ducetius (d.440) andArchonides I (d.414) could have been perceived as “tyrants”to some. Wecannot be sure that these embassies to Sicilians”beyond the Sicily twenty years apart approached only Greek Sicilians or “ control or sphere of influence of Carthaginians in the western endof the island. 53 Livy 7.25.4, 25.12–13, 26.13–15. 54 Livy 7.38.2. The Carthaginians were quite familiar with piracy; Ameling (1993) 119–140. 8 (Pontiae; 55 Livy 8.14.8 (Antium), 8.21.11 (Tarracina, also in Vell. 1.14.4), 9.28.7– also see Vell. 1.14.4 andDiod. 19. 101.3).

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25

Romans determined to rebuild their war fleet andto elect admirals.56 The foregoing decisions subsequent to 348 doubtless encouraged the Carthaginians to renew in 306 for the “third”time their mercantile pact withtheRomans whoonthis occasion engaged inthediplomatic refinement of giftgiving.57 Scholars mayset at nought theclear intent of the Punic-Roman treaties by underrating any Roman interest in trade andby stressing the Hellenic and Semitic format of the “Carthaginian” treaties as pacts made indiscriminately hither and yon by anxiety-ridden Semitic merchants in whatever port they put.Thefact remains indisputable that only commercial activity (including slaving) wasencouraged andenabled by the treaties in question. Implicit, too, wasCarthaginian enslavement of Italians bycapture which might eventuate in sale of the captives. A diplomatic refinement precluded Carthaginians from selling men seized in those towns also in treaty with the Romans.58 In other words, Romans at Rome could buy captive slaves fromCarthaginians solong assaidslaves hadnotbeen seized in communities allied to Rome! Fenestella’s assertion of anabsence of trade between Italians andAfricans before 146 B.C. is patently groundless. What of the trade in slaves? That wasdemonstrably other than Fenestella informed hisreaders onthesubject of P. Terentius Afer’s servitude.59 Carthaginians still enjoy a notoriety as slave traders. Some captives they reserved for sacrifice.60 Piracy they, as others, practiced as a mode of slave trade through kidnapping.61 Yettheir human stock-in-trade evidently also came into their hands inless violent ways.62 TheGreeks acknowledged Phoenician propensity to lure women and children into slavery.63 Carthaginian children, too, were exposed to kidnapping andsale.64 Romans

3. 56 Livy 9.30.4, 38.2– 57 Livy 9.43.26. Also see above, n. 4. 7. The treaty wasevidently that of commercium or of conubium: not 58 Polyb. 3.24.5– 31 (cf. 192– so, Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship2 (Oxford, 1973) pp. 30– 6 and 110. 125– 34, 109– 194); and on commercium and conubium see pp. 32– passim.

2. 59 See above, ch. 1 at nn. 1– 60 S. Gsell (1924), 407. 128; Ameling (above, n. 54). 61 Gsell (1924), 125– 62 Gsell (1924), pp. 134–136, 140, 150. 484; Her. 1.1. 63 Homer, Od. 15.415– 964, 1058, 1099–1105, 1239, 904, 961– 90, 896– 74, 86– 67, 72– 64 Plaut. Poen. 64–

989 the Carthaginian says of his nephew’s 1346. At 988– 1247, 1343– 1245– kidnapping, “very many freeborn boys leave Carthage forever in that way.”The sentiment may have been expressed in the Greek original of Plautus’ play. The situation washardly unique to this comedy.

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could have bought slaves from Carthaginians at anymoment. But slaves of Carthaginian andAfrican origin will also have reached Rome bya different source. For instance, when the Romans laid claim to Sardinia in 238 or 237 in thetrain of theLibyan Mercenary War,they adduced that theCarthaginians had harmed ships or crews or maritime traders that had been coasting African shores during the Libyan War prior to the Sardinian Mercenary War.65

The Roman pretext is taken by Polybius andmodern students of the subject asajustification, madeatthemoment orfabricated intheaftermath, for Roman perfidy with respect to the treaty made at the endof the first Punic war.66 In the context of the present discussion, what counts is the report of ships or traders from Italy operating in North African waters just after the first war. In the circumstances prevailing before the first war, treaty provision hadallowed Roman traders to trade in some Carthaginian controlled zones of Africa. Ca. 240 B.C. traders might gain from the warfare of others. The 500 oddtraders taken ca. 240 were engaged in the same trade as hadbeen promoted in treaties PI, II, III. Warmeant quickened commerce in slaves. Between 264 and242 many of theenemy came into Roman hands. Some were exchanged orransomed. Others were sold. Of the captives sold into slavery we very probably can account for only a fraction.67 Especially inthefleets Romans deployed their ownslaves andfreedmen.68 Oneincident during thefirst warwith Carthage is particularly informative andhelpful in elucidation of another 42 years later.

22, Hisp. 4.15; Zon. 8.18. It matters little 65 Polyb. 1.83, 1.88, 3.28; App. Pun. 5.21– Roman”traders were supplying the Libyan rebels (Polyb. whether these putative “ 1.83). There were, it is said, some 500 of them (Polyb. 1.83). It is worth emphasis that Polybius at 1.83.7 calls the 500 odd tous pleontas ex Italias eis Libyen. The phrase does not make them ‘Italian’ in our technical sense. But Frank (in CAH 7[1928] p. 803), Warmington (1964), 204, andWalbank (1957) on 1.88.8 call them n at n emporō n Italikō Italians. NowPolybius knew how to say Italian traders’ (tō ‘ ). The 500 could of southern Italy” 2.8.2; Walbank “mainly from the Greek cities have been Romans, Etruscans, Campanians, Italiotes orwhat youwill. Cicero twice states that the Roman ancestors often went to waronbehalf of merchants andshipcaptains whohadbeen grievously handled (L. Man. 11; 2 Verr 5.149). Forthe sober andcorrect view of the 500 traders fromItaly, see Harris (1979), 65, 191. 66 Polyb. 1.88.8, on which see Walbank (1957), and3.28.3. Already in the early first century Carthaginians meant treaty-breakers in a Roman’s oratorical figura (Auct. ad Her. 4.20; Quint. 9.3.31). 67 Frank (1933), 67. See, e.g., Polyb. 1.29.7 andFlorus 1.18.21. 669 andpassim. 68 P.A. Brunt (1971), 668–

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27

In 259, the year of Duillius’triumph (see below), slaves andallies, the latter apparently all Samnites, were being trained to crew the Roman ships and conspired at Rome. Their captain of auxilia (?), bearing a Samnite name, betrayed the rebellion to the senate.69 In the second year of the second warwith Carthage occurred a similar : “ conspiracy” per eosdem dies speculator Carthaginiensis, qui per biennium fefellerat, Romae deprensus praecisisque manibus dimissus, et servi quinque et viginti in crucem acti quod in campo Martio coniurassent; indici data libertas et aeris gravis viginti milia.70

At the same time a Carthaginian spy whofor two years had eluded “ notice was caught in Rome andsent his wayafter his hands hadbeen cut off. And twenty five slaves were crucified on the grounds that they had conspired in theField of Mars. Hisfreedom and20,000 pieces of aes grave were awarded the informer.”There can be little doubt that both the slave whoinformed andtheslaves crucified forconspiracy intheCampus Martius hadthe same origin as the Carthaginian spy whohadescaped detection at Rome for two years. It would appear that at least in 219 a Carthaginian would have attracted no attention to himself in Rome. The 25 or 26 slaves whointended harm to their lords could have been former captives of the war that hadended 25 years earlier or hadbeen mere articles in the slave trade. Further, wecanbe fairly certain of where andhowthey would harm the Roman state in 217. The Roman shipyards and drydocks (navalia) were situated ontheCampus Martius bytheTiber, north andwest of theCapitol.71

69 Dio from Book XI in Zon. 8.11. The archon Herius Potilius, not in MRR, may be compared with Herius Pettius in Livy 23.43.9 and the Hereiis in Buck no. 40 (Cumae?). Potilius probably stands for Pontilius. Although Herius is a family name, it is better attested as a praenomen (ILLRP 222, 562, 628, 1146) and so used in Zonaras withPontilius, a derivative of Pontius (=Latin Quinctius). Perhaps Naevius told the story of the Samnite conspiracy; see Marmorale (1950) on his fr. 39 (38 Morel, 31 Strzelecki) of the BP. 70 Livy 22.33.1–2 (217 B.C.). For amputation of hands as punishment see Livy 26.12.19; for the common practice of crucifixion of criminal slaves see nowAE 1971, no. 88, para. II. On slaves as shipbuilders also see below, App.5, n.1. 71 Livy 3.26.8, 8.14.12, 40.51.6, 45.35.3, 45.42.12 (cf. G. Lugli, Fontes ad 61). Enn. Topographiam Veteris Urbis Romae Pertinentes vol. 2 [Rome 1953] 58– Ann. fr. 504 Skutsch offers an interesting problem: idem campus habet textrinum navibus longis. Servius cites the line to explain Aen. 11.326 (cf. Cic. Orat. 157) where Vergil wrote texamus navis. Much ink hasbeen spilled over navem texere ‘to 659. I wonder whether Vergil and his build a ship’; see Skutsch (1985) 658– successors have not misunderstood Ennius’textrinum. It ought to mean ‘weavery’. Could not the building be a shed for weaving sail cloth? Cf. the use of textilia in

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Theproposed uprising orsabotage of 217verynearly parallels theconspiracy of 259 B.C. It would be unfair to Fenestella to suggest that among the crucified slaves wasslain anincipient comic playwright. Butthe“ conspiracy” of 217 as well as the commercial treaties of much greater antiquity show him mistaken (as well as his followers). In 217 Rome must have lodged many slaves or ex-slaves of Carthaginian andAfrican descent. This gang’s loyalty to Rome wastested andfound wanting in 217 B.C. The Carthaginian spy whohadgone unnoticed at Rome for two years can be supposed but one of several agents. He cannot be one of the Carthaginians sent in guise of ambassadors to lodge the while at Rome for the purpose of spying out Roman plans.72 Needless to say, in 217 no soiambassadors” disant ambassador would have been left in Rome. These “ will be discussed again in the chapter onVicus Africus.73 At the moment of discovery of the plotters among the slaves in Rome headed by a Carthaginian spy, the Romans were being polled for the consuls of the next year. In the event, the two new consuls were to be delivered a crushing defeat at Cannae. Consequently in 216 the senate departed from precedent andordered the purchase andenlistment of 8000 (i.e., twolegions) of slaves.74 For some years these legions served under Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (cos. 215) whohadenlisted them. In characteristic fashion theRomans called such soldiers “ volunteers”(volones), just asthey whensome, if not naval allies” sometimes called those serving in thefleets “ all, were their ownslaves andfreedmen. Being iuniores the servile force could nothave been older than 45 years in 216, i.e. born before 261. If any wasa Carthaginian orAfrican bybirth, his enslavement will have occurred when he had barely reached manhood or even earlier in his life. Being curule aedile as well as master of horse andthen consul designate in 216, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus would have been in a peculiar position to recruit Livy 45.35.3. For Scipio’s “Sicilian”expedition Tarquinii provided the linen sail (Livy 28.45.15). If texere does not refer to weaving linen for sail, it might have reference to the craft of naves sutiles (Pliny NH24.65), but not to the men-of-war in Ennius. TheRomans apparently knewthebattle worthiness of Punic ships: Polybius tells the story that early in the first warthe Romans seized andbrought to Rome a ship to serve them as a model warship (Polyb. 1.20.15, on which see Walbank [1957]). Carthaginian craftsmen will havebeen indemand forbuilding andoutfitting ships so long as the Romans hadnone. 72 Front. Strat. 1.2.4: idem Carthaginienses miserunt quiper speciem legatorum longo tempore Romae morarentur exciperentque consilia nostrorum. Frontinus has just remarked on a false exile who had betrayed Alexander’s faith. These anecdotes come from the section de explorandis consiliis hostium. 73 Evidently spying envoys were not so uncommon (e.g. Livy 42.26.3) that weought putdown the episode as anexample of Punica fides. 651. 74 Livy 22.57.11–12. See Brunt (1971), 648–

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29

slaves, for the slave market would have been in his aedilician purview.75 In volunteers”freedom after their second year of service Tiberius granted the “ their victory atBeneventum. Suchwasthesuccess of theexperiment that he was elected consul for the next year (213).76 At Rome in this his second consulship, the urban praetor hadto take measures to suppress alien cults being practiced in the very heart of Rome.77 As weshall see, some of those practices maybe traced to the door of Carthaginians. Romans were not averse to acquiring and employing (or deploying) slaves of Punic andAfrican extraction during thesecond Punic war.Probably they become used to such slaves when sold over the centuries in their own market by Carthaginians. After 264 B.C. the numbers of African andPunic slaves will haverisen greatly andtosuchanextent thatby219 a Carthaginian present in Rome was hardly remarkable.78 Naturally neither slaves of African birth nor slaves of African descent were to be reckoned hostile to their Roman lords merely because of origins. There must have been many others than the Campus Martius Twenty Five who, like the informer, had diverse loyalties. In theearly days of the second Punic wars, they will have sufficiently mingled with the previously settled populace to have come to share beliefs andnotions. TheRomans hadclaimed that their seizure of Sardinia andCorsica had been prompted by Carthaginian capture andimprisonment of 500 traders “ from Italy”(again, notItalian traders) whohadbeen plying Punic waters. an In 218 or 217 the plebeian tribune brought andhadpassed a nova lex, “ , whereby neither a senator nora sonof a senator could unprecedented law” own a seaworthy ship with tonnage above three hundred amphoras.79 Romans didnot legislate against what might some dayhappen but against what hadhappened again andagain. Surely the Roman voter in legislative assembly was not about to accept unprecedented bills, especially if it is true, as Livy writes, that only one senator supported the law. The legislation passed probably before Hannibal reached Italy in 218 provided that no senator or senator’s son could owna ship that could go to

75 76 77 78 79

43. Livy 23.24.3, 25.2, 30.16. See above, at nn. 42– Livy 24.14–16, 43.5. 94 andApp. 3. Livy 25.1.6–12. See below, ch. 4 at nn. 81– 113). And, too, Carthaginians were believed to know all languages (Pl. Poen. 112– 4. The year is in doubt because as Livy hascomposed his history C. Livy 21.63.2– , was consul popular leader” Flaminius, sponsor of the tribune Q. Claudius and “ elect. Flaminius would have been consul elect (for ouryear 217 B.C.) anytimejust before 15 March (217), thedayconsuls took office, andtheplebeian tribunes would have been in office as of 10 December (218). Since the thrust of the law seems negligible if Rome was at war with Carthage, it seems preferable to have Q. Claudius plebeian tribune

10 December 219 to 9 December 218.

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sea. Hecould ownships that coasted andships that engaged in river traffic. He had presumably been theretofore the owner or investor in ships that went to sea. Romans had held western Sicily since 242, Sardinia and Corsica since 238; these were overseas destinations. Traders from Italy (not Italian traders, be it reiterated) hadbeen taken by Carthaginians ca. 239 on grounds that they hadbeen trading withAfrican rebels at warwith Carthage. Since the last year of thefirst Punic war(242), marine trade must have greatly quickened from the Italian side of the waters without revival of Carthaginian merchantmen. That fact alone would have occasioned sober thoughts on senators putting themselves at risk in maritime ventures. But wemust assume that senators andtheir sons could anddidownseaworthy merchantmen long before 242. Any Roman was free to trade at Carthage andin some of the ports it controlled according to treaty conditions dating back to thelate sixth century. Only onecondition wasso newas to require a nova lex, namely nomercantile treaty wastheninforce in 242 andlater that closed anyharbor to the Romans or Etruscans or Capuans or whoever we wish to imagine sailed forth in merchantmen from homeports ontheItalian coasts.80 If Roman senators andtheir sons hadbeen investing in maritime trade for solong that atlast in218 a legislative measure virtually forbade thekind of investment, many senators whohadthefunds musthave invested in like ventures. These maritime ventures can be affirmed at least for the years

306/5 and 252 B.C.81

Romans hadtreaties with Carthage regulating trade as far back as 508 B.C. Romans bought grain in Sicily in the fifth century. Romans took measures to repress piracy in the mid-fourth century. Romans refitted their war fleet in 311/0. Romans had ships sailing the Mediterranean Sea throughout the third century. Romans took measures against Carthage in 238 to punish the Carthaginians for capture of 500 traders “from Italy” taken in Punic waters. On the eve of the second war Roman citizens accepted a bill that forbade senators to invest in maritime trade. The legislation wasunprecedented.

67, onthe 39 andHarris (1979) 66– 80 See thejudicious remarks of D’Arms(1981) 31– Lex Claudia. Here is notthe place to speculate onthe social andpolitical causes of the lawas concern C. Flaminius or onLivy’s report that C. Flaminius wasthe sole senator whosupported the law. Weall know howbiased the accounts of his career are. For senators who probably already had mercantile relations in Spain and perhaps N. Africa see App. 5. See below, ch. 3 at n. 111. 113. 81 This topic is resumed below, ch. 3 at nn. 102–

III. CARTHAGINIAN CARGOES ATROME Shortly after the second Punic War, Roman magistrates bought a play titled The Little Carthaginian”for representation at one of the sacred games. “ The author of theplay, thevery successful playwright Plautus, knewwhat a Roman audience liked in entertainment. Because he and other Latin

playwrights rendered andmodified plays written years earlier for Greeks by Greeks, Plautus hadtochoose hisplays withcare andmodify themaccording to perceptions of Roman theater-goers. Neither the playwright nor the magistrates whopaid for the play andproduction sought to present flops. One might expect a play about a Carthaginian to reflect the hostility and bitterness of post-war public sentiment. Such is notthecase with Poenulus. The man is a sympathetic, if a stock character. The two characters who insult himin thedrama are of a sort notto arouse sympathy in a Greek or a Roman audience. One is a crafty slave and the other, strange to say, an objectionable soldier. Since the play is set in Aetolia, it apparently has no immediate appertinence to Rome. Several passages areworthy of ourattention. Thelongish speech uttered bytheLittle Carthaginian athisfirst entrance, interlaced with what amounts tobilingual word-play, suggests thatRomans understood Punic, appreciated jokes on it, and took pleasure from its relevance, not so much to the character butto Carthaginians as they knewor imagined them to be. Time enough to have witnessed a full resumption of such trade between Carthaginians andRomans as provided for in treaties that hadceased to be valid in 264 B.C. cannot have elapsed, nomoreperhaps than a decade since the end of the war. Yet in the dialogue of abuse that will be discussed, Roman knowledge of Carthaginian articles must be presupposed. Carthaginians, to be sure, must have had a reputation in all markets where they traded. But Plautus cannot have expected his audience to have known a Greek literary reputation of Carthaginians. Whathewill have expected was Roman awareness of what goods Carthaginians would be or, better, would havebeencarrying intrade formany, manyyears. FortheRoman awareness, the playwright invites us to imagine what must have been a legacy of generations. The legacy neednothave been, could nothave been, acquired entirely by Roman experience of the realities of the market so much as experience of the reputation of the Carthaginian traders earned over the course of generations.

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The Latin title Poenulus evidently renders a play called Karchedonios in Greek. Theauthor of theGreek play remains uncertain.1 Also, thedate of Plautus’ composition and its first representation remains subject to discussion.2 Further, for the purpose of the argument made here, a precise or even approximate year in the late 200’s, 190’s or 180’s (down to 184 B.C.) makes no difference because it is supposed that the audience had enough knowledge of the circumstances of the Carthaginian Hanno to laugh at thefunny business andotherwise to appreciate thehumorous. The audience wasnotmade upof philologists. TheLittle Carthaginian travels theworld in search of his twodaughters andonenephew, all of whomhadbeenkidnapped as children, thedaughters (with their nurse) in anincident separate fromtheabduction of thenephew.3 Hanno is accorded the repute of high birth andwealth.4 He commands a he’s a true knowledge of all languages but may pretend otherwise for “ In his travels Hanno puts in at Calydon inAetolia where he .5 Carthaginian”

intends to stay with a guest-friend. Unknown to him is the fact that his Calydonian hospes has bought, freed, adopted Hanno’s nephew, anddied, leaving himas heir. Unknown to uncle andnephew is thefact that the latter hasfallen in love withoneof twosisters owned bya pimpwhobought them from a Sicilian bandit andthat these very sisters onthe eve of taking upa life of prostitution are none other than Hanno’s daughters.6 The play’s principals are all Carthaginians andamong them is not oneunsympathetic character. Accordingly, Hanno can be happily reunited with his daughters and nephew who will claim the hand of one of his cousins. Besides the pimp, the two unsympathetic characters, made unsympathetic through mockery and insult of Hanno, are the nephew’s slave and a soldier who wants one of the two girls the pimp is selling.

1

2 3

4 5

6

34. The diminutive, like that of Graeculus, Plaut. Poen. 53; Maurach (1988) 32– need not be considered pejorative. Both Plautus (aulul-, cistell-, mostell-, hortulus, nervol-,) andNaevius (coroll-, nervol-, tunicul-, Tarentilla) notonly usediminutives in titles of comedy but also have their characters often utter diminutive nouns and adjectives. Oneneednotwonder whatdiminutive of Carthaginiensis Plautus might have coined; cf. Franko (1994) andbelow, ch. 5, n. 7. 33; anyargument onthe date will seem flimsy. Maurach (1988) 32– 964, 1099– 90, 962– 1060 (the nephew); 85– 905, 1035– 74, 901– 67, 72– Poen. 64– Plautine 1247, 1344–1346 (the daughters). N.W. Slater, “ 1105, 1238, 1245– 136 is an , YCS 29 (1992) 131– Negotiations: the Poenulus Prologue Unpacked” exemplar of jargon. Poen. 60, 1240. Onthehazards of speaking of a Carthaginian mercantile aristocracy 274. see Ameling (1993) 260– 984. 113; cf. 982– Poen. 112– 900, reveals the pimp’s acquisition. The audience, of course, knows Poen. 896– more of the kinship from the prologue.

III. Carthaginian Cargoes at Rome

33

Hanno’s first entrance more than two-thirds into theplay is made more striking for that by his first utterance entirely in Punic.7 Hanno’s opening lines in both languages immediately gain the hearers’sympathy andmake the chief attribute of his character apparent by stating that he honors the gods andgoddesses whohanc urbem colunt. Hanno’s character is imbued with pietas. That pietas is constituted both of family loyalty manifest in his search for daughters and nephew8 and in his devotion to the gods who reward his invicta pietas9 andin his call for giving thanks to them when they affirm and enhance his pietas.10 As an expert on religion in Plautus prays more consistently andmore sincerely than any other says,11 Hanno “ character”in Plautus. Pietas among Carthaginians cannot have been thought unusual. Oneof the treaties between Romans andCarthaginians discussed earlier provided that if enemy ships or foul weather brought a Roman ship to forbidden shores, they were yetentitled to acquire thewherewithal tomake sacrifice.12 In spite of thehistoriographical emphasis onPunic perfidy that sopervades later Roman representation of the Carthaginians, themost notorious tale of their hatred of Romans, a tale from thevery mouth of Hannibal, is grounded in the Punic notion of what Romans would have called pietas. Oneof the causes forthesecond Punic waraccording toPolybius arose fromHannibal’s father Hamilcar. Hamilcar had had the nine-year-old Hannibal swear an oath upon an altar where the father wassacrificing to Zeus that he would never be friend to the Romans.13 Hannibal evinced pietas as didHamilcar before him. That Rome did not benefit from pietas Punica is beside the

949, that comprises in fact twoPunic renditions, is followed by a 7 Plaut. Poen. 930– 960); thePunic is the subject of a Latin rendition of oneof these kindred texts (950– models” detailed analysis byM.Sznycer (1967), whoalso discusses Plautus andhis“ butdoes not deal with the Latin andthe Punic of the slave as interpreter at 11.1005– 1029 as wedohere or with the insults at ll. 1298–1314 whose vocabulary in part lies opentodiverse understandings. Maurach (1988) repeats Sznycer’s French translation

of the Punic and supplies comment on other views of interpretation of Hanno’s Punic at first appearance as well ascomment onother Punic lines uttered byHanno, the girls’nurse, andone slave. Gratwick (1971) has an interesting andpersuasive discussion of the Punic as integral to the drama byPlautus. Heallows that Plautus’ audience would have found the Punic, authentic as it is, mere gibberish. This conclusion maybe open to qualification or even doubt. Whydidnot Plautus write gibberish? It is a “language”with a long history.

8 Poen. 1137, 1277.

1191, in a prayer to Jupiter beginning at 1187. 9 Poen. 1190–

10 Poen. 1251–1255, addressed to his daughters. 95, esp. 92. 11 Hanson (1959) 87– 12 Polyb. 3.22.6, 23.3. 7; see Walbank (1957) on 3.11.1–12.6, with references to other 13 Polyb. 3.11.5– accounts of this oath.

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point. Plautus’audience maynothave known of Hannibal’s oath of loyalty butvery likely didknowother examples of Carthaginian pietas. Accordingly, thecharacter Hanno is rendered sympathetic toRoman hearts ever gladdened

bypietas.

Another device by which Hanno is made agreeable to the audience is developed by Plautus. Twocharacters whoare unsympathetic by virtue of their roles attack Hanno. One is the slave of the young guest-friend and soon-to-be-acknowledged nephew; the slave attacks him with mockery. The other is the boorish soldier who would buy one of Hanno’s daughters; the soldier attacks himwith insult. These passages of abuse that heighten Hanno’s moral character supply us with detail pertinent to our subject of Carthaginian cargoes. The slave draws his master’s attention to the newentrant to the drama Who is that bird there who comes here in tunics?”And the by asking, “ young manresponds, “ By god –his aspect indeed is Punic!”14The tunic, especially many rather than one, andlonger rather than shorter, betokened the Carthaginian.15 Immediately after theyoung master saysfacies quidem edepol Punicast, there follow guggast homo, a phrase sometimes assigned The manis a gugga”remained to the master, sometimes to the slave.16 “ meaningless until it waspointed outthat in oneobscure Greek work, a bird named gyges was reported. By making gugga = gyges, giving Punica the sense of scarlet (that is puniceus orphoeniceus), andengaging in dubious ornithology, the gugga became a water bird of scarlet hue that perhaps aided young Scipio in capturing New Carthage.17 Such a flight of fancy really defies credibility. A Greek bird virtually unknown in all Greek letters, the gyges, is made to explain facies Punica andavis. But the tunicae have already given Hanno afacies Punica. If gugga, spoken by whomever youwant, is a bird, it should be a Punic name of a bird, nota Greek bird as rare as a dodo (andsaidtohave been seen atNewCarthage bynoauthority). Indeed, by god, Plautus is fond of birds in drama andelsewhere too in this

977. 14 Poen. 975– 15 Hanno’s tunics are also mentioned at Poen. 1122, 1298, 1303. Plautus’ younger contemporary spoke of the tunicata iuventus of Carthage (Enn. Ann. 325 Vahlen 2 = 187. (For the pallium of Poen. 303 Skutsch). On Punic attire see Gsell (1924) 184– 976 cf. Tert. Pall. 1.) It is believed that L. tunica is a borrowing from Punic; see Punic”tunic maybe Walde-Hofmann (1938/1954), s.v. A splendid example of a “ ) sculptured inthefifth cent. bya Greek (?); ephebe” seen wornbytheyoung man(“ Il giovane di Mozia,”Rivista di Studi it wasfound at Motya in 1979. See V. Tusa, “ 325, fig. 193 andcf. XXIV; Lancel (1995) 322– 152, tav. XX– Fenici 14 (1986) 143– 406. pp. 405– 16 See Maurach (1988) on 1.977 for this andon the sense of gugga. 17 Gratwick (1972); this is the same scholar whoa year earlier published the view that the Punic in the play wasgibberish.

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35

play.18 Dramatically, in fact, guggast homo is explained by the following sentence, quidem edepol etc., and not by the preceding sentence, facies Whois that bird there whocomes quidem edepol Punicast that replies to “

here in tunics?”

Gugga remains a wordwithout meaning. If a bird, better a Punic oreven a Roman onethan a “Greek”birdof eastern Iberia. I doubt that a gugga is a Indeed, by god, he looks Punic. The man’s a bird. The young master says, “ , and the slave replies, “Indeed, by god, he has old and aged gugga!” . And, again the master, “Howdo you know?”The servi veteres slaves” antiquique serve as proof that heis a gugga. The slave replies that Hanno’s bearers have nofingers. Otherwise, whyhave they rings in their ears?19 We areleft to surmise that gugga is a Punic wordappropriate to a Carthaginian whose slaves are mere shadows of their youth. NowHanno speaks again: “ I will approach andaddress them in Punic. Do If they answer, I’ll go ontalking Punic.”The slave says to his master, “ youremember anyPunic?”Themaster, “Nothing, bygod. Howcould I, tell me? I went astray from there at Carthage when I was six years old.” Alluding to the common occurrence of kidnapping, Hanno puts in, “ Great gods! Very many freeborn boys have gone astray in this wayat Carthage.” Nowthe slave offers to serve his master as interpreter. When the latter asks if he knows Punic, the slave returns, “Today there is no Poenus .20The slave exercises his artof interpretation bypicking Poenior than me” up Punic sounds that become Latin in an amusing, not to say absurd, context. Hanno’s words become bilingual word-play. If Hanno’s Punic talk be gibberish, the slave’s interpretation is nonsense. As interpreter the slave utters this sort of nonsense: “ He claims he wants to give theaediles African mice for theparade atthegames... Hesays that he has imported spoons, funnels, and nuts and asks you to help sell them... He also has lard... He says that he has spades and reaping-paddles for harvesting to sell.”Knowing Latin, Hanno recognizes that the slave By god, you ought to be twists his words, and changes to the local tongue: “ both a worthless andbadslave to make mock of a foreigner anda stranger.” The slave retorts, addressing him migdilix, another word of unknown sense.21

18 Poen. 1289–1293, with play on blackbird andkite, see below; two famous passages 266 839 (on a cornix and two volturii) and Asin. 258– with birds are Most. 831– (some birds of augury). 406 appreciates the flavor of the dramatic 981. Lancel (1995) 405– 19 Poen. 978–

dialogue.

991. 20 Poen. 982– 21 Poen. 1011–1034. Perhaps, miglidix(?) for mercator as the nephew-to-be has called him (1016). On Hanno’s Punic dialogue in this passage, see Sznycer (1967) 142–

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Recognition upon recognition advances the plot without further contretemps until thesoldier sees Hanno embracing oneof hisnewly-found 1314: daughters. Here follows the dialogue, 1298– quis hic homo est cumtunicis longis quasi puer cauponius? satin ego oculis cerno? estne illaec mea amica Anterastilis? et ea est certo. iampridem ego mesensi nihili pendier. nonpudet puellam amplexari baiiolum in media via? iamhercle ego illunc excruciandum totum carnufici dabo. sane genus hoc mulierosumst tunicis demissiciis. sed adire certum est hanc amatricem Africam. heus tu, tibi dico, mulier, ecquid te pudet? quid tibi negotist autem cumistac? dic mihi. HA.adulescens, salve. ANTA. nolo, nihil ad te attinet. quid tibi hanc digito tactio est? HA.quia mihi lubet. ANTA. lubet? HA.ita dico. ANTA. ligula, in malam crucem? tune hic amator audes esse, hallex viri, aut contrectare quod mares homines amant? deglupta maena, sarrapis sementium, manstruca, halagora, sampsa, turn autem plenior ali ulpicique quamRomani remiges.

1300

1305

1310

The soldier Antamoenides’ attention is drawn to Hanno by his long He likens him to an inn-keeper’s boy, here to be construed as an object for sexual use.22 After he next looks upon Hanno as a lowly bearer (baiiolus), he decides that he belongs to the type of womanizer one may reckon from his tunics that sweep theground. Heapproaches andbrusquely addresses the girl who is Hanno’s daughter as amatrix Africa. (Probably Africa is used for assonance with amatrix; but there mayhave been some other social connotation absent from Poena or Carthaginiensis.) 1314, thesoldier launches hisinsults of that sort Plautus’ Then, at 1309– audience hadcome to expect as in another era an audience expected from Gilbert and Sullivan a patter song. The list of invectives invites close attention because they are chosen according to theme. The MS ligula or legula, “spoon, shoelace,”cannot be correct. Here must have been written an elided lingulaca or ligulaca (perhaps with syncope), a type of sole that wasalso used of a woman whowastoo clever gowns.

145 andMaurach (1988) adlocc. Asfar asthestrange words that the slave pretends to translate into Latin, there is no trace of cargo goods in Hanno’s words (Sznycer 142, tentatively suggests a 145) save for Poen. 1002 for which Sznycer, 141– 133– reference in Punic to merchandise, butthen resigns the case for anyinterpretation. 22 Cauponius bears this connotation beyond the present scene in juristic writing. Naturally, the OLDis of nouse; see TLL, s.v. The noun caupo is of unknown origin. Is it perhaps Punic?

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by half.23 In another play Plautus uses lingulaca in a list of fish that allows himajoke ona man’s shrewish wife.24 In a Menippean satire Varro uses the fish inconjunction with obtrectatores,25 andaccordingly thewordhere may be rendered ‘carper’. The fish sets the theme of the verbal abuse. Hallex sets the tone of thetheme. It wasthebottom layer of a conserve of fish sauce (garum), anditself hadculinary uses different from the upper portion.26 Deglupta maena, a scaled sprat, mayhave obscene connotations.27 Its literal meaning, however, suggests that the fish wasmade acceptable for a Carthaginian to eat. Jewish dietary law, known at Rome at least later, forbade eating fish with scales.28 Because weknowthat in onecase western Phoenicians eschewed pork eating,29 wesurmise that there mayhave been other dietary restrictions shared byJews andCarthaginians. Anhallex made from scaled fish would have been directed to a larger market that included North Africans. The two words or one phrase, sarrapis sementium, has bedevilled commentators. The latter word is an hapax legomenon that can be easily glossed as some kind of seed-bed.30 The nearest thing to insult from the former wordwould be a reference to serapias (-adis), anorchid with double testicles”made into a beverage andthen diluted with goat’s milk and bulb “ drunk in order to induce lust.31 In a word, an aphrodisiac. We shall render hothouse of testicular lust” . thephrase “ Manstruca or manstructa is a well attested, if rare, word. It is the fleece of a Sardinian (andCorsican) wildgoat-like sheep. Sards wore it as a fleece

23 Fest. Paul. 104L.: genus piscis vel mulier argutatrix. For the fish species see Varro LL 5.77, André (1961) 104. 498. 24 Cas. 497– 25 Varro Men. 381 Buecheler (Non. p. 26L.). Lingulac’ will scan in this Plautine senarius.

116. The word hallex 26 Pliny NH31.95. On garum in general see André (1961) 111– is variously spelled andof unknown origin, unlike garum which is from the Greek. Is it perhaps Punic? In his Budé edition of Poenulus, Ernout renders it “espèce . At Per. 107 pourriture” d’avorton”which André, p. 115, silently corrects to “ Plautus hashallex in its literal sense of fish sauce. 27 Maurach (1988) adloc. 28 Pliny NH 31.95 (on hallex): aliud vero castimoniarum superstitioni etiam sacris Iudaeis dicatum, quodfit e piscibus squama carentibus. See André (1961) 844, for the castimoniale, also attested 849, esp. 843– 199; Zahn, RE 7.1(1910) 841– by label of fish sauce containers (e.g. ILS 8600). 23; see below at n. 46 on lard. 29 Sil. Pun. 3.22– 30 Cf. sementis in Cato Agr. 17.2, 27. Sarrapis is normally taken as the Persian cloak as called in Greek (see Maurach [1988] adloc.). Notso here. 31 Pliny NH26.95; also see the Greek-English Lexicon. s.v. The beverage is known as salep, anEnglish loan wordfrom Turkish.

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and so made it synonymous with primitive garb.32 Whether or not the word

is of Phoenician origin, manstrucae would have been a natural article in trade for Carthaginian cargoes because theCarthaginians controlled Sardinia

for centuries down to 238 andhadprobably traded pelts. The wordhalagora, generally recovered from correction of a MS error that requires thereading of thenext word, sampsa, is otherwise notattested. Ernout correctly analyzes it as “ marché du sel” .33 In keeping with the proposed serapiadis, halagora may be viewed as a humorous coinage recalling mandragora(s). The root and leaf of mandrake enjoyed many medicinal properties.34 Sampsa, recovered along with halagora from a confused MS reading, signifies a conserve of olive pulp.35 Notunnaturally, the insults devolve to garlic. Hanno heard heldagainst himthecommon Italian garlic (alium) and the Carthaginian garlic (ulpicum),36 in order to underscore the difference between a Roman rower anda Carthaginian gentleman,37 orappearing so in the eyes of the soldier. The reference to rowers need not be construed in terms of the Roman navy. The rowers could just as well have crewed merchantmen. Nowwehazard a rendition. “You, carper! Areyoulooking for trouble? You, bottom of a fish sauce jar, do you dare to play lover here or fondle what real menlove? Youscaled sprat, youhothouse of testicular lust, you coarse fleece, yousalt hawker, youconserve of olive pulp, onestuffed with Italian andAfrican garlics (and so smelling) more than (a crew of) Roman rowers!” Redolently this passage recalls fish; the sole, the sprat, andfish sauce; andsalt sold andsalt used in conservation,38 andthe twospecies of garlics,

32 Only here in Plautus. A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, histoire des mots, 4th ed. (Paris 1959) s.v., say that it is probably of 25), Prov. cons. 15; Quint. Phoenician origin. See Cic. Scaur. 45h (cf. 15, 17, 42– 1.5.8; Isid. Etym. 19.23.1, 5; cf. Varro RR 2.11.11. For the sheep, its producer, called mus(i)mon see Pliny NH8.119 andcf. 8.203, Strabo 5.2.7 (C 255). 33 Ernout in his Budé translation; also see Maurach (1988) adloc. 34 Pliny NH25.147: antiqui et mandragora utebantur, postea abdicatus est in hac curatione; cf. 26.93 et passim. 93. 35 See Maurach (1988) ad loc., Ernout’s Budé edition, and André (1961) 92– Another MS correction saurex shrew’is to nopurpose here. 36 Pliny NH 19.112, Col. 11.3.20;‘ André (1961) 20. Walde-Hofmann, (1938/1954), s.v. ulpicum, say ‘perhaps Punic’; see Maurach (1988) ad loc. 37 Hanno wasnotonly wealthy butalso high-born (Poen. 60, 65, 70, 1240); see above, n. 4. 38 For the salt of Sardinia and residue of Punic influence among its workmen see 52 onthe discussion of the trilingual dedication to Es(h)moun. below at nn. 49–

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39

Italian andAfrican. Thescaled fishperhaps andtheSardinian fleece probably should be referred to the Carthaginian’s race. The serapias orchid refers to Hanno’s purported amatory advances though aspuer cauponius (1298) and asapparently nota mashomo(1311), anditspertinence seems extraordinary. Weshall concentrate ourattention onthefish sauce hallex while bearing in mind that in 238 B.C. the manstruca might have called to mind the maritime trade of Carthaginians carrying goods from their Sardinia. After that year manstruc(t)ae politically became articles in Roman trade. Like ulpicum andsampsa andmanstruc(t)ae, the word hallex, variously spelled (h)al(l)ex or (h)al(l)ec, admits noetymology in spite of anapparent Greek derivation.39 Like the better known garum, a word the Romans borrowed from the Greeks, hallex seems to have been a cultural borrowing. Given thehistorical pre-eminence of Western Phoenicians intheproduction of fish sauce, it maybe traced to them. While the early market for fish sauce evidently lay in Greece, proper production of fish sauce will have been developed early by the Phoenicians of Gades.40 This early trade involved Italians as we know from a 2nd century B.C. physician who is quoted as reporting that conserve of tuna might be carried by a Bruttian or Campanian from Gades or Tarentum.41 Although fish production evidently abated at Gades ca. 200 B.C.,42 formerly Punic, coastal Spain enjoyed renown for fisheries and salteries under Augustus.43 The testimony of Plautus’ Poenulus may be construed as that of the nameless Greek’s Karchedonios. If so, these passages could hardly have entertained Plautus’audience. Indeed, theAfrican mice Hanno purportedly aedile”were intended asjest onthe bestiae from Africa wished to sell the “

39 Walde-Hofmann, (1938/1954) s.v. allēc; André (1961) 115 n.271, hesitantly proposes a “Mediterranean”origin. 302. 305, esp. 301– 40 See R. I. Curtis (1991) 299– 41 Euthydemus in Athen. 3.116cd. Athen. 3.118de, cites two 4th century B.C. comic playwrights, Antiphanes and Nicostratus, for the Greeks’ firsthand knowledge of fish from Gades. Accordingly, Plautus’fish sauce could plausibly be assigned to the original.

42 Curtis (1991). Yet if Euthydemus is rightly dated, he knew of Gaditane tuna sauce after this date. Further, as Gsell (1924) 52 n.7 points out, Strabo 2.3.4 (C 99) says

that the Gaditanes had fishing fleets in the second century and, I might add, at Gades were shipyards. The apparent cessations of fish-packing at one site at Gades (Curtis) need not signify that all such work sites were abandoned at the time. 43 Attested by Strabo (in 3.1 and 3.4) at Gades, Malaca, New Carthage and Belo. of garum sociorum dominated the Indeed at NewCarthage a corporate “trade mark” is NewCarthage); cf. ILS Spartaria Carthago (where 97 31.91 – NH Pliny trade. See 116. See 7278. For more information, see Curtis (1991), and André (1961) 111– below, App. 5.

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40

exhibited in the parade prior to the religious games at Rome.44 Indeed, to methere appears noobstacle to accepting the slave’s false interpretation of Punic in the scene as broad reference to Carthaginian articles in trade known to the Roman listeners whowere also expected to understand the bilingual wordplay. If Plautus writes of nuts in Hanno’s fictitious cargo, it would nothave been so outrageous a misinterpretation of niichot since the audience doubtless knew African figs andthe “ Punic apple”that was the pomegranate.45 TheLatin comic playwright raises laughs frommatter well known tohis public. The audience laughs at the medley of cargo goods and howls at the mockery of Hanno in terms of fish and fish products, salt-selling and Sardinian fleece. Like “African mice,”lard or bacon fat the waggish slave attributes to the holds of Hanno’s ship.46 Carthaginians did not rear swine47 because they abstained from pork.48 It is quite possible that in some particulars Plautus expected his audience to recognize what would not have been carried by anyCarthaginian trader. Scrutiny of a trilingual dedication from the southeastern mountains of Sardinia can instruct us.49 In Latin, Greek andPunic a slave of a company of salters set up a bronze altar weighing 100 pounds to Aesculapius/ Asklepios/Esmun Merres who “ hadheard his voice andcured him” . The saltery was evidently situated at Caralis andthe god’s shrine on a “ high place”.50 Although he bears a Greek name, the slave belonging to the company of salters orfarmers of thesalt-tax wasasthoroughly imbued with 143. 72; Sznycer, (1967) 142– 44 Poen. 1011–1012. See below, at nn. 62– 1014; see Sznycer (1967) 143. OnAfrican figs see below, at n. 78, ch. 45 Poen. 1013– 7, n. 3. For the malum Punicum see André (1961) 77. 46 Poen. 1016. The slave interprets Hanno’s assam as arvinam quidem whereby the quidem makes astonishing the lard among a Carthaginian’s trade goods. Also see Sznycer (1967) 43 andMaurach (1988) adloc. 4; but cf. Huss (1985) 484. 47 Polyb. 12.3.1– 44, 48 Nordidpork figure in their offerings to the national gods. See Gsell, (1924) 40– 412; andabove, at n. 21. 49 ILLRP 41, from the vicinity of the village of S. Nicolo Gerrei (elev. 1198 ft.), 20 mis. NNEof Cagliari. The texts are carved on a bronze column base anddated by the Punic text to the year of twosuffetes. Onesuffete, Abdesmun, wasnamed after the god. The slave bears a Greek name (by no means oneunknown among Roman slaves).

50 Degrassi at ILLRP suggests that the magistrates served in Caralis and repeats Ritschl’s date of ca. 150. Before World War II much salt was evaporated on the shores by Cagliari and about 70% of it was exported from Sardinia in 1938 (Geographical Handbook Series [of the (Royal) Naval Intelligence Division], Italy, vol. 4, [1945] p. 597).

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Punic culture as thegovernment at Caralis.51 Salt wasanintegral ingredient of fish products.52 Whoever caught fish, salted andpacked fish, andmade fish sauce as well asoperated salteries seem tohave consigned their product to others for carrying, As wesaw, Bruttians andCampanians might carry from Gades or Tarentum to Greece in the epoch after the second Punic war. The evidence of Plautus’Poenulus implies Roman experience of Carthaginians carrying fish products andsalt, as well as Sardinian fleeces andevenAfrican garlic. Inthesame scene theconventional attire of theCarthaginian gentleman and trader suggested to Roman hearers either a woman or a slave boy at an inn.53 Finally, S. Gsell can make a case for a Carthaginian fish industry in Africa itself.54 The foregoing demonstration wasmade for the purpose of establishing that Romans of Rome already had direct knowledge of goods in trade carried by the Carthaginians. Emphasis hasbeen placed onthe fish sauces, as well as fish itself. Fish were sold at a fish market along the Tiber.55 There, too, fish sauce might have been sold. Yet, since it was a universal condiment, it could have been sold also in the Vegetable Market at Rome that lay north of the fish market. Plautus knewhis Roman audience well enough to imbue his plays with a feeling for the public spectacles the city dwellers came to see. When the oafish soldier comes on the scene in the Poenulus, he wishes that his girlfriend (i.e. Hanno’s kidnapped daughter) would cross his path, “ I shall, shall I resemble a cover blackbird; she that her with so pummel her god, by such blackness that shebe blacker than theAegyptini whobear the caldron 56Aegyptini are thought to be (cortina) through the circus at the games.” Ethiopians.57 What these Aegyptini maybe surely considered were African blacks acquired bytrade orin booty. ForRomans theimmediate source will

51 Ofthethree texts theLatin is least andthePunic mostforthcoming withinformation.

52 By the fact that Pliny NH31.93–97 deals with fish sauce (garum, allex, etc.) in his 105) he testifies to the constant relation of the one to the section on salt (31.73– other.

53 Poen. 1298–1314, discussed above. 52. To be sure, the indications remain uncertain. 54 Gsell (1924) 51– 55 Varro LL 5.146: secundum Tiberim ad unium Forum Piscarium vocant. See Jordan (1878–1907) 1.1, p. 504 n.28 and R.E.A.Palmer (1976– 152 et 1977) 151– passim. The fish market lay adjacent to the Vegetable Market (see App. 2). 1291: 56 Plaut. Poen. 1288– sed meaamica nunc mihi irato obviam veniat velim:/ iampol ego illam pugnis totam faciam uti sit merulea,/ ita replebo atritate, atritior multo ut siet/ quam Aegyptini, qui cortinam ludis percircum ferunt. 57 Fest. (Paul.) 26 L.

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have been Punic.58 At the time of the play it is most unlikely that the Romans traded withEgyptians for“ Ethiopians” . Intheonetruly oldaccount of theprocession andproceedings of thegames inthecircus, theonly object borne that might be construed a cortina wasanincense burner.59 If supplied by Carthaginians, the blacks called Aegyptini were fitting to the context of the scene the soldier was about to play wherein he would launch his insults ontheperson of Hanno.60 Unlike Plautus’other references to the games, that of theAegyptini serves as a mere incidental allusion that hadnoplace in animagined Greek original of the Latin play.61 Again we recur to Plautus’African mice (mures Africani) which the slave told his master Hanno had carried for sale to the aediles.62 Some would argue that this humorous reference to African beasts the aediles exhibited at the games should be understood as a part of postwar trade with the Numidian king Masinissa.63 Neither is that conjecture consonant with a fewfacts norwith Plautus’connotation. First of all, the senate had banned by decree importation of African animals (bestiae) until the plebeian tribune Cn.Aufidius sawto legislation that permitted their importation for the games in the circus.64 Most certainly this Cn. Aufidius was he who held the tribunate in 170 since in the following year aediles exhibited them.65 Aedilician practice is attested in Plautus’play. Therefore the senate decree cannot have been in force at the dramatic date of the Poenulus unless the passage alludes to absence of bestiae Africanae. 63, figs. 61 and 157. See also S. Bianchetti, 58 Gsell (1924) 140; Lancel (1995) 60– “ Aethiopes in Africa: Aspetti della storia di unnome,”Africa Romana (1990) 117– 125.

72, referring to the era before the first Punic war. 59 Fab. Pictor in Dion. Hal. AR7.71– Thebearers of thymiatria, in Latin turibula, are at72.13. Nocaldron is called for at the sacrifice (72.15). Since the bearers are otherwise undescribed, they must be taken as lowly in the context of this lengthy passage. taken in the second war, but they nevertheless could have evoked the Punic trade in slaves, especially the exotics in which Carthaginians traded. In the Poenulus are met such other allusions to Roman institutions as lictor (18), women in the audience (matronae at 32 ff., on which see Maurach, 1988), census 58), the none too unusual praetor andhisjurisdiction (185–186, andiuratores (55– 1210), and slaves who have 750, 1205– 791), gut-gazers (463, 746– 586, 790– 584– lost their savings (servi expeculiati, 843). 1012. Johnston (1980), whotakes pains to accommodate certain aspects Poen. 1011– of theplay to contemporary Roman history, suggests that themice aretheopposites of elephants (p. 155).

60 The blacks may have been among captives

61

62

63 Gsell (1924) 150. 64 Pliny NH8.64. 65 See Broughton MRR 1, p. 423 n.6 andbelow on Livy 44.18.8.

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What facts do we have? First, at the famous triumph of Caecilius Metellus (cos. 251) in 250, more than a hundred elephants marched.66 What hasbeen little remarked is the fate of the elephants. They fell in a publicly exhibited hunt.67 Nowanimals sogreat astheelephant musthave a “natural” antipathy to a small beast. Naturally, it wasthemouse whose very droppings in the great beast’s fodder made him recoil.68 It was knowledge of this behavior of theelephant that madePlautus’African mice notonly funny but also allusive to elephants. It follows that elephants acquired from Carthaginian traders were known to Plautus’ audience from aedilician games as were the beasts’habits. In 186 M. Fulvius Nobilior putonvotive games after his triumph. Their production created some controversy among senators at thetime andraised questions of religious law. “ Many artists came from Greece for sake of the regard to be had from the games... Also then for the first time Romans watched an athletic contest. Anda hunt of lions andpanthers was put on. And sport of this ilk became frequent, thanks to the supply and to the 69 If the controversial games of 186, games wherein only the variety.” athletic competition is reported asa novelty atRome, could include (African) lions andpanthers, it follows that thesenate could have banned importation of the animals only thereafter. Such a prohibition might indeed reflect both Roman ambition andAfrican salesmanship. The prohibition wasclearly lifted in 169 when twocousins Cornelii as curule aediles gave games in the circus where 63 African animals, and40 bears and elephants played.70 The elephants are not now designated as Africanae (i.e. ferae or bestiae). Perhaps these elephants were naturalized among the Italian fauna.71 Nordoes ourstory endhere or happily. Sometime in thefirst century, perhaps in the60’s or 50’s, a sculptor was carving a lion while looking at a live model in a cage at the shipyards (navalia) where African beasts werekept, andhemethisdeath bymischance 28; Pliny NH 7.139, 8.16–17. 66 Livy Per. 19; Flor. 1.18.27– 67 L. Piso andVerrius (Flaccus) in NH8.17. Fenestella, cited further on in the same section (NH8.19), wrote that elephants were first hunted in the Roman circus in 99 B.C. See above, ch. 1, n. 1. 202, 30.43. 68 Pliny NH8.29; on African mice, NH 10.201– 69 Livy 39.5, 39.22.2. Evidently the triumph of Nobilior over the Aetolians advanced his candidacy for the censorship in 179/8 (Livy 40.45.6). According to Pliny (NH 8.55) oneof the most prominent Carthaginians wasthe first manto tame a lion: his name wasHanno. 20, 33, 64; Varro RR 3.13.3. 70 Livy 44.18.8. Cf. Pliny NH8.18– 71 Thebears were surely notAfrican because nobears were found in Africa. In 61 the curule aedile Ahenobarbus worked an imposture, or was himself imposed on, by Ethiopian”huntsmen. See NH8.131. Numidian”bears and 100 “ exhibiting 100 “ Vergil, too, seems to have been taken in (Aen. 5.37).

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(accidit ut) when a panther burst from another cage.72 The caging offerae Africanae ontheground where a goodcentury anda half earlier Carthaginian slaves had presumably planned their uprising marks a neat end to an Aesopic”story. “ Another word onAfrican influence on the development of the Roman spectacles comes from Quintilian whotells us that the mappa dropped to signal the start of the races, if not also hunts andother exhibitions, was a Carthaginian word.73 This alien origin is borne out by Cato the Elder’s listing mappae among the bedclothes a master gave his slaves.74 Perhaps the supply of mappae began in the days when Punic slaves pressed the Italians’olive andgrape. The aggregate testimony on elephants (and their humoristic nemeses, the mice), on wild cats whobecame the bestiae Africanae par excellence, andon the mappa that started games in a flutter, seems to suggest that no later than the 180’s Romans hadcome to expect to seebeast hunts at certain festivals. They are attested as early as 250; to be sure, the animals hunted then were captured andfirst exhibited in a triumphal procession. Plautus’ audience could laugh at the thought of their aediles buying mice for public blacker thanAegyptini carrying a entertainments andat the girl pummeled “ . Thesenate banonimportation of cauldron through thecircus atthegames” African beasts was abrogated in 170. But it hadnot been in force in 186. The suspicion grows that wild beast hunts were older than the Punic Wars andperhaps also before the Punic Wars Carthaginian traders had carried beasts for the hunt to sell to Roman aediles. Further, we may wonder whether the practice of exhibiting lions and panthers (if not elephants which were living machines of war)hadnotbegun among theCarthaginians whobrought the spectator sport to the attention of the Romans. In a public speech Cato is said to have inveighed against such luxuries as boy slaves bought at a talent by young menfor their beds andas a pot of fish sauce (tarichos) purchased for 300 drachmas (i.e. denarii) at a time when handsome boys hadgreater value than a farm anda pot of fish sauce than a ploughman. This “saying”of Cato’s might be applied to anynumber

72 Pliny NH36.40. I translate accidit ei utas absolute butgrant that Pliny’s summary nonlevi periculo diligentissimi artificis might suggest he survived the risk. I take it . to mean “such is the occupational hazard of the very careful artist” 73 Quint. 1.5.57; see Walde-Hofmann (1938/1954) s.v. 74 Cato Agr 10.5, 11.5: three mappae for six slaves. Note also Cato’s recipe for puls Punica (Agr. 85) that slaves ate; it was doubtless not imported but represents an exotic recipe. So, too, the lanterna Punica which gave off light opaquely (Pl. Asin. 566) hadprobably come to be a local Italian item that wasformerly imported. See Lucilius fr. 1164 andwith comment by Fr. Marx, C. Lucilii carminum reliquiae, 2 vols. (Leipzig 1904/1905, repr. Amsterdam 1963) on 1164.

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of occasions butwell fits hiscensorial expulsion of L. Quinctius Flamininus from the senate. That man kept a Carthaginian boy whore, presumably a slave.75 Citation of Cato’s work on agronomy where he supplies his slaves mappae andpuls Punica brings us to the last articles in trade we may certainly ascribe to Carthaginians. Besides the humorously-named lard (arvina), nuts are the only perishable produce that are suggested as imported goods for the Poenulus to sell.76 So far as weknow the only production of nuts established in North Africa at the time was of the almond.77 Otherwise, Plautus does notmention themost famous of African fruits, namely the fig (f. Africana) andpomegranate (malum Punicum). Both of these fruits were notonly known to Cato, whorecommends themfor orchards close to a city, but theAfrican fig wasimported from Africa in his day.78 Plautus’ humorous allusion to African elephants the aediles put on parade andthe black Aegyptini of comparable pompae mayhave become common only after the first Punic war, although of the time we cannot be certain. Roman games werecommenced bya dropof a mappa, a Carthaginian word that had become naturalized for the shared bedclothes of Roman slaves sometime in the first half of the second century. Cato to whom we owe knowledge of the mappae of slaves, also inveighs against the

75 Polyb. 31.25.5, 5a. Paton’s rendition of tarichos, as ‘caviar’ suggests an idea and

not a fact. Just so, Walbank (1957) ad loc. has missed the point in calling it the poor man’s fare of salted fish. Walbank, ibid., noting the absence of 5a from ORF3, offers the suggestions of assigning the fr. to Cato’s speeches on the Lex Orchia or Lex Fannia. The saying fits the speech against repeal of the sumptuary Lex Orchia; 92, n.60. If Cato had 97, esp. 91– 146; Astin (1978) 91– see ORF4, Cato frs. 139– wished to make a point of thefact that Flamininus’scortum, Philip theCarthaginian, had cost the ex-consul what other men paid for farms, he could have wittily introduced Carthaginian fish sauce into the argument. On the expulsion of L. 71. Cato also disparaged 80; ORF4, Cato frs. 69– Flamininus see Astin (1978) 79– citrus woodandivory (from Africa) along withPunic (inlaid) floors, ORF4, Cato fr. 185; see ch. 1, n. 8. 76 Pl. Poen. 1010–1020. See above, at n. 21. 77 NuxGraeca, amygdale, etc. Mago in Pliny NH 17.63 (on which see André in the Budé ed., p.13). 8. For Cato andimported figs seebelow, ch. 7, n. 3. Dried African figs 78 CatoAgr. 7– were still imported to Italy from Africa much later (Varro RR 1.41.6; cf. Col. 12.15.5). Mago’s advice on preserving pomegranates was retailed by Columella (12.46.6; cf. De arboribus. 23). Pliny’s queer remark onthe African fig (NH15.69, cf. 74 and 95) may refer to yet another variety, the Libyca (Col. 5.10.11). On 33, Huss (1985) 484; on Roman African production, see Gsell (1924) 30– 89. For the context of Cato’s remarks on the consumption, André (1961) 77, 88– 348, as well as his fuller discussions, fundus suburbanus see Astin (1978) 243, 346– 266. 203, 240– pp. 189–

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extravagance of handsome male slaves andjars of fish sauce. Plautus, too, had alluded to the effeminate male slave and the fish sauce through the words of the soldier in the Poenulus. The extravagance Cato scorns is surely attested onthemorrow of thesecond war,butits onset maybeearlier than the waras seems to be the case with the elements of spectacle. To Plautus also we owethe knowledge that Punic traders carried nuts. Evidence on the two fruits, figs and pomegranates, we naturally expect

were found in Carthaginian cargoes because of their renown is a given earlier than Cato’s De agricultura (date of composition not known) where they are taken for granted. By that time African agronomy wastheparagon

of its kind. Punic science hadto be preserved. OneRoman writer much later called the Carthaginian Mago the father of agronomy (rusticationis parens).79 Soon after the last warwith Carthage, the senate ordered a Roman commission chaired by D. (Junius) Silanus to translate fromPunic into Latin Mago’s agricultural treatise.80 Later, Cassius Dionysius of Utica made a Greek translation with supplements which he dedicated to P. Sextilius, praetor inAfrica ca. 88 B.C.81 Thedate of Mago’s work is entirely unknown.82 Thecommission headed byD. Silanus wasempanelled of menexpert in Punic (periti Punicae). Several generations earlier the Roman audience of Plautus’Poenulus was expected to appreciate the mistranslation of Punic based onbilingual wordplay. OfDecimus Silanus weknownothing else. A very probable forebear, Marcus Silanus, had seen action against the 206.83 A probable Carthaginians in Spain when he commanded in 210– descendant of the chief of translation is D. Silanus L.f. whominted in 91.

, a mask of Silenus, a One of his denarii exhibits on obv. the family “badge” plough and a torque as border.84 Both plough andploughman on Roman coins are otherwise associated with Ceres as goddess of agriculture.85 Although Crawford scants theideathat theplough onSilanus’coinrefers to the forebear who oversaw translation of Mago’s treatise, the reference 79 Col. 1.1.12. 80 Pliny NH18.22; Broughton MRR, 1, p. 168. 81 Varro RR 1.1.10; Broughton, MRR2, p.41. Cassius Dionysius mayhave derived his name from L. Cassius Longinus whowent as praetor in 111 B.C. to fetch Jugurtha 32). Longinus seems to have had“previous relations”with to Rome (Sall. Jug. 31– Africa (so, Badian [1958] 313).

18, errs on the order of 242; K.D. White (1970) 17– 82 Cf. Schanz-Hosius (1927) 241– 279. 8; Lancel (1995) 273– the translations; Gsell (1924) 4– 114. 83 See MRR, s.aa. andMRR 3, pp. 113– 84 RRC no. 337/1a. The torque refers to a related family, the Manlii. See Crawford, RRC, 1. p. 339, whohasa different suggestion about the plough. Also see onRRC, no. 220. 85 RRC, nos. 378/1, 449/2; cf. 321/1.

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46 B.C. when Scipio seems to recur in a coin of the civil war of 47– Metellus exhibits ona coin theheadof Africa anda plough.86 The moneyer Silanus wishes to advertise the boons of African agronomy made available byhisnamesake about a half-century earlier. Roman admiration for Mago’s agronomy persisted for generations. Romans learned good ways and bad from their whilom enemies. Thecommission headed byD. Silanus will havebeen expected toknow technical terms in thetwolanguages. Implicit in theknowledge of theterms is knowledge of Punic farming practices on the part of the experts the Roman senate chose to sit onthetranslation committee. From thePoenulus we infer that the Romans were eating African nuts (probably almonds). From Cato weknowthat theRomans were growing African figs as a variety andpomegranates. A slave in the Poenulus would have his master andthe audience believe that the Carthaginian is peddling winnowing shovels (palae) andreaping-boards (mergae).87 Demand for produce andproducts at first andsoon for the very trees to be grown in central Italy will have developed over the course of generations andnot in the decade or so that elapsed between the endof the second warandPlautus’stageplay or even composition of Cato’s agricultural treatise that takes African fruits, tool assembly, slave food andslave bedclothes for granted. Asmore than to a curiosity weturnnowtoAfrican musical pipes. They were being used in Rome twoyears after the second Punic warcame to an end. They canhardly be taken for a novelty freshly imported. Indeed, they were probably taken over bythe Romans fromAttic theater. Roman taste in public entertainment tended to appreciation of the exotic. Their taste is exemplified byAfrican elephants as well as by black Aegyptini bearing cauldrons in theparades onfeast days. Anobvious cause for Roman tastes in entertainment is the undisputed fact that so much of Roman entertainment wasbased uponreligious practices theRomans adopted under impulses that seem to have been anything butamusing. In the fourth century theatrical performances started from the Romans’ need to drive away plague. According to their tradition, in 364 the Romans introduced the first theatrical performances from Etruria whence came players whodanced to the music of a piper more Tusco. Thereafter, Roman players sang and danced to a piper. In or about 240 Livius Andronicus introduced to Roman audiences Greek plays, both in Greek and in Latin translation, also

I referimenti all’Africa nelle emissioni monetali della 86 RRC, no.461/1. Cf. R. Pera, “ 521. zecca di Roma,”Africa Romana 8 (1990) 503– 87 Pl. Poen. 1018; see White (1970) 182, 186, 448 on these farm tools.

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accompanied by a piper.88 Presumably much older than 364 was Roman employment of pipers at sacrifice.89 Theantiquarian evidence seems topoint to foreign origins of thepipers of Rome. Other scraps of evidence point in the same direction. In the year 200 in Plautus’ Stichus and some forty years later in Terence’s Adelphoe, the music wasplayed onthe tibiae Sarranae.90 Both of theplays were based ontwodifferent plays of Menander entitled Adelphoe. The Sarran pipes could have been called for in Menander’s directions. Sarranus, an ethnic from Sarra, should be referred to North Africa. Sarra approximates the Punic name for Tyre, the mother-city of Carthage. The ethnic Sarranus was used by Romans to mean Carthaginian.91 Moreover, there wasa town called Sarra (Vazitana) south of Carthage. Indeed weprobably know what wood wasused to make Sarran pipes, which are evidently the same pipes Athenians called Libyan lotos. Pliny knows thenative name of theAfrican lotos tree whose woodwas sought for musicians’pipes. It wasthecelt(h)is.92 There wasa distinction to be made in pipes. When he comes to deal with reeds (harundines) andpreferences for theatrical usage, Pliny writes that inhisdaysacrificial pipes of theEtruscans were made of box andpipes for entertainments were made of lotos andass bone andsilver.93 The lotos or Libyan lotus (celtis australis Linn.) is today the nettle-tree or Eur. hackberry, belonging to the elmfamily. As early as Euripides the Athenians knew the “Libyan”lotos itself as theatrical pipes. Their African identity was known scientifically to Theophrastos.94 The Romans, however, did not call these pipes Libyan or Tyrian” African. They called them tibiae Sarranae. They cannot have been “ because thewoodis African. TheRomans called them after either Carthage itself or after thename Carthaginians gave them, eventhough aspipes they were apparently played on theAthenian stage centuries before welearn of them played in Rome. In 200 B.C. Sarran pipes were played at Rome. Nearly 300 years later Pliny must be referring to such pipes when he speaks of theatrical pipes

88 Livy 7.2, Cic. Brut. 72, Gell. 17.21.42; cf. Fest. 436/38L. 89 Pliny NH28.10–13, a discussion of prayer. Pliny says that after silence wasbidden, the piper played so that nothing else which might interrupt the observance could be heard. See also NH22.11. 90 This is learned from the didascaliae of the twoplays. 632. 91 Skutsch (1985) on Enn. Ann. 472 at pp. 630– 106: ad tibiarum cantus expetitur (sc. lotos sive celthis). 92 NH 13. 104– 93 NH16.168–172: nunc sacrificae Tuscorum exbuxo, ludricae vero e loto ossibusque asininis et argento fiunt. 94 See G.E.L. s.v. lotos; Steier, RE 13. 2 (1927) 1526–1530, esp. 1529.

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made of lotus or celthis wood from Africa. The Sarran pipes of Roman comedy mustbereferred toAfrica anddirectly to trade withAfricans. Their specific name hasnothing to dowith Phoenician Tyre or probably the town of Sarra south of Carthage. Thenameprobably refers to Carthage itself as a source of the manufactured product. It seems most improbable that the Romans first knew and played tibiae Sarranae just two years after the second Punic war.Either thepipes orthewoodto makethemwill have been anitem in trade long antedating thewar, atleast as early astheintroduction

of Greek theater in 240 B.C. As we saw, the theatrical piper was brought to Rome from Etruria in 364. The first such piper andhis craft descendants could have introduced pipes made of African wood, perhaps by African craftsmen. Although we cannot date the testimony, we know that Etruscan-writing Etruscans lived in Carthage. Etruscan inscriptions, found inCarthage, suggest that Etruscans took up residence there. Onemanwhose nameis otherwise attested only atVolaterrae seems to have become a citizen of Carthage.95 Another belongs to a family attested only at Clusium.96 Pipers recorded in comedic didascaliae were slaves. Marcipor, slave of Oppius, played for Plautus’Stichus in 200 B.C. Flaccus, slave of Claudius, is recorded as the pipe-player for all of Terence’s plays. Such servile pipers maybe distinguished from others, perhaps thepipers at sacrifice, at least at this moment in time. Roman pipers hadenjoyed theright of association by grant of king Numa.97 Yet these pipers attested in the theatrical didascaliae cannot be considered either Roman citizens or of Italian descent.98 Yet the twoearly inscriptions recording thepipers, calling themselves Romani, qui

s(acris) p(ublicis) p(raesto) s(unt), later show only freedmen.99 Although pipers at religious rites maywell have adhered to traditional music, those serving the theater will have been willing to adopt new or diverse music andinstruments thanks

tothestrangeness, notto saydiversity,

95 Puinel in Rix (1991), Af 3.1; see Vt 1.137, 4.1. Also see J.-P. Thuiller, “Nouvelles découvertes de bucchero à Carthage,”in Il commercio etrusco arcaico. Atti 163. 7 dic. 1983. (Rome 1985) 155– dell’incontro di studio 5– 8; see Cl 1.2627, 2628, 2632 and 96 Unata in a series of “cippi”in Rix (1991), Af 8.1– . unata varnal cf. Cl 1066, 1640. OneClusine inscription (1.2632) is bilingual: aθ ra(ufe) is also Mn. Otacilius Rufus Uaria natus. 97 Plut. Numa 17, where they appear first in Numa’s distribution of all the plebs (plethos) into organizations according to trade, craft, and skill, i.e. into collegia. , The Collegia of Numa: Problems of Method andPolitical Ideas” See E. Gabba, “ JRS 74 (1984) 81– 86. 98 Flaccus, for instance, was not an uncommon servile name; see ILLRP, index of “ . Cf. Horatius Flaccus. cognomina” 99 ILLRP 185, 775.

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of their backgrounds. Just asthemale lover of Lucius Flamininus conceived a passion for gladiatorial bouts which he probably had not seen in his hometown of Carthage, a piper of Carthaginian extraction could have introduced the “ Sarran”pipes to Roman audiences. Roman games must have been peculiarly susceptible to such foreign importation. On their own testimony the theatrical performances were derived from Etruria andGreece. Exhibitions of wild beasts depended on importation ofAfrican animals. Theparasiti ofApollo were already present in Rome by 211 B.C.100 Yet the games were given onthe occasion of great holy days as integral to thereligious observances or in thanksgiving to the gods on occasion of victory celebrations. Accordingly, we may discern several paths bywhich theRomans gained anacquaintance of Carthaginian customs andproducts. Romans owned slaves who had talents desirable for the Romans. Shipwrights, weavers andpipers come to mind. Romans acquired through intermediaries. Etruscans had introduced theater with themusic of thepipes. Etruscans could have introduced Sarran pipes. Greeks, too, could have introduced thesamekindof pipes, butif they didthe Romans didnotuse the Greek term for them. Romans in Carthage (as Etruscans in Carthage) and Carthaginians in Rome exchanged goods. Surely more menate figs than played pipes. The pipes, however, have importance inweighing theevidence. Attested in 200, Sarran pipes point to trade older than 218 when the second Punic was began. Since they belonged to a tradition, they are probably much older articles in trade. Weare returned to the Punic-Roman treaties reaching back over three centuries before Sarran pipes become a certain article in trade. These treaties have been too little appreciated for their commercial significance and in weighing the evidence for Carthaginian residents in Rome well before Carthage wasdestroyed.101 Before examining Carthaginian influences on Roman religion in the next chapter and Carthaginian residents of Rome in the two following chapters, weclose this chapter with a review of theother early (commercial) treaty Romans made apparently in the same year that Carthaginians and Romans renewed their treaty for the third time, to useLivy’s wording. 100 Fest. 436/38L., who reports the names of two mimi, one of whom was a freedman. The Romans hadalso borrowed the Etruscan wordfor piper by the time of Ennius (Varro LL 7.35, Fest. 402L.). 101 A piece like J. Kolendo, “L’influence de Carthage sur la civilisation matérielle de 22, is too Rome,”Archeologia (i.e. of the Polish Academy, Warsaw) 21 (1970) 9– simplistic to be useful.

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Lest wethink that Romans hadtrade relations in thefourth century only with distant Carthage, weshould bear in mind therecent rethinking onthe subject of Roman-Rhodian relations established in 306/5.102 At that very time Carthaginians renewed (for thethird time) their treaty andtheTarentines madea treaty withtheRomans.103 Oneof theconsequences of thecommerce between Rome andRhodes wasa bilingual, Greek andLatin, dedication to

Athena Lindia by L. Folius, sonof Maraeus, at Lindos onRhodes between 300 and 250 B.C.104 Cassola has studied anew this dedication and has brought to our attention the presence of a Roman merchantman in these waters in 252.105 As had been the practice of Holleaux (and Hatzfeld), Cassola chooses to emphasize that the “trader”hada father with an Oscan praenomen andinfers that the manwasfrom Campania on that account, even though Folius is an old Roman name (and patrician, too). But so at Lindos as later on Delos these “south Italians”used twolanguages, Greek and Latin, and not Oscan which apparently did not meet the needs of Mediterranean commerce. Or,to putit positively for thedoubting Thomas, Latin was a mercantile language in eastern Mediterranean waters already during the first Punic war. Oscan evidently wasnot. The man Folius, with Latin praenomen while his father’s is Oscan, came to Rhodes in the mid-third century. The last Roman patrician Folius (cos.318) hadserved asmaster of horse inCampania intheyear 314.106 The occasion perhaps engendered a Campanian branch of the family of Folii. Another early Roman link to Athena Lindia is attested in the victory of M. Claudius Marcellus over theSyracusans in 211B.C. Marcellus hadbeen oneof the earliest Roman praetors sent to Sicily.107 As thanks he sent from the spoils of the later Sicilian campaign ending in 211 donations toAthena Lindia on Rhodes andthe Kabeiroi of Samothrace.108

102 Polyb. 30.5; cf. Livy45.25. Holleaux hadassumed a terrier-like stance toundermine the scant literary evidence, first learnedly affirmed by H. H. Schmitt, Romund Rhodos. Geschichte ihrer politischen Beziehungen seit der ersten Berührung bis zum Aufgehen Inselstaates in römischen Weltreich = Münchener Beitr. z. Papyrusforsch. undantiken Rechtsgesch. 40 (1957), nowfollowed byW.Dahlheim, Struktur und Entwicklung des römischen Völkerrechts im dritten und zweiten Jahrhundert v. Chr. = Vestigia 8 (Munich 1968) pp. 141, 255 n. 64; Walbank (1957) onPolyb. 30.5.6; Cassola andHeurgon (see below, nn. 103, 105). 212. 103 J. Heurgon (1973) 211– 104 ILLRP 245 & add. 105 Hailed by Aratus whosought passage to Egypt andwascarried to Caria (Plut. Arat. 393. 12.4). See F. Cassola (1960) 385– 106 Livy 9.26.7, cf. 28.2; the occasion was investigation of conspiracy against or rebellion from Rome. 7; see MRR, s.a. 224. 107 Livy 22.35.6– 108 Posidonius in Plut. Marc. 30; cf. Cic. 2 Verr. 4.122–123.

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III. Carthaginian Cargoes atRome

Since there is nooccasion known tous(andprobably none available in his full career) when Marcellus visited the eastern Mediterranean, he must have been prompted by the knowledge of others.109 Marcellus’ most remarkable gift to Athena Lindia was a statue of himself.110 Clearly he assumed that persons on pilgrimage to the shrine would be edified by a palpable sign of his conquest of Syracuse. Perhaps a member of Marcellus’ ownfamily is the Q. Claudius who was responsible for setting a limit to the tonnage of vessels owned by senators.111 The burden of sumptuary laws, to which class we mayassign the Claudian plebiscite, waspreservation of a senator’s wealth by forbidding certain financial hazards.112 Before the second Punic warRoman senators doubtless hadinvested in shipping, doubtless hadrunrisks, doubtless had suffered great losses.113 Other Italian traders than Roman senators will have invested or engaged in trade with Carthaginians even at Carthage. But a manwith Latin names andexpressing himself in Greek andLatin (and not Oscan) had reason to thank Athena/Minerva at Lindos, perhaps while Romans andCarthaginians fought their first war. Such wasthe renown of theLindian shrine thatMarcellus believed it fit forhisstatue asa conqueror. Healso publicized his victory at the shrine of the Kabeiroi onSamothrace. These are sites where seafarers putin. When Romans, especially Roman nobles, addressed the gods they also addressed their fellow Romans.114 Like as not the Romans whoread these early dedications recorded in Latin on shores washed by the eastern Mediterranean sea were maritime traders.

109 For onething, Sicilian Gela wasfounded bymenof Lindos andAkragas, inturn, by men of Gela. The cult of Athena Lindia reached Akragas by this route; see T. J. 237, 311, 318, 353. Marcellus Dunbabin, The Western Greeks (Oxford 1948) 236– hadmade attempts on Akragas (Agrigentum) (Livy 24.35, 25.40), butit wastaken by his successor, Valerius Laevinus (Livy 26.40). The offering in 211 is our first indication that the Romans venerated the Samothracian Kabeiroi. 110 Posidonius in Plut. Marc. 30. 111 Q. Claudius, tr. pl. in 218; see above, ch. 2 at n. 79. Le leggi sul lusso e la società romana tra III 112 I amin full accord with G. Clemente, “ e II secolo A.C.,”in Società romana e produzione schiavistica vol. 3 (Bari 1981) 1– 304 (notes). 14, 301– 113 Here the question may be asked what became of the patrician Folii who never reappear in the consular fasti after 318, or the Nautii (last consul in 287). Norwere plebeian nobles faring well inpolitics. After thegreat naval victory of C. Duillius in 260, no oneof his family is again attested in office. Duillius knew ships! 114 When Marcellus dedicated some of his spoils in Rome, the consul thoughtfully noted that the object wastaken when he also took Henna (ILLRP 295). This is but one of several examples.

IV. THE ROMANS HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE THEM The Romans suffered from nodearth of deities. Even in glut they hungered after newgods. Nordidstrange gods insinuate themselves only among the foreign-born at Rome. The Roman senate, the Roman priests and the Roman magistrates became, from time to time, thechannels of introducing alien cults. The greatest motive prompting the Roman ruling class to embrace foreign religious practices wassimply fear, either fear of offending the god of their enemies or fear of neglecting some aspect of their own gods. Gods had to be reconciled to the Romans. While the art of war was well-developed by the Romans, religious fervor was not allowed to flag. Gods were to the Romans as were their shields andtheir bucklers. The Romans exhibit a religious peculiarity that is by no means unique to them. In war, in the heat of battle, their commanding general whowas normally one of two consuls vowed a temple to some god whose aid he asked. Otherwise hemight spontaneously offer thetemple after his victory. Whether acting outof fear or gratitude, theconsul chose a deity appropriate to thecircumstances of battle orof war.Accordingly, thestudent maylearn from such a deity something of Roman perception of the enemy Romans fought. In 264 M. Fulvius Flaccus fought and reduced to surrender the Etruscan city of Volsinii whose chief deity wasVortumnus. In theevent, he hadhimself depicted in triumph on the interior wall of the newtemple of Vortumnus ontheAventine Hill. Before him, L. Papirius Cursor (cos. 272) hadbeen painted in like pose in the Aventine temple of Consus after his triumph overTarentum.1 Vortumnus wasasdemonstrably Etruscan asConsus was Roman. But Consus in this instance stood in for the Poseidon of Tarentum. Agodof Volsinii andanother of Tarentum wontemples at Rome because Roman generals hadwonvictories overthese Etruscans andGreeks. Exploration of Roman knowledge of Carthaginians through the latter’s religion can be achieved by the several ways Romans responded to defeat 202) Punic wars. For 242) andsecond (218– andto victory in the first (264– thelatter war, thescholar of Roman religion, KurtLatte, offers anextensive discussion of “ Greek influences”imposed bytheSibylline Books whenthe enemy was Hannibal.2 Yet the very choice of Roman cults to be changed 1 2

Fest. 228L. See Wissowa (1912) 202, 287. 258. K. Latte (1960) 251–

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(e.g. Saturn’s andApollo’s) andof a new god to be introduced to Rome (Venus of Sicilian Mt. Eryx) was manifestly dictated by Romans who already knew the chief deities of Carthage. Doubtless, Roman vision had grown more acute since the earlier warwith Carthaginians.3 STORMS

The religious sensibilities of a Roman commander pressed by danger during the first Punic warmaybe gauged by the case of the consul of 259, L. Cornelius Scipio. Scipio set sail from Sicily to attack the Carthaginians whoheldSardinia andCorsica. Hisvictories earned hima triumph. Atsome time in his crossing from Sicily to Corsica, his fleet had been assailed by heavy weather. Through prayer andvow, it seems, Scipio’s fleet eluded the storms. In consequence, he built a temple to Tempestates, bad weathers.4 Thenewtemple wassituated ontheAppian Wayoutside thePorta Capena, evidently hard by the tomb of the Scipiones.5 Probably as censor in 258 Scipio contracted for the temple of Tempestates. Without difficulty we can see that the gods called Storms had opposed the consul andbeen wonover to the consul’s side by his piety. At Rome such a dedication hadnot occurred before andwasnot a likely occurrence thereafter.6 It cannot be said that these storms engendered a horde of sectaries.7 Nevertheless, twodedications bytheprovincial governor setupmuch later at legionary headquarters atLambaesis inNumidia merit ourattention. One is addressed Ventis bonarum Tempestatium potentibus and the other Iovi o(ptimo) m(aximo) Tempestatium divinarum potenti.8 Von Domaszewski

3 4 5

6

7

8

Most of the information on newgods andnewcult practices wascommunicated to the senate by the priestly college of Decemviri sacris faciundis. See App. 1. 196; see MRR, s.a. 259 for other references to his ILLRP 310; Ovid F. 6.191– campaigns. Richardson (1992) 379; Degrassi on ILLRP 310. It should also be noted that the comic playwright Terence, muchcultivated bytheyounger Scipio Africanus, left a house andsome land onthe Appian Waynotfar south of the same tomb andtemple

(Suet. Ter. 5).

storms against a Punic fleet. See Pease (1920/1923) on Cic. ND 3.51. The M. Laberius C.f. who made an offering to Tempestates at Lanuvium (ILLRP 263) may have descended from a military tribune sometimes named Laberius (and sometimes otherwise) whoserved gloriously on Sicily in 258; Claud. Quadr. (fr. 83P.) in Gellius 3.7, Front. Strat.

We do not know whether the consul’s prayers hadalso enlisted

1.5.15, 4.5.10; see MRR 1, p. 207. 24. The 2610 = ILS 3061, 3935. See von Domaszewski (1909) 22– CIL VIII 2609–

IV. TheRomans have Strange Gods before them

55

believes that the dedications reflect an occurrence in the history of the legion.9 It had been the principal legion in Africa since Augustus who imparted his ownname to Legio III Augusta. By the time theThird Legion Augusta came to be permanently encamped at Lambaesis, its men were being recruited from Africa and elsewhere.10 Very long and unbroken service on the African frontier will have exposed its legionaries to native religious beliefs. In 259 when he determined to build his temple to Tempestates, gods unprecedented of their kind, L. Cornelius Scipio maywell have acted onhis ownknowledge of Punic storm gods he hadplacated. The Punic character of the divinity maybe reflected inAeneas’sacrifice of three calves to Eryx andone lamb to Tempestates on departure from Sicily.11 The Phoenician deity to whom we may liken Tempestates was Ba’al Shamem, Lord of Skies.12 He became known to the Romans to such a degree that Hanno could invoke himin thePoenulus.13 Hewasworshipped on Sardinia.14 Centuries later in Syria he might be called Jupiter Caelestis

or Zeus Ouranios.15 Over two centuries after L. Cornelius Scipio’s vow, the Romans had grown accustomed to such beliefs. In setting sail to attack Sex. Pompeius in 36, young Caesar sacrificed to the Winds of good passage, to Neptune the safe-keeper andto Calm Seas.16 The pluralness of these distinct sacrifices reminds us of a peculiarity bordering on uniqueness in the case of Tempestates: the divinity is always expressed as plural. Tempestates did not preserve foundering war fleets alone. Very early the Romans knew that they watched over seafaring merchants: quom bene re gesta salvos convortor domum, Neptuno grates habeo et Tempestatibus; simul Mercurio qui me in mercimoniis iuvit lucrisque quadruplicavit rem

meam.17

in A.D.130. Potens maybe considered as baal; but see also , Semitica 2 297 and J.G. Février, “ A propos de Baal Addir” Gsell (1924) 296– 28 on addir. Cf. Verg. Aen. 3.528: di maris et terrae tempestatumque (1949) 21– potentes, alliterative enough to be Ennian. VonDomaszewski, ibid. 184. Parker (1928) 183– 773. NB: plural Tempestates receive onelamb. Verg. Aen. 5.772– 295, Huss (1985) 512. Gsell (1924) 293– Plaut. Poen. 1027; Sznycer (1967) 144. governor wasconsul

9

10

11

12 13 14 CIS 139. 15 Cumont (1929) 118, 267. 16 Appian BC 5.406, onwhich seeE. Gabba, Appiani Bellorum Civilium Liber Quintus (Florence 1970).

406; the character has returned by ship from Asia to Athens (367); 17 Plaut. St. 403– the passage mayreflect its Greek original.

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IV. TheRomans have Strange Godsbefore them

The Roman divinity of Tempestates first comes to our attention by virtue of a consular vowmadeduring thefirst Punic war.Next, thetrader in a Plautine play gives thanks to storms. The gods’numbers grew at Rome thanks to foreign war andplays translated from Greek. Nearly 400 years after thevowanddedication totheTempestates, a Roman governor innorth Africa dedicates to theWinds Lords of GoodStorms andtoJupiter Best and Greatest Lord of Godly Storms on the grounds of the cantonment of a legion long posted in the province. Before any examination, even a cursory one, of Roman appreciation andperception of thegods of Carthage andherAfrican neighbors, a note of caution must be sounded. Ourknowledge of Carthaginian gods remains on the onehand quite limited andonthe other handgrows broader to a degree that even upsets received opinion. Two examples suffice to illustrate the latter situation. The former situation can be assessed in terms both of the Semitic gods attested in or near Carthage whose Classical reflex wedonot know andof the history of the Semitic cults attested when Carthage was young andfree andthen attested again much, much later whentheRomans were governed byemperors. Between documents in Semitic (Phoenician of the West and Punic) and documents in Latin or, less often, Neo-Punic stands a great blank in ourknowledge. Asfar as newinformation is concerned, wecanfocus ontwotexts that concern the situation of a Punic goddess in modern scholarship. It was a truism that the Semitic Ishtar (Ashtoreth, Astarte) wasscanted in theWest or that in theWest shewasworshipped asTanit pene Ba’al andthat Tanit, a Berber and non-Semitic deity, was the goddess’s name so that Western Phoenicians might avoid uttering the name of the ineffable. Further, that Tanit was normally she whom the Romans called Virgo (dea) Caelestis or Venus. In 1964 at Pyrgi onthe Italian coast held by the Etruscan city of Caere north of Rome, gold plates were found that appeared to be in Punic and Etruscan. They exhibited a syncretism of the Semitic Ishtar andEtruscan Uni(i.e. Latin Juno). Soonit wasargued that theSemitic text wasPhoenician andnot, strictly speaking, Punic of North Africa.18 , JAOS 86 (1966) The Phoenician Inscription from Pyrgi” 18 See J. A. Fitzmyer, S.J., “ 5. See 6316 = Rix (1991) Cr 4.2– 297). The several texts are CIE 6313– pp. 285– 55, on the vexed question of the priority of Uni or Juno R.E.A. Palmer (1974) 43– and of the identification of Astarte (or Tanit) in the Roman pantheon; J. Heurgon (1973) pp. 57– 75 on the Western Phoenicians. The new texts and their sacred colloquium”in Tübingen (January 1979) and environment were the subject of a “ published as AA.VV. Akten des Kolloquiums zumThema Die Goettin von Pyrgi = Bibl. di “Studi Etruschi”12 of the Ist. di Studi Etruschi ed Italici (Florence 1981); its papers have a quality as various as the authors. Also see F.O. Hvidberg-Hansen,

IV. TheRomans have Strange Gods before them

57

In the second place, absence of attestation of Tanit in the East had contributed to theview expressed above that Tanit be considered thenative North African surrogate name of the ineffable (oriental) Ishtar. Then in 1974 at Sarepta a dedication to Tanit, carved on ivory was found in the Phoenician heartland.19 So ends forever a cherished notion of Tanit. Indeed in the Sarepta text hername immediately precedes that of Ashtart. In sum, our knowledge of Semitic religion in the West is fluid and growing. Accordingly, in the following pages we can learn more of the Phoenician Aletai when the evidence of Aletes at Spanish NewCarthage upon fresh study yields Hermes/Mercurius.20 Or, we can question more intensively the provenience of the Punic text conveniently called the Marseilles tariff21 andcomparable Carthaginian tariffs of sacrificial offerings. 242) THE FIRST PUNIC WAR (264– Romans wontheir first great naval victory during thefirst Punic Warin 260 when the consul C. Duillius bested the Carthaginian fleet at Mylae.22 The considerable proceeds from the war booty23 will have provided for the temple Duillius built forJanus intheForum Holitorium (‘Vegetable Market’) to celebrate andto give thanks for his triumph.24 Very likely Duillius let the contract in 258 for the temple of Janus when he served as censor with L.

19

20 21 22 23 24

“ Uni-Ashtarte and Tanit-Juno Caelestis”in A. Bonanno ed., Archaeology and 195, writing Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean (Amsterdam 1985) 170– with knowledge of the Sarepta text (next note). M. Gras, P. Rouillard and J. Teixidor, L’Univers phénicien (Paris 1989) discuss the text which they say is 356) speaks of the 86 (cf. 351– written in Phoenician of Carthage. Lancel (1995) 84– text as Punic. J.B. Pritchard, “ Phönizier TheTanit Inscription fromSarepta,”Madrider Beiträge 8 (“ 92; I amindebted to theauthor andcolleague for the ) (Mainz 1982) 83– imWesten” unpublished information that another document of Tanit has been discovered in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon andhasbeen reported ondisplay in a bank in 523 on 518, 522– Beirut. For convenience’s sake one mayconsult Huss (1985) 513– the goddesses, Punic andin syncretism, that are in question. Tanit, anequation for the more correct Tinnit, is well documented as one of the principal gods at the 256. See above, n. 18. 204, 227– ; Lancel (1995) 199– tophet” Carthaginian “ 58. See below, ch. 6 at nn.56– 97. See below, ch. 6 at nn. 86– Reference to sources here andhereafter maybefound inBroughton, TheMagistrates of the Roman Republic, under the year andmagistracy reported in the text. Cf. ILLRP 319. 497, on the entries in the calendars which note its See Degrassi (1963) 496– situation by the theater of Marcellus that was built in the Forum Holitorium; see below, App. 2.

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Cornelius Scipio.25 The temple was dedicated on 17 August, the day of the Portunalia whose deity Portunus was worshipped close to the Vegetable Market.26 Rome’s riverine docks also lay close to themarket.27 Therefore it might be thought that Duillius owed a measure of thanks to Janus because he hadprotected the fleet at home. It is nota probable idea. In a dictionary entry religioni we learn that certain men consider it unlucky to quit Rome by the Carmental Gate andto have meetings of the senate in the temple of Janus lying outside the gate because the 306 Fabii who went to their death at the Cremera after the senate meeting in the temple of Janus voted thatthey depart bysaidgate.28 This absurd explanation must, of course, be condemned. The Fabii died centuries before the temple was built; the senate did not vote on which city gate an armed force departed. Fabii perhaps kept the superstition by avoiding the Carmental Gate which had a ianus (‘portal’) associated with their departure for disaster.29 If the senators kept superstition in regard to meeting in the temple of Janus after ca. 258 andif a Fabius wasassociated with thejinx in wartime, we are better advised to look to the consul of 245, M. Fabius Buteo, who wona naval battle with the Carthaginians andsubsequently lost his entire fleet in storms that washed its remnants onto the shores of Africa.30 Coming as it dida mere four years after the great Roman naval disaster of 249, the loss in 245 could have been assigned bythesuperstitious to a senate decree voted in the newtemple of Janus that concerned Fabius Buteo anda new fleet. In such circumstances the god thanked in 260 will have seemed to have withdrawn his grace in 245. At Rome Janus hadnotemple proper (aedes) butthe Duillian temple in the Forum Holitorium. Temples andcult of Janus are very rarely attested anywhere in the Roman empire. Yet North Africa alone can show no less than six places of worship of Janus Pater or Janus Pater Augustus.31 It is

25 See above, at n. 4. 26 Degrassi, loc. cit., above, n. 24; I. Ruggiero, “Richerche sul tempio di Portuno nel 286. Foro Boario” , BCAR 94 (1991–1992) 253– 27 Livy 40.51.6; above, ch. 2, n. 71. 28 Fest. 358L. 29 Livy 2.49.8 (on which see Ogilvie [1965]), 2.51.2; cf. 25.7.6. The correct understanding of Fest. 358L is rendered possible byFestus 451L., ‘scelerata porta’. 32. 30 Flor. 1.18.30– 107. See CIL VIII 2608 (=ILS 3324) (a priest of his at 31 Wissowa (1912) 106– Lambaesis); 4576 (=ILS 3323); 15577 (statue of Janus Pater in relation to anarcus); 16417 (cf. AE 1968, no. 609); 27436 (=ILS 4473a). At Mactar (11797 =ILS 3325) I(anus) P(ater) A(ugustus) has as cult partner M(ater) M(atuta), formerly analyzed as Magna Mater (see the Index of CIL VIII). For a “Phoenician”Janus see Macr. Sat. 1.9.12. Possibly the Phoenician deity answering to a Janus worthy of a Roman

IV. The Romans have Strange Gods before them

59

probable that C. Duillius chose to honor Janus because of the deity’s prior Janus”was deemed association with the Carthaginians.32 Carthaginian “ worthy of a vow. TheVegetable Market received a second temple ingratitude for another victory inthefirst Punic War.In 258 asconsul and257 aspraetor, A.Atilius Caiatinus successfully fought the Carthaginians andtriumphed in the latter year. As consul again in 254, he commanded fleets off Sicily andin 249 as dictator wasthefirst to lead troops beyond Italian shores. Caiatinus vowed andbuilt a temple to Spes orHope. It, too, stood in theForum Holitorium.33 The temples of Janus and Spes are the earliest recorded buildings in the Vegetable Market. Their location can hardly seem fortuitous. Their gods have nothing to do with vegetables. We have reason to believe that this market wasat onetime frequented by Punic speakers.34 A foundation year for thetemple of Hope canbereasonably suggested. WhenCaiatinus broke precedent andledanarmyfromItaly asa dictator, he acted in consequence of the great naval disaster(s) of 249 owed to the consuls P. Claudius Pulcher whowassummoned to Rome andto L. Junius Pullus whoanticipated a like summons by suicide. In 249, andnotin 258 or 254 when Caiatinus wasconsul, the dictator would have done well to seek the help of Hope at a nadir of Roman arms.35 Further, as censor in 247 he could have contracted for the temple. Although known to Romans, Spes seems to have been a goddess of some popularity among the Campanians.36 Evidently, the Atilii hailed from Campania or at least hadlong-standing ties with the country.37 In 218 when Hannibal first struck fear into the Romans whohadbeen defeated attheTrebia River, twoprodigies of themanyreported fortheyear reflected Punic association with the Vegetable Market and the temple of Hope. The temple was hit by lightning and a free born child of six months

in return for victory at sea is to be identified as Ba’al Saphon. See Huss (1985) 522 andbelow, ch. 6 at nn. 87– 93. 67, onthe prior Roman notice andknowledge 32 See below, ch. 6 n. 52 andat nn. 64– temple

of Mercurius Sobrius whoundoubtedly originated inNorth Africa where attestations of hiscult are also later. 33 SeeDegrassi (1963) 489. Itsanniversary fell on1 August. Onecalendar, F. Vallenses, as do two others, cites Spes’ feast day in the Forum Holitorium whereas that of Janus the same calendar cites at the theater of Marcellus, i.e. at a building erected upontheground of theForum Holitorium. Caiatinus also dedicated toFides (Publica, orpopuli Romani) ontheCapitol where shehadbeen worshipped already (Degrassi, 515). 34 See below, App. 2. 35 At Pl. Merc. 867 Spes, Victoria andSalus are invoked in the same breath. 36 See ILLRP 707 (with Fides andFortuna), 730, 734, 740. 59. 37 ILLRP 723a, 1207, 1208; see F. Münzer (1920) 56–

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shouted ‘triumph’ in the Forum Holitorium.38 The temple of Spes also figured in theprodigy account of 213 whenfire destroyed it. Thefollowing year a three-man commission was named promptly for overseeing reconstruction of it and other temples.39 What affected Spes early in the second Punic warboreonRomans’conscience precisely because thegoddess hadbeen honored at Rome whenhope succeeded despair in theprior war. While a case can be made that the foundation of a temple of Janus be traced to Roman keenness to thank a Punic god,40 the foundation of the temple of Spes is better understood interms ofAtilius Caiatinus’preference fitting the grim circumstances of the war in 249. Yet both temples were created in the Vegetable Market where, so far as weknow, no temple had stood before. Choice of site beyond the element of the shipyards in the proximity probably lay in prior African associations with the Forum Holitorium. This matter is canvassed below in discussion of the site of Vicus Sobrius andits African god, Mercurius Sobrius.

202) THE SECOND PUNIC WAR (218– After some 22 years of warthe Romans will have learned much about the Carthaginians and their African allies (and mercenaries) whom they had fought, captured, andenslaved. Moreover, their knowledge will have been refined by the Greeks of Sicily on whose land andoff whose shores they hadfought thegreater partof thewar.If they hadnotlearned enough during the war, Roman menandwomen lived later among their African slaves in the interval of 24 years between the twoPunic wars. Servile influence can be demonstrated in Roman remodelling of the Saturnalia where (Roman) master would wait on (Punic) slave at table. Romans also learned of the Carthaginian legacy on Sicily andSardinia which hadbecome Roman in 242 and238, respectively.

38 Livy 21.62.2, 4. For care in reporting the free birth of others implicated in a prodigium see also Livy 34.45.7; for the shout io triumphe! from an unborn Marrucinian babe see Livy 24.10.10. 39 Livy 24.47.15–16, 25.7.6. Also Livy 40.51.6 is important in understanding the situation of the temple of Spes even if the passage is corrupt. 40 From this discussion I have purposely omitted introduction of the numismatic evidence, if evidence it be, that by Crawford’s dating commences in 225, of the Janus obv. andprow rev. on bronze asses minted in long succession at Rome. The Janus hadbeen preceded by a comparable figure of conjoint heads of Castor and 34 (the Dioscuri) andnos. 35ff. (Janus/prow on Pollux; see Crawford RRC, nos. 28– 720. Solely from a Roman point of view andwithout the as), as well as pp. 716– reference to Janus as symbol of war andof peace, the temple of Janus was close both to that of Portunus with which it shared ananniversary andto thenavalia. See App. 2.

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Earlier we remarked Roman attention to prodigies occurring in the Forum Holitorium in the first year of the second Punic warafter the battle of the Trebia River (218). The Romans had yet to reckon their losses at Lake Trasimene (217) andatCannae (216). Positive religious acts hadto be pursued so that they might in effect steal heavenly grace from their African enemies. When Hannibal determined to invade Italy, first he went to Gades in Spain where hesought divine aidwith vowsto Hercules, i.e. Melkart, athis great Gaditane temple.41 Later in the same year the Romans suffered their first major defeat at his hands and, in response to several prodigia, they set rites of supplication at Hercules’temple.42 Affairs turned from badat theTrebia River to worse at Lake Trasimene whentheRoman forces were virtually wiped outbyHannibal in 217. Inthis year one unnatural occurrence is reported for Caere where the spring of Hercules issued water spotted with blood.43 The co-dictator of 217, M. Minucius, whoafter L. Trasimene enjoyed a modicum of pleasure in embarassing Hannibal onthebattlefield, dedicated an altar to Hercules.44 With this testimony our sources fall silent about Hercules whoduring the second warwith Carthage should be construed as the Greco-Roman reflex of the Phoenician Melkart.45

41 Livy 21.21.9. See below n. 43; vanBerchem (1967) 80–109. 42 Livy 21.62; at the same temple a banquet was also laid for Hercules’ wife, Youth (Juventas). Thegodin question wasprobably theHercules Magnus Custos whohad 212); see Wissowa (1912) 276 and a temple in the Circus Flaminius (Ovid F, 6.209– below, App. 2, onthe Forum Holitorium andits proximity to the Circus Flaminius. Ona temple to Juventas built in the 190’s but vowed by Salinator in 207 when he faced Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother, see below, App. 1. 43 Livy 22.1.10. This seemed especially pertinent, I imagine, because the Hercules of 173). Over 70 years Gades hada spring in his sacred precinct (Strabo 3.5.7, C 172– later the Caeretanes reported that they witnessed streams of blood onthe land. (Jul. Obs. 20); it wasthe second year of the last warwithCarthage. The mindboggles at whatprodigium might have been reported when C. Julius Caesar robbed Hercules’ Gaditane sanctuary. Perhaps it prompted his restoration of the stolen property. See Caesar BC 2.18.2, 21.3. 44 ILLRP 118, found at S. Lorenzo fuor le Mure. On the site of the temple see G. Acque Acetosa Laurentina, l’Ager Romanus Antiquus, e i santuari del I Colonna, “ 224. , Scienze dell’Antichità Storia Archeologia Antropologia 5 (1991) 218– miglio” 45 Hercules in this context is notagain attested, buthis “wife”Juventas (above, n. 42) reappears as recipient of a temple from one of the Decemvirs whoarranged for the Tyrian”cultus of Graditane ceremonies in 218. See below, App. 1 at n. 6. Onthe “ 518, Hercules/Melkart (App. Iber. 2) andMelkart in the West see Huss (1985) 517– , Le culte deMelqart à Carthage: uncasdeconservatisme religieux” 523; C. Bonnet, “ 222; Lancel (1995) ) (Namur 1986) 209– Religio Phoenicia” Studia Phoenicia 4 (“ 207. 204–

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More drastic religious response wasneeded to assuage the gods of the Carthaginians. In one case the Romans thoroughly revamped their public observance of the cult of Saturn. In the other, they imported from Sicily a cult of Venus withlong associations withtheCarthaginians. These measures, too, were taken in 217 after themassacre atLake Trasimene whenHannibal seemed unconquerable. SATURNALIA

In his reports of the prodigies of 217 that included the Caeritane spring of Hercules spotted with blood, Livy ends with accounts of the several

procurationes andadds these twofurther reports:

Haec ubifacta, decemviri Ardeae inforo maioribus hostiis sacrificarunt. Postremo Decembri iam mense ad aedem Saturni Romae immolatum est, lectisterniumque imperatum –et eumlectum senatores straverunt –et convivium publicum, ac per urbem Saturnalia diemac noctem clamata, populusque eumdiemfestum habere ac servare in perpetuum iussus.46

Noneof theseveral prodigies of 218 or217 reported sofarbyLivy bore relation either to Saturn or to an Ardeate cult.47 It was Wissowa’s keen insight that showed that theRoman Decemviri sacris faciundis hadsacrificed fully-grown victims in the Ardeate forum because there was situated the “ mother cult” of Roman Venus.48 Involvement of theDecemviri proves that their rites at Ardea were derived from some external impulse.49 In due course, the Venus of Ardea didnot meet the pressing religious demands, andVenus of Mt. Eryx in W.Sicily received herfirst Roman temple. (It is remarkable that even theArdeate rites were considered so alien to Latium that the Roman TenMen, andnotthepontiffs, undertook them in 217. The TenMenalready hadVenus inmindevidently before theyreadtheSibylline books.) The circumstances of Saturn in the history of Roman religion differ much from those of Hercules andeven of Venus whether she wasRoman, Ardeate, or Erycine. Since time immemorial, or so the Romans believed, Saturnalia hadbeen noted in the oldest liturgical calendar for December 17. 20. haecfacta refers to theprocurationes. 46 Livy 22.1.19– 47 Livy 21.62, 22.1.8–18. 48 Wissowa (1912) 289. Not only did the Ardeates maintain their old worship of Venus, they also hadtaken charge of thecult of Venus at Lavinium (Strabo 5.3.5 C 232).

49 This is shown bythefact that theRoman magistrates andpontiffs keptthe“national” rites at Lavinium, notthe decemviri; see Wissowa (1912) 518, 520.

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In 497 a temple had been built for the god and that day as Saturnalia become diesfestus.50 OnLivy’s report for December 217, that is after the massacre at Lake Trasimene, he seems to repeat his notice of 497 when he The people were bidden to keep andmaintain that day(Saturnalia) writes, “ . Onseveral grounds weareleft to drawtheconclusion that in 217 a festus” radical alteration of the observance of Saturnalia occurred. This alteration has been deemed “Hellenization” , a process advanced by decemviral inspection of the Sibylline books that led to adoption of the ritus Graecus which Romans adopted from some Greek community.51 But some vestiges of the earlier, truly Roman worship seem to have survived.52 In spite of the ancient unanimity that the Saturnian cult had been kept ritu Graeco for many centuries before 217, ample evidence reveals that such simply was notthecase.53 TheRomans kept Saturnian worship moreRomano until 217. From thequoted Livian notice wemaysafely assume that besides sacrifice ritu Graeco, public banqueting andthe constant shout of io Saturnalia, day andnight, were innovations of the year 217. It maybe inferred that what Livy blandly calls convivium publicum for 217 marks the onset of the practice, later well attested, of masters waiting ontheir slaves at table.54 The shouting of “Saturnalia”began as soon as the public banquet broke up andoccurred only on December 17.55 However the 50 Livy 2.21.2; cf. Dion. Hal. 6.1.4. Theyear is putindoubt byMacr. Sat. 1.8.1. Varro LL 6.22 calls Saturnalia feriae andFest. 432L. also diesfestus. Since theobservance of Saturnalia grew to several days even by the end of the Republic, it was felt necessary to emphasize which day, the anniversary day, hadbeen deemed festus. 540. See Degrassi (1963) 538– 258. 208; Latte (1960) 251– 51 Wissowa (1912) 204– 185, andnext note. 52 R.E.A. Palmer (1974) 173– 19. 53 R.E.A. Palmer, (1996) at nn. 8– 208; also Thulin, RE 2A1 (1921) 220 on sacrifice to 54 See Wissowa (1912) 204– 207 on the supposed “Greek”origins of Saturn capite aperto; Nilsson ibid., 205– Studien Saturnalia andits “ Roman”development as well as Nilsson’s magisterial “ zurVorgeschichte desWeihnachtsfestes,”Arch. f. Religionswissenschaft 19 (1916– 19) 50–150 = Opusc. Sel. 1 (1951) 222 ff. Banqueting in a religious setting is by no means uncommon. The convivium publicum remains an oddcustom. In terms of gods worshipped ritu Graeco, we may compare the prandia in semitis given by Aufidius Orestes (Cic. Off. 2.58), evidently as urban praetor (see MRR s.a. 77), since the dinners were offered decumae nomine. The urban praetor controlled the cult of Hercules at the Ara Maxima and so presumably also the tithe-monies 430 279, 405; 429– 5, 277– especially given the god; see Wissowa (1912) 274 nn. 4– 3409, 3412–13, ILLRP 134, 136 (with Degrassi’s note onpollucere), andILS 3402– 142, 149. Orestes’prandia differ from a convivium publicum in that the latter was provided at the expense of the state andthe former at the expense of the godwho hadreceived the tithes.

55 Macr. Sat. 1.10.18. Naturally, Macrobius’Saturnalia contains much Saturnian lore

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master-slave dinners were related to the convivium publicum, they will have represented in 217 and shortly thereafter a situation where some Roman masters waited onanddined with someAfrican slaves. Attic (as Macrobius hasit) orother Greek influences ontheceremonies of the Roman Saturnalia have beenjustly doubted.56 Moreover, in Cato the Elder’s lifetime he knew of a time when Saturnalia hadnot been celebrated Graeco ritu.57 If notfor theGreek Kronos, ever equated with Saturn, forwhomdidthe Romans so drastically modify their observance of the ancient Saturnalia? They were fighting Carthaginians, being defeated by Carthaginians, and clearly prepared in 217 as in earlier times to placate the gods of their foe. Doubtless they found in the Sibylline books, though Livy does not name theminconnection withthenewSaturnalia, anindication that they ought to worship thePunic Saturn (whom, of course, Greeks thought a Punic Kronos), but they evidently drew the line at adoring him with sacrifice of human boys.58 There is no question of the existence of thePunic Saturn, normally identified with Ba’al Hammon, whomNorth Africans continued to worship as Saturn long after Punic Carthage wasdestroyed.59 Indeed, theAfricans persisted in occasional resort to slaying their boys for him even under Roman rule.60 Justin writes that Darius the Great sent envoys to Carthage carrying anedictum forbidding human sacrifice, consumption of dogmeat at table andinhumation of thedead.61 This report of such a bizarre edictum is the only clue we have that the Carthaginians perhaps also dined at the

24, 8.12, 10.1– as well as some real information on the cult of Saturn; see 1.7.14– 11.1, 12.7. One of his principal sources will have been the essay on Saturn by Verrius Flaccus (Sat. 1.4.7, cf. 1.8.5, 1.6.15, 1.10.7, 1.12.15). 207; L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin 1956) 152– 56 Nilsson, RE 2A1 (1921) 205– 155.

57 Implicit in Cato fr. 77 ORF4 Malcovati, discussed with other evidence by Palmer (1996) at nn. 8– 19. 58 Romans believed that at one time they (or their forebears of sorts) hadsacrificed mento Saturn andthat Hercules hadputa stop to that practice; Dion. Hal. 1.34.5, 5. 1.38.2; Macr. Sat. 1.7.27, 7.31; cf. Anon. Origo Gentis Romanae 3, Just. 43.1.3– Onhuman sacrifice by Romans during the second Punic war, see App. 3. 59 See Leglay (1966), Xello (1991). 332 thoroughly reviews the evidence for the ritual practice; 60 Leglay (1966) 314– 256 provides an insightful 105 and passim; Lancel (1995) 227– Xello (1991) 91– summary of scholarly engagement in the question of child sacrifice especially as it 540. tophet”of Carthage; also see Huss (1985) 531– concerns the “ 316 andHuss (1985) 99 n. 47. Since the 61 Justin 19.1.10–13; cf. Leglay (1966) 315– 221 andpassim), it is believed Carthaginians already cremated (Lancel [1995] 220– that Justin (or Trogus) meant the opposite onthe matter of treatment of the dead. I believe the ‘cremations’ Darius meant were those of the boys whose throats had been slit for Ba’al.

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observance of rites for Ba’al Hammon. If that is so, the Roman convivium publicum at Saturnalia may have reflected the Punic custom of divine banquet, although the Romans are notknown to have eaten dogmeat. But they evidently consumed sucking puppies and gave them placandis numinibus hostiarum vice. In the first century A.D. the Romans still served puppy meat in cenis deum. From a lost play of Plautus (the Saturio), we learn that dog meat was thought to have been common at inaugural banquets.62 Thecenae deumatwhich Pliny says thegodsreceived dogmeat reminds us that in 217 the senators themselves laid the couches for lectisternium at the temple of Saturn.63 Moreover, it is curious that C. Lutatius, the Roman consul whofinally defeated the Carthaginians in the first war, wasdubbed ‘the puppy’(catulus). It is known thattheCarthaginians themselves resorted tohuman sacrifice to Saturn/Kronos at precisely those moments in wartime they believed the godhadwithdrawn his favor.64 Romans counter Carthaginian successes by resorting to introduction of strange cult for Saturn. They called it Greek, but its intent was Punic. Appeasement of the gods has many names andmay even call for the dogmeat Darius interdicted. According to Roman religious law, war could not be undertaken on Saturnalia and punishment could not be inflicted without payment of an atonement.65 Thefirst injunction clearly stands atoddswith theremarkable notice that near Tunis Scipio’s army and cavalry put Numidian reinforcements torout onSaturnalia, 202 B.C. This wasthelast battle of the

58, cf. Fest. –Paul. 39L. “catulinam carnem esitavisse”(=Pl. fr. 62 Pliny NH29.57– Anycitizen and 108L.) IntheMarseilles tariff of sacrifices fromCarthage weread, “ ; see ch. any scion (of a noble clan) andanyparticipant in a banquet for the God...” 6, n. 86 for the nature of this evidence. From Aristotle Pol. 1272b, 33f welearn of thecommon mess of theCarthaginian hetairiai. Aristotle likens thesyssitia to those of Spartans supported by private contribution andthose of Cretans supported by public expenditure (Pol. 1272a, 13f. and1272b, 24ff.). TheAristotlelian admiration , of which syssitia, phiditiai andhetairiai are a for the Carthaginian “constitution” part, has been much discussed. Speculation on the aristocratic element of the 168 resumes the problem in light of hetairiai goes unresolved. Ameling (1993) 164– whathewrites about anelite bandofCarthaginian warriors. If there wereCarthaginian “senators”reckoned in the syssitia, we might liken the new practice of Roman convivium publicum on 17 December 217 to them. On the other hand, explicit evidence of slaves’ participation at Rome in 217 and at Carthage at anytime is lacking. From Aristotle’s statements wecan hardly infer “senators”participating in either the Spartan or Cretan common messes. 63 Livy 22.1.19, quoted above at n. 46. 5. Such sacrifices were special 64 Diod. Sic. 20.14.4–6 (cf. Lact. DI 1.21); Oros. 4.6.3– andnot the annual offerings of boys to the god. 65 Macr. Sat. 1.10.1.

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second Punic war.66 Wasthevery dayof defeat of Numidians recorded with such unusual precision because theRomans were expected to abstain from war or because the abasement of Carthage occurred on the very day of celebrating a newkind of Saturnalia begun 15 years earlier? Here Roman worship of Saturn bested the Carthaginians.67 At theoutset of thewartheRomans already worshipped thegodSaturn. They knew him to be the god Kronos.68 They had fought Punic foemen for 242. They hadengaged in trade with Carthaginians. a generation from 264– On Sicily or Sardinia they could have actually encountered cult to Ba’al Hammon.69 Ba’al Hammon/Kronos/Saturnus enjoyed widespread notoriety through sacrifice of male children to him. Surely the Romans did not conduct research to ascertain what this god meant to Carthaginians. Apparently they sought reassurance from the Sibylline books and then proceeded to dine with their slaves.

VENUS OF MT. ERYX

In 249 oneof theconsuls captured thetownandmountain called Eryx. Five years later Hamilcar Barca seized thetownandsobeleaguered theRomans

who still held Mt. Eryx. At the end of the war, the father of Hannibal quit Eryx to return to Carthage.70 Heleft theRomans in possession of Mt. Eryx andits shrine of Venus Erycina said to be therichest andmost magnificent on Sicily at the time.71 The Romans were well acquainted with this Venus whom Carthaginians had worshipped for generations. Around this shrine andits goddess legend hadaccrued totheeffect thatAeneas, ancestor of the Romans, had built it to honor his divine mother.72 Venus Erycina thus became Roman avant la lettre, but she had not yet been worshipped in Rome itself when in 217 the Roman decemvirs sacrificed in the forum of Latian Ardea apparently to Venus.

66 Livy 30.36.7–37.6. 67 To the era of the second Punic warI would assign the offering of an ivory statue of Saturn at Rome. See Pliny NH 15.32 with its implicit antiquity andcompare NH 12.5. Carthaginians enjoyed repute for ivory craftmanship; Huss (1985) 482, 485; 76. Lancel (1995) 72– 68 Cf. Liv. Andr. Od.frs. 2, 14 Morel; Andronicus probably merely acknowledges an older syncretism.

69 70 71 72

45. Leglay (1966) 439; Xello (1991) 43– Polyb. 1.58, 66.1. Polyb. 1.55.8. 248 (his full treatment of both Roman Galinsky (1969); Schilling (1954) esp. 242– 266. temples of V.E.), 233–

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Notcontent with the conversion of Saturnian cult in 217, the Romans hadtheir decemviral priests again read the Sibylline books in 217/6 B.C. They announced to the senate that the manof the greatest imperium ought to vowat Rome a newtemple to Venus of Sicilian Mt. Eryx, give hertoo a supplication anda banquet on Rome’s very Capitol. Within twoyears she hadher shrine at the hands of a Roman dictator.73 The Romans hadknown Venus Erycina atleast since thedaysof their first contest with Carthaginians 241. The Carthaginians hadlong venerated this on Sicily in the period 264– goddess whose Sicilian shrine lay in the territory of their hegemony.74 Her they would have deemed Astarte or Tanit pene Ba’al. Venus Erycina brought inhertrain aspects of cult that were anything but Roman.75 This Venus very probably promulgated the opinion that Venus in poetry hated the race of swine.76 The Carthaginians did not normally sacrifice any pig.77 And in the two African schedules of victims Venus receives a female lamb or kid.78 Whoever thought it noteworthy to enter

suillum genus in a lexicon must have been aware that a Roman Venus, or more precisely a Venus that had not been worshipped on Sicily by Carthaginians, might be offered a swine victim.79 Atthetime of herintroduction, theRomans hadintended to placate just another important deity, onewhomthe Carthaginians, too, hadprized. The Sibylline books had counselled her introduction as they appear to have made possible the changes in the cult of Saturn. In the case of Venus, however, only by large stretches of the imagination can wedeem the new worship anact, conscious or unconscious, of Hellenization. Trojanization if youwill, butnotHellenization. Mt.Eryx never layin theimmediate sphere of Greek control or influence on Sicily. Whatever her beginnings, this Venus was embraced by Romans for her earlier and past patronage of Carthaginians. NoSibylline utterance wasneeded to tell Romans theworth of Erycine Venus if the enemy wasCarthaginian. Evidently later inthesameyear 217, theother Roman dictator dedicated to Hercules, another Hercules, ontheoutskirts of Rome in thanks to himfor a modest victory over Hannibal.80

73 Livy 22.9.10, 10.10; 23.30.13, 31.9. 249, 257. 74 Gsell (1924) 248– 75 See App. 3. , with absurd explanations. 76 Fest. 408 “suillum genus” 77 See ch. 3, nn. 46, 48. 78 ILS 4477, 4477a; no swine is listed for anyof the gods attested in these texts. 79 Perhaps because thecheapest, thepigseems to have been themost common victim; 416. Wissowa (1912) 411– 80 ILLRP 118; see above, n. 44. This mayreflect a vowmade earlier.

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GAMES FOR APOLLO

Our last example from the second Punic War concerns Apollo whom theretofore the Romans hadworshipped only as a godof healing, ultimately derived from Greece as his very name tells us.The story began in 216 even before Rome’s greatest defeat at Cannae. The Romans sent an embassy to Apollo at Delphi whoprophesied their victory, a victory hardly betokened by the outcome of the later engagement at Cannae.81 Four years later the songs”of a saying seer of no official standing brought forth in unclear “ circumstances some old sooths. If the Romans would but vow games to Apollo and perform ceremonies Graeco ritu, the enemy would be wiped out. These games, these observances, were to be carried out explicitly for victory andnotfor goodhealth. In 212, in 211, in 210, andin 209 theLudi Apollinares were given82 andin 208 made permanent games.83 In 205 the Romans sent another embassy to Delphi to thank Apollo.84 Victory over the Carthaginians came atlast to theRomans. Inthis year of rejoicing, that is in 202, the Tiber overflowed and the Ludi Apollinares could not be held at Apollo’s temple by the river andwere transferred to the temple of Venus Erycina. When of a sudden the weather cleared andthe waters withdrew, theprocession turned about andsought thetraditional site tothejoy of all.85 In 202 thegames apparently hadtobeheldinthesight of a deity dear to the Carthaginians: if notApollo’s, then Venus’s. It mattered little whether Apollo orVenus Erycina. TheApollo onwhomtheRomans came to depend in 212 will be that Es(h)mun who occupied the temple by the forum of Carthage, a temple finally destroyed in 146 B.C.86 One telling of the Roman institution of the Ludi Apollinares in 212 is prefaced bya noteworthy snippet drawn froma Sicilian story. “ AtPachynus, 6. 81 Livy 23.11.1– 82 Livy 25.12, 26.23.3, 27.11.6.

Already by the second year the games hada Greek performer (mimus) and the Parasiti Apollinis were installed. The mime was a Roman freedman. See Fest. 436/38 L.

5. 83 Livy 27.23.4– 8. The god also sent the embassy on another mission for an oriental 84 Livy 29.10.4– god, Magna Mater Deum.

85 Livy 30.38.10–12. Thecircus named therein is theC. Flaminus by which the temple of Apollo stood. Reference to the temple of Venus Erycina extra portam Collinam maybe proleptic (as Jordan-Huelsen [1878] vol. 1.3, 415 n.60), though I think not. If the route of the procession and the games were transferred to the Capitoline Venus Erycina, the implications were in fact the same. 328, for Apollo as 318, 327– 86 App. Lib. 127, Val. Max. 1.1.18, see Gsell (1924) 316– Es(h)mun whothen andlater wasnormally equated with Apollo’s sonAesculapius Apollo”with Reshef; see Huss (1985) 517, 523; (ILLRP 41). Some identify this “ Lancel (1995) 212.

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the cape of SE Sicily, Apollo Libystinus enjoys extraordinary worship. For when the Libyans shored their fleet at that promontory with the intent of raiding, the inhabitants called ontheApollo worshipped there anda plague was sent upon the enemy, nearly all of whom were carried away with instantaneous death. So the godwasnamed Libystinus. The greatness of a similar intervention by the same god is told also in our histories.”So, Macrobius introduces discussion of the games for Apollo instituted at Rome in 212 B.C.87 Wearein a position to speculate ontheimpulses to introduce thegames forApollo, atfirst occasional andthenpermanent, games that were given to bring victory rather than the traditional good health theretofore associated with Apollo’s cult. When P. Cornelius Sulla took upthe business as urban praetor in 212 and examined the forced collection of written oracles and kindred books, his mandate rested upon that of his predecessor of 213, Aemilius Lepidus.88 Aemilius hadissued an edict that called for surrender of soothsaying books, prayers andhandbooks of sacrifice. Such materials hadbeentheinstrument of strange andforeign rites thatwerebeing performed both behind closed doors andeven outrageously on the Capitol andin the Forum. What is more, women in throngs didthe praying andsacrificing.89 The imagination of the great unwashed had been seized by petty priests (sacrificuli) andseers (vates) whoprofitted from peddling foreign mistaken notions (error alienus). Riot ensued when state authority tried to dislodge themobandthrow downthesacrificial utensils intheforum itself. Aemilius interdicted all from sacrificing on public or holy ground according to strange or foreign practice (novo aut externo ritu).90 In thenext year thepraetor Sulla, basing himself partly ontheSibylline books in the control of the Decemviri who interpreted them and on the

30, whocan no more tell of a plague on Hannibal’s forces than 87 Macr. Sat. 1.17.24– Livy. See below, App. 3 n. 48. Macrobius is alone in recording some details of the new institution. Like those at the new Saturnalia, the sacrifices were performed Graeco ritu. Macrobius mostly follows Livy 25.12. Also see below, App.1.

88 Both men, it seems, were decemviri; see App. 1. Livy hasreports of theprodigia in 9) that in this situation 212 (23.31.15, 24.10.6–13, 24.44.7–10, 25.7.7– the years 215– are uninteresting save perhaps for the alarm in 214 when armies were seen on the Janiculum (24.10.6–13) 89 To myknowledge, at this time only thepriests of Vesta, Bona Dea, andCeres were

female and officially authorized (or acknowledged) vehicles of Roman public religion. 90 Livy 25.1.6–12. See App. 3 (Graecus ritus, of course, was externus). Cicero (2 Ceres”speaks of religio both externa and 115) in reference to Sicilian “ Verr. 4.114– aliena that the Romans had adopted from foreign peoples (ab exteris nationibus) and while allowing that some rites were indeed Greek, their ancestors wished the . Greek” foreign sacra to be called “

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carmina of a defunct seer of renown named Marcius, introduced and oversaw the first performance of the Ludi Apollinares whilst the same Decemviri sacrificed Graeco ritu.91 The reader might well ask howdoes Graecus ritus differ from novus aut externus ritus? On the face of the plain language, not at all, unless we assume that women performing sacrifices ). Aside from the andraising voice inprayer be “strange”(but not“foreign” obvious condition that the “ Greek rite”lay within the purview of certain public priests, the vague details of the religious zealotry worked by false prophets andrealized in the unwonted occupation of Forum andCapitol92 by, of all things, superstitious, stubborn andriot-prone women were nova. Official Roman response was couched in terms of Greek cult that had oracular (Delphic) authority, thewritten tradition (Sibyl of Cumae), andthe respect of a long dead private seer (Marcius) of Apollo underlying it. But surely whatspontaneous expression of religious fervor wasrepressed cannot be traced directly to the Greek Apollo. The Romans or, more correctly, the Roman women athomeperhaps wentwhoring after those strange gods who favored theenemy of their menabroad. Acquaintance withPunic godsneed not have come indirectly from their men at war. It would have been a consequence of the legacy of the prior war that witnessed an influx of Carthaginians and Africans into the civil society. Nearly 30 years had passed since that other war.Yetnotbyanymeans will theresidue ofAfrican culture have been washed away. Further, as we shall see, Africans and Carthaginians hadprobably lived at Rome from time to time. WhattheRoman women (andmen?) sought after instigation byunofficial priestlings”was greater attention to foreign gods through foreign cults. “ What the Roman senate, magistrates and priests alike, sought after the female rabble was roused, was control of this latest religious impulse. It wasgained by recourse to the Sibyl andher god. Cost of control waspaid byoccasional games that werepeopled withforeign performers of a foreign mode. The foreignness was Greek, not Punic. Yet it seems quite unlikely that the women would have been appeased if the god appeased hadbeen considered Greek, in spite of his name. The games for Apollo became permanent only four years after they were first given. Their institutional permanence doubtless arose from their undoubted success ingaining Romans victory after victory, which wastheir sole purpose. Somewhere in the tradition of the beginnings lurked the figure of Apollo Libystinus, named ‘African’and believed the enemy of

30 (the account began with the tale of A. Libystinus, 91 Livy 25.12, Macr. Sat. 1.2.23– above at n. 87); onMarcius seeWissowa (1912) 536, n.6 andPease (1920/1923) on Cic. Div. 1.89.

92 Where, by the way, the newish temple of Venus Erycina stood; see above, at n. 73.

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Africans.93 He has been made to seem pure, unadulterated Greek, but Roman women knew better.94 At the outset of war Hannibal had committed his enterprise to the divinity of Hercules. The Romans responded in kind. First to Hercules or Melkart, next to Saturn or Ba’al Hammon and likewise to Venus of Mt. Eryx, and lastly to Apollo or Eshmun who would bestow victory on the Romans. None of these offerings, conversions and dedications began spontaneously. All were undertaken in response to a god’s manifest ill-will toward theRomans. YetthenewSaturnalia persisted for centuries, virtually to our day. The games for Apollo were annually given long after Hannibal hadbecome thebyword for bogeyman. Venus of Mt.Eryx received another Roman temple in the next generation. New cult was advocated by the Decemviri Sacris Faciundis on their own interpretation of the Sibylline Greek” , butthedeity wasa strange god books. Theceremony adopted was“ in comfortably familiar guise. The College of TenMenmust have hadboth knowledge of ambiguous Greek butalso of thereligion of theenemy. Until 211 oneof theTenwasa patrician nicknamed Numida.95 The authority of the written Sibyl was not byanymeans limited to adoption of peculiarly Greek notions. Whenlater in the war in the Sibylline books the Ten Men found a new oracle that prompted an embassy to Delphi, both the new Sibylline oracle and the Delphic response sent the Romans to Galatian Asia Minor to fetch yet another deity, theMater Idaea. TheRomans brought the goddess as a stone along with the ritual of her imported eunuchs.96 The Romans will have been prepared to swallow whole the divinity as stone if they hadalready known of stone worship even before the second Punic war. Such litholatry will have early come to Roman attention from the Carthaginians whoresorted to “thunderstone”to capture enemy towns and fleet.97

93 For the temple and legend of Apollo Libystinus near Cape Pachynus on the SE Sui ‘Maussolia’ del Pachino” , Ann... Università... corner of Sicily, see G. Uggeri, “

16, esp. 8– 9; the maussolia in Lecce, Fac. Lett. Filos. 4 (1967–68; 1968–69) 1– question were Libystina. ’ ’ 94 It is not clear from Macrobius howhis source told of the connection between A. Libystinus of SE Sicily onthe onehandandonthe other Roman Apollo for whom a newmodeof worship wasfound inthesoothsaying of Marcius. Onthefanaticism of the Roman women in 213/2 also see below, App. 3.

95 See Appendix 1. 4, cf. 38.18.9 et alibi. See E.S. Gruen, “ The 96 Livy 29.10.4–6, 29.14.5, 35.10.9, 36.3– Advent of the Magna Mater,”Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy (Leiden 33. 1990) 5– 113. The Romans were not always able to be so precise 97 See below, ch. 6 at nn. 103– in identifying anenemy’s godto whomthegeneral made his vowinthe heat of war or to install the god at Rome. In 75 P. Servilius Vatia, later Isauricus, took the

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Though not so strange as the last arrival in the shape of a stone, Mater Deum Magna Idaea, all the gods discussed in this chapter enjoyed newor more intense worship in Rome thanks to theRoman perception of gods who hadaided or were aiding theenemy. Storms andVenus Erycina seem notto have been worshipped publicly atRome before their advent. Thesame may be true of Hope. Janus, Hercules, Saturn and Apollo had already been worshipped by Romans, even though twoof them were patently of Greek origins. Saturn andApollo hadcult that underwent changes, state banquets for theformer andmime-dance for thelatter. Theexpenses of thestate were increased at the very time state revenues were depleted for the war. The Roman government virtually recognized the supremacy of gods whom Carthaginians worshipped andRomans hadknown as their own. Unlike the godMercurius Sobrius whom we shall discuss in the sixth chapter, these gods had state cults conducted by state priests at state temples andonstate ground. Internal forces were also atworkinpromoting newmodes of worship. Knowledge of strange gods andof strange rites for gods already present at Rome wasderived from twofonts. The Decemviri Sacris Faciundis could read thebooks attributed to the Cumaean Sibyl and discover the cure for urgent divine ills or the City praetor could respond at and, asrepresented, female – refuge in alien the senate’s behest topopular – religion. Inbothinstances prior awareness of thestrange religious phenomena will have mitigated the adoption or admission of a strange custom. Since women, at least, did not meet the enemy on the battlefield or know their rites on Sicily or Sardinia or travel as merchants to Africa, some Romans will have come to know Punic practices andbeliefs at home. At this point the slaves of African descent owned by Romans enter the stage. Also there enters play the continuing presence of Africans resident at Rome. Such a presence, indirectly attested by evidence discussed in the twochapters that follow will have been so usual that a Carthaginian spycould operate freely in Rome, gain access to slaves of Carthaginian extraction, and foment opposition

to Roman warefforts in the state

shipyards

in 216. Weassume

that forthemostpartdirect African influences inRome (andits countryside, if affected) werebenign orneutral. Whereas a modern thinker maycorrectly expect hostility from the direction of slaves enslaved in war, he need not expect it from that quarter or from slaves the Carthaginians themselves had traded orfrommenofAfrican extraction whohadlived inRome for several generations. Asiatic townOldIsaura anddedicated asfollows (AE 1977, no. 816): Serveilius C.f. imperator/ hostibus victeis, Isaura Vetere/ capta, captiveis venum dateis,/ sei deus seive deast,/ quoius in tutela oppidum vetus Isaura/ fuit/ [ei vovit], votum solvit. The anonymous si deus, si deahadcult at Rome, Tibur andSpoletium (ILLRP 291– 293). AtRome, ontheright bank, Servilius Isauricus setupsome piece of his spoils (ILLRP 371).

V. VICUS AFRICUS AT ROME Latin vicus means village or city street. Its derivatives vicinus andvicinia suggest that the nearest English word for an urban vicus is neighborhood. No official authority gave the vici their names. The names were applied spontaneously after the trade done there, after a godlodged there, after a manwhose relation to the place is known or remains unknown, after the ethnos of its sole or principal inhabitants. Some neighborhoods boasted a deity peculiar to themselves. The Vicus Sandaliarius, named for sandalmakers, had its ownApollo Sandaliarius. The Vicus Tuscus, named for Etruscan residents, had its Vortumnus. The Vicus Fortunae Mammosae, named for its peculiar goddess or a landmark named for her, supplies the knowledge of an extraordinary divine epithet but gives no clue about the history of goddess or neighborhood.1 Ofttimes weknowlittle morethana nameof a neighborhood. Sometimes the name was anciently discussed as an urban toponym. Such is the case with twovici weshall examine here, Vicus Africus and, in thenext chapter, Vicus Sobrius. In the fifth book of his Latin Language, starting from the meaning of vicus, Varro discusses andexplains someurban toponyms. Thelast paragraph has his explanation of Vicus Africus: Esquiliis Vicus Africus quod ibi obsides exAfrica bello Punico dicuntur custoditi.2 Varro does notnecessarily subscribe at least to the notion of the African hostages said to have been kept under guard there. Dicuntur suggests that the explanation is not his. In this section Varro cites several authorities butnone in theparagraph inquestion. Besides comic playwrights,3 Piso (cos. 133), Procilius, Cornelius Stilo, Lutatius are named.4

1

2

3

4

For these andother vici see Richardson (1992), under Vicus... LL 5.145–159. Plautus at 5.146; Plautus, Naevius or another at 153. Piso 148, cf. 165; Procilius 148, 154; Cornelius Stilo 148 and Cornelius 150, with Lutatius. Procilius is thought to have been something of anantiquarian whoperhaps wrote anurban itinerary; seeSchanz-Hosius, (1927) 324. Piso andLutatius (probably the consul of 102) were both historical writers. Cornelius Stilo whose cognomen is suppressed or emended at LL 5.148 is virtually a cipher. Possibly one of the historians discussed the hostages without reference to V. Africus to which Varro himself related them.

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If Varro uses Esquiliis carefully, he means the second region of the city comprising the Oppian and Cispian mounts.5 If not, he means the zone outside thecity walls east of these twohills. Varro’s suggestion of theorigin of the name of this Roman neighborhood or, if you will, street remains dubious as his dicuntur implies. Its name derives from the belief that hostages from Africa were held under guard there. Varro gives no warrant of truth. Moreover, he cannot cite in which Punic war the hostages were taken. Varro seems tohave nowritten source, let alone historical source, to testify on the source of the name. Hearsay is all that avails him.6 Let us look at the record. First of all, anyhostages, andprisoners for that matter, ought to have been detained at Rome apart from each other in accord with common prudence. Secondly, like the Greek Libyes, Latin Afri as root of Africus normally referred to the native andnon-Carthaginian or non-Punic populations of Carthage’s north African empire. In other words, Afri identified Numidae, Mauri and even the mongrel populace of Libyophoenicians.7 Such men seem ill suited to serve as Carthaginian hostages acceptable to Romans in any of the three Punic Wars. Thirdly, by 5

6

7

50. In the section onurban For the limits of Esquiliae in Varro’s mind see LL 5.49– 159), he offers some explanations that are mutually exclusive toponyms (LL 5.146– 159 he deals with and other explanations that to us are patently absurd. At 158– toponyms of clivi andvici. The names of the twomontes comprising the Esquiliae were thought to be called after twocaptains of garrisons, Oppius commanding men of Tusculum andCispius, menof Anagnia (Fest. 474/76L. ‘Septimontio’). Dicuntur also in LL 5.158: simili de causa Pullius et Cosconius (sc. clivi), quod ab his viocuris dicuntur aedificati. Vague usage of the idea “they say”are appellarunt (5.145), vocant andmulti (5.146), constat (5.148). Livy’s distinctions between the races of North Africa are clear enough: Afri and Poeni or Carthaginienses are not the same (23.29; 28.14.4 and 19; 30.33.5, 34.5, 35.9 explicitly; 21.22.2, 29.3.13, 29.42 implicitly [although at 30.10.9 Afri might include Carthaginians]). Numidae (and Mauri) were reckoned Afri (23.29.4); and Muttines, though said to be of Libyophoenicum genus (25.40.5), was both Numida (26.40.3; 38.41.12) andAfer (25.40.12). Livy calls the Libyophoenicians a mixtum Punicum Afris genus (21.22.3). See also ILS 2721, 2911, 6813, 7648. For the careful Roman Afri were notPoeni. Theadjective Africus, however, musthave been applied to anyone or anything from the province Africa or the land mass also so named. ThetwoScipios were hailed Africani, notPunicani, though they andothers surely acknowledged them as conquerors of Carthage andother Punic towns. In a The Use of Poenus sense, Africa meant Carthage andherdominion. G.F. Franko, “ 158, admonishes , CP89 (1994) 153– andCarthaginiensis inEarly Latin Literature” us on the practice of using interchangeably the two words, one an ethnic andthe other a political designation. Duly admonished, westill doubt that when a Roman thought Poenus, he did not also think Carthaginiensis. Moreover, bella Punica surely denoted wars principally with Carthage even though other Poeni andAfri as well as mercenaries fromafar were arrayed against theRomans, theLatins andtheir socii.

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analogy with legend on the origins of the Vicus Tuscus, Vicus Africus should have been called after its permanent residents and not after such transients as hostages fromAfrica whoought to have given the name Vicus Punicus if they hadbeen Carthaginians. Let us examine the question of hostages. All historical sources are unanimous that nohostages were given byCarthage in 241 attheendof the first war.8 In contrast, at the end of the second war in 202 B.C., Romans chose 100 young males to be held hostage for Carthage.9 Four years later, thecity praetor hadto putdowna conspiracy of Carthaginian hostages and slaves. Those hostages were being detained under guard atLatian Setia, not in Rome, andhadraised slaves at Norba andCirceii, not in Rome.10 After the suppression of this prior uprising, another occurred so close to home at Praeneste that the city watch was mounted at Rome itself. The outcome of the scare wasdistribution of the Carthaginian hostages, lodged we-knownot-where, into the custody of private persons of Latian towns and the imposition of shackles onprisoners of warto be consigned to prison.11 But these cannot be thefull toll of hostages. In theprevious year, 199, whenthe Carthaginians made their first payment of warindemnities, they succeeded in prevailing upon their conquerors to transfer hostages from Norba to Signia and Ferentinum.12 There is no explicit evidence that Romans concentrated hostages or slaves of Carthaginian extraction anywhere butat Norba, Setia, Praeneste, Signia andFerentinum. Further, there is no hint of Afri whowere treated as hostages, prisoners, or slaves in the appropriate context. In the last Punic War, ending in the destruction of Carthage, nohostage will have been taken because nostate survived theconquest tomakepledge by way of hostage.13 But in this instance the situation proves to be less clear. Before hostilities began, theRomans haddemanded andreceived 300 young Carthaginians hostages, whoin the event reached Italy where they were dispersed andwhosurvived the last Punic Warandthe destruction of Carthage itself.14

8 9

63, 3.27; App. Sic. 22; Zon. 8.17. But see Scardigli (1991) 225. Polyb. 1.62– Polyb. 15.18, Livy 30.37, App. Lib. 54 (150 hostages), Zon. 9.14 (no number). Walbank onPolyb. 15.18.8 notes that hostages (with exchanges) lived in Italy until the indemnity was paid; cf. Livy 40.34.14, 45.14.5 (168 B.C.). They are never 326. 321, 325– deemed otherwise than Carthaginienses. See Scardigli (1991) 320– 10 Livy 32.26.4–14 (obsides Carthaginiensium), with A.H. McDonald’s supplements in his edition, Oxford 1965. 11 Livy 32.26.15–18 (obsides captivosque Poenorum).

4. 12 Livy 32.2.1– 13 App. Lib. 135. 77, Dio 21 (Zon. 9.26, 30); cf. Oros. 4.23.7. 5, App. Lib. 76– 14 Polyb. 36.4–

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If we discount hostages as such, we can allow for some Carthaginian prisoners of warransomed immediately after treaty making because of their high birth. These cives Carthaginienses cannot be singled outfor naming a Vicus Africus.15 NorcanCarthaginians sent at some undated time to Rome as envoys with thepurpose of spying ontheRomans andof learning Roman plans, men who remained long undetected at Rome.16 This long-term embassy of spies mayhave been established at Rome openly as anenclave between 201 and 150 when the Carthaginians hadrecourse to the senate. Lastly, some prominent Carthaginians didindeed come over to theRomans in the last war;17 some perhaps settled in Rome. So much for Varro’s tentative explanation of the name Vicus Africus. Africus ought to mean occupation byAfri, not Poeni.18 But Afri would have made poor pawns for Carthaginian good behavior. Wemust quit hostage hunting and seek other residents. A neighborhood named after Afri, i.e., Libyans or Libyophoenicians or Numidians, would have normally lodged free Africans under no condition of restraint or detention. If Afri included Carthaginians as men from Africa, then we might assume that this nonItalian enclave arose neither fromhostage-taking norcaptivity norservitude. (This last being an utterly impossible perception of howthe Romans got and kept slaves.) Rather we should look to the migration or temporary residence of Afri for the sake of commerce with Romans, even though a location in the Esquiline region would have been hardly advantageous. In suchanenclave wewould expect tofindsometrace ofcontinuous occupation, for instance African cult, that wedonotfindaswedointheother case tobe treated in the next chapter. Theoretically, a Carthaginian might have resided at Rome since the time of Polybius’second treaty between Rome andCarthage, to be dated to 348 B.C. Its last clause ran: “ In the Carthaginian province of Sicily andat Carthage (the Roman) maydoor sell anything that is permitted to a citizen. A Carthaginian in Rome maydolikewise.”19This treaty, if struck in 348/7, was reaffirmed in 306 and in 279/8. On the Carthaginian side its terms covered Carthaginians, Tyrians (of the mother city), Uticenses and the allies of all these.20 Among allies would have been counted certain Afri. Once we acknowledge the possible effects of the old treaty, the age and 8. They hadbeen kept in publica custodia. 15 Livy 30.43.5– 16 Front. Strat. 1.2.4. The story smacks of the Roman notion of Punica fides, but see above, ch. 2 at nn. 70ff. 17 App. Lyb. 16.108–109. 18 See above, n.7. 116. 19 Polyb. 3.24.12–13. See Scardigli (1991) 115– 20 Polyb. 3.24.3.

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composition of Vicus Africus maystretch beyond anyknowledge that Varro hador could have gained. The Roman theater-going audience ca. 190 notonly sawa Carthaginian represented on the stage but also listened to him utter Punic upon which another character punned in interpretation.21 To be sure, by that time some Romans hadengaged in twoPunic Wars. In the second century on Sardinia, andnot in Rome, Latin, Greek and Punic are used in the same dedication to Es(h)mun-Asklepios-Aesculapius by a slave owned by a company of salt-traders or farmers of the tax on salt.22 Admittedly, Sardinia hadlain under Phoenician andlater Carthaginian influence for centuries. Yet the dedication exemplifies anavenue travelled by traders and merchants who kept their native tongue as well as their native gods. Although not secure in his explanation, Varro could not suggest another because, I would argue, he could not imagine any Afri who were not Carthaginians or any Carthaginian who were residents of Rome free of restraint. In oneparticular Varro probably wasimplicitly correct. Among theAfri of Vicus Africus will have been numbered Poeni aswell asAfri. Whereas in Vicus Sobrius the Carthaginians left their mark by way of Mercurius Sobrius, nothing of African cult can be detected in the Roman Esquiliae.23 On the other hand, residence of Numidians in Rome cannot be denied, especially during thelong reign of Masinissa. Whenthis king’s ambassadors arrived at Rome in 203, the senate approved Scipio’s recognition of his kingship andreleased to them the Numidian captives held at Rome. The envoys received gifts; their companions received gifts; even the released prisoners received gifts. What’s more, the Romans accorded the envoys free housing, seats at thegames, entertainments.24 In only onecase wehave

21 See above, ch. 3 at n. 1ff. rrē s (the 22 ILLRP 41, a dedication to Aesculapius/Asklepios/Esmun, called Mē Sardinian name?) in all three tongues, is dated by suffetes. See above, ch. 3 n. 49. 23 Unless we were to count the perversely named Mala Fortuna (Cic. Leg. 2.28, ND 3.63; Pliny NH2.16). See Malevolus Mercurius in App. 7. 24 Livy 30.17. At 17.14 aedes liberae loca lautia legatis. See below, n. 25. These were offered according to polite protocol (Livy 28.36.19 to Saguntini; 33.24.5 to Philip’s envoys; 35.23.11, to Attalus of Pergamum; 42.6.11 to Antiochus’envoy; cf. 42.26.5, 45.20.6). They were consequences of close alliance: senatus informulam sociorum eumreferri iussit, locum lautia praeberi, agri Tarentini quipublicus populi Romani esset ducenta iugera dari, et aedes Tarenti emi (Livy 44.16.7). This protocol is also recorded in a senate decree of 78 B.C.: munusque eis exformula locum lautiaque q(uaestorem) urb(anum) eis locare mitter[eque i]uberent (ILLRP 513; R.K. Sherk, Roman Documents of the Greek East. Senatus Consulta and Epistulae to the Age of 26 of the Greek). Augustus (Baltimore 1969), SC 22, line 13 (cf. lines 25–

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reason to believe a house was purchased, and then not at Rome but at Tarentum.25 Over theyears Masinissa’s representatives passed to andfro.26 Perhaps, Numidians lodged at Rome in such circumstances. Yetonemore incident maybe cited inpursuit of theorigin of thename Vicus Africus. In 211B.C. whenHannibal wasat thegates of Rome, onthe Aventine theRomans hadstationed some 1200 mounted Numidian deserters. At the consul’s command they made cavalcade down the Aventine and crossed to the Esquiliae nullos aptiores inter convalles tectaque hortorum et sepulcra et cavas undique vias adpugnandum futuros rati (sc. consules).27 The name Vicus Africus was perhaps given by popular sentiment to the course of these Numidian horse whowere to drive the Carthaginians from thewalls whenlaunched from theEsquiliae. Thepanic hasatleast survived in onehistory andmayhave sufficed to give a nickname.28 The name of at least one place on the outskirts of Rome wasthought to have been called after Hannibal’s sudden withdrawal in 211 B.C.29 Since there can be no valid objection to the natural understanding of Vicus Africus as a street orquarter where onceAfri dwelled, wewhoharbor no prejudice toward their sojourning there mayaccept that understanding andturn to a Roman street where Africans surely lived atonetime. Butfirst weglance at a place name once found onthe seacoast of Etruria. Since to all appearances thetoponym Punicum resembles Vicus Africus andits situation hassuggested a Carthaginian foundation ontheTyrrhenian coast, a few words on Punicum seem appropriate here. Punicum is known only from the late antique itinerary called the Tabula Peutingeriana. It lay in the territory nowassumed to have been heldbythe inland city of Caere. Its coastal site (now S. Marinella) north of Pyrgi (now S. Severa) has suggested that like the latter it served as a Caeritane port.

25 Livy 44.16.7, quoted in the prior note. The honors were done to a Macedonian prince”whohaddeserted to the Romans. “ 26 E. Badian (1958) 105 n.4 and295 Note M, tells us that we mayprobably ignore Masinissa’s early relation to Rome as acknowledged king; he treats of Romano137. For wheat from Carthage and Numidian relations from 203 to 148 onpp. 125– 17. Numidia in this period see Haywood in T. Frank, ESAR 4, pp. 16– 27 Livy 26.10.5–10. As they rode down the Clivus Publicius, the Romans became so scared that they believed theCity taken. 28 In Philadelphia Washington Lane is said (my dicitur) to be called after Gen. Washington whose soldiers followed theoldAbington Rd.(nowWashington Lane) torelief atthebattle of Germantown in 1777; seeR.I. Alotta, Mermaids, Monasteries, Cherokees and Custer: The stories behind Philadelphia street names (Chicago,

1990) 233. Se non è vero ecc. . Cf. Pliny NH 10.122 (campus 355L. “Rediculi fanum” 29 Fest. (and Paul.) pp. 354– Rediculi); for another version, Varro Men. fr. 213 Buecheler.

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Although only once attested Punicum was thought a possible Carthaginian settlement or station even before the discoveries at Pyrgi in 1964.30 When the gold tablets inscribed in Etruscan and Phoenician (or Punic) came to light at Pyrgi, the then port of Caere, mentioned in the texts,31 conjecture grew to near certainty that thename Punicum ought to be directly related to some kind of Carthaginian occupation ontheTyrrhenian coast.32 The nature of the relations of Carthaginians to this purportedly Caeritane port, loosely dated ca. 500 B.C., remains in doubt33 in spite of claims made. Moreover, the distance in time between the conjectured date of the Pyrgi tablets andany conjectural date of the prototype of the late antique itinerary whereon Punicum is attested amounts to hundreds of years. Consideration of the disparity of the evidence andof thefact that Punicum was not Pyrgi (originally a Greek name) or Caere, where “Carthaginians” sojourned as Greeks seemed to have sojourned, does not exclude the possibility of Punic seafarers or resident traders having named Punicum as Greeks apparently named Pyrgoi. Wecannot give a date to thename of Roman Vicus Africus orto that of Vicus Sobrius, the subject of the next chapter; wecannot claim so early a date as is claimed for Punicum. The toponyms of a coastal station on the one hand andof two Roman neighborhoods on the other can be made to testify that certain foreigners were once upon a time associated with the sites. They cannot testify to beginnings anddurations of the associations. They allow us to weigh possibilities within the limits of the evidence, scant as it is.34

30 See, for example, M. Sordi, I rapporti romano-ceriti e l’origine della civitas sine suffragio (Rome 1960) 115.

19. 31 See above, ch. 4 nn. 18– 86: ); Lancel (1995) 84– uno scalo” 23, 72 (“ 32 See, for example, Scardigli (1991) 22– ... the name Punicum, Caere’s second port, gives assurance of the reality of the “ . commercial (and perhaps also demographic) presence of Carthaginians” 33 Huss (1985) 66. 34 Scholarly belief in Carthaginian enclaves insinuated into foreign communities 488. persists. See, e.g., Huss (1985) 485–

VI. VICUS SOBRIUS AT ROME Varro adduced a lame explanation of the name Vicus Africus because neither he nor his readers knew the origins of the name. Under the entry Sobrius Vicus wemeet this definition offered in Festus’version of Verrius

Flaccus’lexicon:

Sobrium Vicum et Aelius, quod i locus neque caup ali, quod in eo M vino, solitum